NeilCocker.com

Well, I say “the future”… that’s based purely on Gerd Leonhard‘s title of “Media Futurist”. I was recently lucky enough to spend a couple of days in the presence of him and Jeremy Silver at Future Music Labs, part of Creative Capital in Canary Wharf, London.

They both gave fascinating talks at the beginning of the first day, and I took lots of notes. I’ve just been looking back over them and thought there were a few snippits that are worth sharing. This will all appear in bullet-point form, as I can’t remember the exact context of each fact and wouldn’t want to misquote Jeremy or Gerd. Also, apologies if some of the facts don’t make that much sense out of context. They obviously don’t have the great slides that Gerd and Jeremy used to illustrate their points, too. You can see the slides for Jeremy’s presentation here, and Gerd’s here.

If they don’t make sense then let me know – I’ll improve my note taking technique!

Also, I’ll be adding news links to back up as much of this information as i can, when I can.

Jeremy Silver

• The “value” in creative industries tends to be in digital media.
• In 9 years the music industry has lost 40 percent of its value.
• 20 – 25 percent of sales across the board are digital.
• Games companies are making money!
• Youtube‘s bandwidth costs $1m a day to maintain, and their daily loss exceeds $1m a day.
• In the UK £357 is spent on advertising per head of population (from memory, this is annually). 19 percent of this is online, the highest percentage in the world.
• The UK has the highest per capita spend on music. $82 a year.
• Consumers are very sophisticated and want to interact with music – e.g. see Rockband & Singstar, Radiohead allowing fans to remix tunes etc.

Gerd Leonhard

• 92 percent of Google’s revenue is from Adwords.
• Total fragmentation of the market is certain. Very few models work for everyone anymore. We’ll never see anyone having hits on the scale of The Beatles again. In TV Dallas used to get 70 percent of US viewers. Today the top show, American Idol, gets just 7 percent.
• Physical Media and productised content is the past.
• 1.7 million new mobile users in India every week.
• 6.8 billion minutes a day are spent on Facebook. It is a broadcaster, as are all social network.
• We’re living in an age of “Attention Challenge”. Distribution is now a default setting.
• Brand magnetism is everything. If you love them, you’ll buy them.
• “Money is just a type of information” – www.kk.org

I saw the film Anvil a few nights ago. It’s a documentary about a rock band who, thirty years on from being on the verge of greatness, are living in near-obscurity and decide to give it one last push before giving up for good. It’s an absolutely brillant (and hilarious) film and I was incredibly touched by their perseverance, their passion and their lust for life. And it reminded me that perseverance is that rare quality that is usually the one factor that many people are missing out on when looking for success.

I often advise people on small business and creative industries, and tell them to look at the top DJs and producers in the world: Carl Cox, Pete Tong, Sasha, Roger Sanchez, Eric Morillo, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy etc – I’m fairly certain that not one of them is under 40, and I know that some of them are over 50. (edit – I’m reliably informed by Ian -see comments below- that Liam from the Prodigy is a spritely 37). The average age of the freshest, hottest 3 DJs in the world (Tiesto, Armin van Buuren and Paul van Dyk) is 37.2.

Being a DJ is usually considered to be a youngster’s game. These guys are clear evidence that if you’re good enough you might make it, BUT if you’re good enough AND you’re willing to stick at it long enough then you’ll definitely improve your chances of making it. I suppose it’s a case of having the talent, and using the perseverance to maximise the likelihood of getting your break…

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer”. ~Albert Einstein

A few bits and pieces…
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We’ve recently announced details of Ignite Cardiff #2, and with that in mind I thought I’d link to this article explaining how to “Deliver a Presentation like Steve Jobs”.

14 Tools Of Highly Effective Twitter Users – I particularly like the first tool. I’d be more inclined to find out how annoying I am though, rather than vet others before following….

This looks quite interesting if you’re based near South Wales and are in the creative industries, innovation, enterprise etc. I’ll probably be there.

This link is either the greatest link ever for a procrastinator, or a fascinating archive of the things that amused us over the early years of “the internet age”.

Very interesting take on what’s “killing” the music industry. Not illegal downloads, according to the author. Surprised to see that the value of music being shipped is more today than it was in 1993.

My Dad’s been very ill recently, and I’ve been “hanging out” at an online forum where people exchange experiences and support about the illness that he’s suffering from. One post struck me as absolute gold: A woman has become very housebound and insular in the last year, not wishing to leave the house. But in the recent snow her husband and kids persuaded her to go out and make a snowman with them. The phrase that convinced her to get out there? “Let’s go make some memories“.

Life is short, and all we really have at the end of it is our memories, so go make some.

* The pic at the top is of my girlfriend and I, mid-jump, making some snowy memories a few weeks ago. That blurry shot is the best of about 15 attempts to get a shot of us mid air in the snow, using a self timer!

