The End of Control?

Norwich & Literature Re:Connected

Hannah Rudman

3% world onbroadband

now

10% in 18 mths

4bn mobileusers in 12

months

Remember: Its not about the technology…

• Eric Schmidt, Google:– Almost all of the historic models have limitations in

what consumers could do. You could only watchtelevision on a television. You could only listen to radioon a radio.

“We-think”“We-Think: the power of mass creativity is about what therise of the likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux andCraigslist means for the way we organise ourselves, not justin digital businesses but in schools and hospitals, cities andmainstream corporations. My argument is that these newforms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrivalof a society in which participation will be the key organisingidea rather than consumption and work. People want to beplayers not just spectators, part of the action, not on thesidelines.”

Charles Leadbeater, thinker and author.www.wethinkthebook.net

Impact 1:The audience as player

• The audience as participant• The artist as facilitator• Organised without the organisation

Friction is fiction: either we engage or weenrage!

"When the winds of change are blowing,some people are building shelters, and

others are building windmills."Chinese Proverb

Impact 2:Experience Economy / Status Stories

Impact 3:People want to do more than just attend or consume

• Personalise• Participate• Co-produce• Create meaning

– Alan Brown’s latest research: WolfBrown

This affects:– Artistic practice– Organisations’ operations– Business models

Why Social Networks?

Impact 4Feels like Free

Piracy - a new business model?

Paul Coelho:“I found a pirated Russian translation of The Alchemist - and

we were selling 1,000 copies a year in Russia, that’s notvery impressive - so I said OK, lets put the pirate edition

online for people to download.In 2001 it sold 10,000 copies and everyone was puzzled and

the the next year we went to over 100,000.It was, believe it or not, the free-for-download book. People

downloaded it, started reading it, liked it, and bought it…in the third year, we had over 1m copies, now we’re over

10m copies in Russia.Publishers have a tendency to try and protect the content.

It’s a lost battle.”

Trust vs.Control?

Piracy vs.obscurity?

Impact 5:Attention, not content, is money

• The key is to offer valuable intangibles thatcannot be reproduced at zero cost, andwill thus be paid for.– Kevin Kelly, founding editor, Wired.

If copies lose their “value”, then we must sellsomething that can’t be copied.

Overall impact:• THE END OF CONTROL• In the past, you were what you owned. Now you

are what you share.– Charles Leadbeater, We Think.

The traditional Western paradigm of “Copyright as thesole value of content” is unsustainable.

You may struggle to own the content. But you can ownthe

CONTEXT, MEANING, RELEVANCE, EXPERIENCE,EMBODIMENT, TIMING

And a word of warning…

• Formally…– Audience

– Consumer

– Listener

– Customer

– Buyer

• Now..– Users

– Co-creators

– Contributors

– Peers

– Producers

– Promoters

These people are your new sales & marketing, press& PR teams - don’t underestimate the importance of

building a relationship with them!

Sharing is Caring :-)

Implications for organisations & artists– ARTISTIC

• people's online lives and digital devices become part of real experience –venues and other audience members may have to change their attitudes totheir inclusion;

• the relationship between the writer and community will become flatter -writers and readers will begin to develop work collaboratively;

• people will be organised without the organisation, players without the play;

– OPERATIONAL• encouraging more personalisation of and participation with the experience

of your work or organisation via digital tools and channels means increasinginvestment in this area;

• becoming more porous as organisations and artists means opening up to awide dialogue, including the negative and critical;

– BUSINESS MODELS• Money will be generated from driving attention, not from selling pieces of

content. (Powered by next generation advertising)• Creativity is the currency of the future• creating more digital content means more/different investment and different

contracts with venues, writers and audiences.

= Change!AmbITion approach:

Its not about the technology!

Its about change, andsupporting organisations workout how their artistic practiceand relationships withstakeholders and audienceshave to evolve.

Supporting integrated digitaldevelopment: across artistic,organisational and businessareas of practice.

Thanks for Listening!

Stay in touch:

www.getambition.com