Comments on The Next Digital Era

I'll be in New York mid-week to moderate a PR Week conference panel and asked for your thoughts on the content.  Thanks to everyone who contributed!  Here are highlights from your responses.

1. What's next for the communications industry?

• A mobile, sematic web and the personalisation of data. - Ubergill
• Social media fatigue, large-scale burnout as a result of always-on and partial attention deficit leading to relationship breakdowns across the board. - Annalie Killian
• Organizations that do not adapt will be seen as disingenuous through no fault of their own. We're really moving to a critical time where customers have outgrown those serving them. - Cory Hendrickson
• I think the next big thing is the realization of the power that the little guys now have, that does not require waiting around for traditional media. - Angela Connor
• Un-mergers along functional lines that change business models for different parts of the very broad communications industry. - David M
• 2009 will be about tools to cut through all of the noise and teaching best practices so that our messages resonate. We will see more filters and more strategy behind brand participation. - Aaron Uhrmacher
• The biggest (and most painful) next thing for the industry is a complete shift in the skill sets, experience and approach of successful communications practitioners. - Jay Gaines
• The communications industry needs to ensure complete marketing integration with all aspects of media, including traditional and online venues. - Julie Arnold
• Measurement. Measurement. Measurement. - Jeremy Frank 

2. What's the biggest development in the social media space that affects all organizations? 

• How much search matters, and the fact that everyone is now a publisher and has influence. MSM would never want to lead on that they've lost control...they have. - Adam Singer
• At some point we will see a huge enterprise level level of adoption. - Marc Meyer
• With the rise of so many individual publishers, it is increasingly difficult for enterprises to "push" their brands onto a market. - James Cioban
• In short, the explosion of self-publishing tools, services and technologies. - David Politis
• The shift from 'marketing to' to 'marketing with' the consumer, the rise of infinite influencers. - Gunjan Rawal
• Wiki will lead the economy to create from shared communication with the user, up innovation in business models, opening our processes and creativity to work together hundreds of creative minds. - Rodrigo
• “Marketers as media” will be the norm rather than the exception in communications efforts moving forward. - Nick Mendoza

3. What's the most underreported trend in the business world that you think deserves more attention? 

• The older guard/senior management at large corporation (Fortune 500) are often technology-averse. Look at the picture of the Detroit leaders in the White House last week and tell me how many even can define social computing. - Steve Poppe
• The death of conventional communications. The newsfeed will do to messaging what the video did to the radio star. - JoeC
• The tension between wanting to promote a company's culture in which employees are active participants in social media and the issues associated with it when an employee participates an is "off-message." - Zach Braiker
• At many companies, the personal brands of team members are surpassing the value of corporate brands more and more quickly. The result is a transient workforce. I can only imagine the implications. - Scott Hepburn
• As more companies start to "get" social media, they are insisting on building their own communities.  I personally believe they should use what's available, where people are already gathering, to hear what folks are saying and join the discussion. - Jeannie Walters
• A decline in overhead costs as a huge development for the communications industry. Social media continue to obliterate the traditional economics of media production, distribution, collaboration and R&D. Organizational functions that were once money- and time-suckers become increasingly inductive. - Josh Shabtai  

Great insights.  Over the past six months, the level of conversation here has increased dramatically.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts and letting me share thoughts with you.

UPDATE:  You can view cached real-time reactions to the whole conference on Twitter

Comments

[Irene]

Yes, there are loads of social networks. But I really miss a network which also can change the world for the better. I saw a new concept: www.playitforward.nl. I think such a network can work.

Greetings,
Irene

[David Spira]

Great insights. Jeannie Walters comments about companies joining the conversation instead of attempting to create them is particularly important. There are only so many social networks and online identities that users are willing or able to maintain.
Plus, it costs a lot less to join the conversation.

[Patrick John O'Mahony]

Peter,

You are correct! (I should have known)

Pat

[Peter Kim]

Hi Pat - thanks for the heads up. I think the formatting here might be throwing you off a bit - at the top of a comment, there's a double space, then the comment, then a light grey line, then the author and date. So I think Rodrigo and Annalie are OK. It'd be easier to tell if I could put the comment and author between the same lines, but I don't have that level of control over Typepad... :)

[Patrick John O'Mahony]

-
-
Peter,

I think you have a mis-print.

You credited Annalie Killian with "Social Media Fatigue",
when Rodrigo should have been cited.

Your hard working fan

Pat

Patrick J. O'Mahony
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Richardson, Tx 75081
(972) 690-3611
pomahony2@hotmail.com
patrick.omahony@gmail.com

Social media fatigue, large-scale burnout as a result of always-on and partial attention deficit leading to relationship breakdowns across the board. - Annalie Killian

Posted by: Rodrigo | 12 November 2008 at 08:37 AM
I. What's next? Social media fatigue, large-scale burnout as a result of always-on and partial attention deficit leading to relationship breakdowns across the board. Those that zig when others are zagging will have the competitive edge. Act against the tide for differentiation

End

[Tom O'Brien]

Hi Peter:

Thanks for posting - this is a diverse and insightful list. I have really been on the bandwagon for Jeannie Walters comment. In fact we recently did an engagement with a F100 company and the question was "should we build our own community?"

Our answer was to first look out there and see what exists and then decide what makes sense. They decided to engage their passionate fans where they already are instead of building their own community and competing with them.

Success.

TO'B

[Minter]

First, that is a great list. Thanks Peter. For point 3, underreported trends, I see starting to happen is the shift in the P&L lines to accommodate the importance of new media. Companies need to take stock of the changes and "realize" the difference by ajusting the lines (and their definitions) in the P&L.

Zach Braiker and Scott Hepburn's comments make me think how "socialized" the workspace can become. Gen Y demands for further education, flexible hours, empowerment; the blurred interface between professional and personal in the social media space; the search for meaning; the opportunities for companies to engage with their commmunities or initiate Sustainable Development actions. In sum, the socialization is both European and American in definition and both definitions seem to live hand in hand -- if a little less comfortably in the current economic climate.