I spent the better part of the summer interviewing 36 leaders in the news media on their strategies for innovation.  Northwestern University's Media Management Center commissioned my firm to conduct the research study and formulate recommendations for action.  Listening to how these leaders are handling the seismic changes in their industry was fascinating. Wow. Great stuff. 

From the publisher of the Washington Post to the founder of Twitter, I got a download on how the pace of change in the market is forcing media companies to work in new ways.  In the next few blogs, I'll be sharing some of my insights from the study.  You can view the entire report here:  http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/innovation/innovationreport.pdf

One thing I heard again and again was the difficulty many of these folks had managing the present and the future at the same time.  Because the pace of change itself is changing, there is increasing pressure on leaders.  I'll be sharing some of the ways firms can keep one hand in the present and step into the future at the same time.  

Unless you've been trekking in the Andes for the last 18 months, it's hard not to hear the hype about YouTube.  And for those of us who have spent some time there you wonder why all the hype.  Watching someone slip and fall off a diving board may be funny, but sifting through the trash to find the treasure, is awfully painful.

But what is absolutely thrilling and fuels the hype, is the ability to watch human self-expression in action.  The raw, native ability of anyone to upload and share their own ideas captivates us.  There is a sense of possibility that someone may actually create art and you may be a witness to it.  It's a torrent of personal creativity in the largest gallery on the planet.

I call this phenomena the "Democratization of Genius".  It means that anyone can share their best ideas with everyone. It's immediate, it's friction-free and it's widly exciting.  What have you been thinking about, sketching, dreaming?  Post a video.  Take the best of your imagination, throw it on the web and see what sticks.

Now ideas are vetted in the marketplace of public opinion.  If it's popular, its because a majority of people say it's so. No filters, no middlemen, no brokers of spin. The pure majority separates the wheat from the chaff.  Whether public opinion can identify what is art is for another blog. But for now, this is one election that the populace can't wait to participate in.  

Two of my favorite addictions are books and clothes. So it follows that my "websites of choice" are Amazon and Nordstrom.  Both sites handle incredibly high volumes of traffic. Both employ some of the most sophisticated technology available in e-commerce today. But here is the one important difference:  One thrills me and lures me to buy and the other functions as a search engine for what I'm already looking for.

Perhaps it's because Amazon promises that they can anticipate my book selections by calling out to me, "Hello Annette.  We have recommendations for you."  But given all the buying history they have about me, you'd think they'd have more creative intelligence about what I'd like to buy. They consistently disappoint. No, I'm not interested in buying, The No Asshole Rule or a camping mess kit.  When I click on the link, I feel like I'm listening to a scorned lover.  "I'll be whatever you need me to be, just love me!"  Clearly they are trying hard, but there is no chemistry.

Contrast Nordstom.  They welcome me with a homepage that looks like a piece of art. An aesthetic gift anytime of the day or night. They show me items that I haven't imagined, yet I want with a passion. Since I buy more books than clothes, they have less information about my purchasing habits than Amazon, but I don't sense they need to use it.  Nordstrom's acts as what I call a DEW marketer - a Distant Early Warning - a business scout that tells me what's ahead that I need to know about.  New details in styling, upcoming color palettes - just like PBS, Nordstrom's informs and inspires. 

The chasm between these two models of e-commerce highlights the limitations of working from knowledge alone.  Terry Teachout of Wall Street Journal's art's section this weekend noted the accumulation of knowledge effects our appreciation of the artistic experience.  Teachout quoted literary critic R.P. Blackmur, "knowledge itself is a fall from the paradise of undifferentiated sensation."  It's the undifferentiated, mystical, magical, sensation that imagination delivers and is the intersection between art and business.  It's the imagination that creates the chemistry customers want.  When we get tangled up our information underwear, IT specialists, marketers, strategists, CEO's - every business person -misses the opportunity to deliver an experience that inspires.