Abraham Harrison‘s favorite Intern, Miss Liza Peiffer, wrote a post over at Marketing Conversation because I asked her to. Mr. Bob Garfield has asked me to blog over at his new book’s new blog, the Chaos Scenario blog, and I seem to be a blank.
So, I was on a call yesterday with Ken Pearce of HMH and after I shared a little bit about what we do at Abraham Harrison, he said, without knowing that I have been tapped by Bob, “this reminds me of Bob Garfield’s new book, Chaos Scenario.” What?
Well, I asked Liza to please dig through the entire site to collect all the poop she can on the project to help give me the confidence to man up and contribute! I mean, how intimidating, right? Bob Garfield of On the Media (awesome), AdAge’s The Boboshere, and Comcast Must Die! A living legend.
Well, Liza did a phenomenal job, if I do say so myself, We’re living in The Chaos Scenario’s “Brave New World”:
So I wrote a short blog about the decline of newspapers a few days ago, and blogger Liz commented and referenced Bob Garfield’s “The Chaos Scenario” (thanks, Liz). More specifically, she mentioned the chapter “The Death of Everything,” which surprisingly makes reading about the demise of everything we’ve known for the past 100 years quite pleasurable.
“The digital revolution is already having far-ranging effects on every aspect of our lives, from socialization to communication to information to entertainment to democracy, and these Brave New World effects will only be magnified as the Cowardly Old World collapses before our eyes. Not that this will happen. This is happening. Right now.”
This quote from the Garfield’s introduction is one of the best ‘in a nut shell’ explanations of what we’re dealing with.
It is not a matter of how quickly technology advances, but rather how quickly new generations can overturn the old ones.
Think of this “Brave New World” as the new frontier in the Old West. Not everyone has arrived, but eventually it will be fully populated. Everyone will be comfortable in their online communities functioning together like the Internet has existed since the dawn of time. Very soon no one will see the frontier as scary or an uncharted territory. I’m mainly referring to Baby Boomers and older who are the most likely to resist the digital revolution, although many are active participants.
The new generations are completely digitally trained, almost born with a cell phone in hand. I know my cousin was texting in the 4th grade. I didn’t get a cell phone until 7th grade, and even at that age it was such a privilege (and really ugly, too). Garfield says that “just as young people no longer listen to the radio, they simply don’t buy newspapers.” Not only newspapers, but the young will dictate what happens to other industries like music and television as they grow up and replace those who still cherish records and their un-flat screen TVs.
More important in The Chaos Scenario is the realization that advertising once ruled. It’s now having trouble keeping itself and its media children alive. With television fragmentation and the decline of radio popularity, people see advertisements as pests more than ever. No longer does your music have to be rudely interrupted by Dr. Swartz’s miracle pill, just hit shuffle on your iPod and relax. You never have to suffer through watching another toothpaste commercial while waiting for your show to return just “use TiVo to skip past the ads.” Many refrain from advertising in these places if no audience is even being reached.
“The unspoken compact between media and consumers — having to endure commercial messages as the quid pro quo for free or cheap content — has never applied to Generation Y and will be difficult to impose ex post facto. Never mind that the generation’s intellectual-property ethos — ‘All Content Wants to be Free’ — is stupid and criminal on the face of it. They truly believe that malarkey, and aren’t apt to change their minds.” So I say good luck ads, there’s a rough road ahead and it doesn’t appear those Ys will show you any mercy.
Go read the intro on The Chaos Scenario site, because that’s all you need to want a copy of your own (right hand column, CHAOS ON US).
I didn’t do the book justice nor did I scratch the surface of its enlightening perspective into the crazy media world we’re living in. Remember, “This is happening. Right now.”