1 - Interesting article in the Financial Times this morning* about how big companies (and I mean Shell, Procter & Gamble – that kind of big) are taking web 2.0 tools seriously. Worth a few minutes of your time, definitely.

2 - I put a message out on Twitter a few days ago for some thoughts on personal branding on the web, as I’m writing an article on the subject for Enterprise Magazine. One of the things that came back was this video from my good friend Carl. I’d never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, but he’s the CEO of the very successful WineLibrary. Now I’m not sure if he’s terrifying, brilliant, inspired, hilarious or straight-up bonkers. But I do know that he comes up with some great, simple truths that we should all be aware of. Highly recommended viewing, for a number of reasons.

* I don’t actually buy or read the Financial Times. I just get an email update from them once a day. I don’t want you thinking I’m a stock-market analyst, or something….

1 - Interesting article in the Financial Times this morning* about how big companies (and I mean Shell, Procter & Gamble – that kind of big) are taking web 2.0 tools seriously. Worth a few minutes of your time, definitely.

2 - I put a message out on Twitter a few days ago for some thoughts on personal branding on the web, as I’m writing an article on the subject for Enterprise Magazine. One of the things that came back was this video from my good friend Carl. I’d never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, but he’s the CEO of the very successful WineLibrary. Now I’m not sure if he’s terrifying, brilliant, inspired, hilarious or straight-up bonkers. But I do know that he comes up with some great, simple truths that we should all be aware of. Highly recommended viewing, for a number of reasons.

* I don’t actually buy or read the Financial Times. I just get an email update from them once a day. I don’t want you thinking I’m a stock-market analyst, or something….

Not only is the traditional music retail industry in dire trouble, but there’s a huge global recession squeezing the life out of every high street store. It’s no surprise then that HMV are looking to diversify. It’s probably the only way they’ll survive the next five years and not “do a Zavvi”. They’ll spend almost 20 million quid investing in a string of venues (including the soon to be named HMV Apollo).

More details here.

Not only is the traditional music retail industry in dire trouble, but there’s a huge global recession squeezing the life out of every high street store. It’s no surprise then that HMV are looking to diversify. It’s probably the only way they’ll survive the next five years and not “do a Zavvi”. They’ll spend almost 20 million quid investing in a string of venues (including the soon to be named HMV Apollo).

More details here.

In these dark days of the so-called credit crunch it appears that even Google is having to tighten its belt, shutting down a number of services. Although several of them never got out of invite mode, it’s sad to see the likes Jaiku and Notebook being given the boot.

Hat-tip: Paul Bradshaw

In these dark days of the so-called credit crunch it appears that even Google is having to tighten its belt, shutting down a number of services. Although several of them never got out of invite mode, it’s sad to see the likes Jaiku and Notebook being given the boot.

Hat-tip: Paul Bradshaw

You may remember that at the weekend I wrote about a new wifi hotspot map i’d put together for Cardiff. It took me 30 mins, and zero stress. And I don’t have any particular technical web skills to speak of.

Well, within an hour or so of finishing and telling the world about it, two friends had set up maps in exactly the same way for their towns (Exeter and Bristol). It gave me an idea for a truly user generated, UK wide wifi map where the regional maps are owned by the people that set them up, allowing them to promote them independently, and take all the credit in their local web community. So I set up www.wifi-in-uk.co.uk to act as the portal, and have already had a Birmingham map added to the fold.

I’m looking for people to set up maps all over the country. If you’re interested, then head over to here and you could have a map for your town in a matter of minutes.

Just goes to show – with about 2 or 3 hours work in total, you can easily get web ideas up and running. Even without any technical know-how….

Seriously. I never stop being amazed.

Before I tell you this story you have to remember that I have no technical skills in the coding department (I can just about make some text bold in HTML), but I’m a relatively heavy user of the internet and I like to think I’m pretty quick at picking up new apps etc. So what I achieved in a fairly short space of time could be done by my nan (albeit maybe a bit slower).

So, it’s midday on Saturday (about three quarters of an hour ago) and I need to find a place in a certain area of Cardiff that’s got free wifi. I’ve often been confronted by this problem before, and there doesn’t seem to be a comprehensive list anywhere online. Anyway, earlier in the week I’d written a piece for Enterprise Magazine about business agility, and how the web affords us the opportunity to turn ideas around very quickly (I’ll post the article up here once the mag hits the streets), and thought I’d put my learnings into practice:

Step 1: Used Twitter to ask for tips.

Step 2: Received advice from Oli Mould, who follows me on Twitter.

Step 3: Realised how insanely easy it was to set up a map on Google Maps that was publically editable so the world could share their knowledge about wifi hotspots in Cardiff.

Step 4: Set up map, putting a few of my favourite places on there.

Step 5: Make the map public.

Step 6: Register www.wifi-in-cardiff.co.uk (6 quid) and point it at the Google map.

Step 7: Tell my friends on Twitter and ask them to retweet (share with their Twitter followers).

Step 8: Watch Twitter start to buzz with “retweets”, and then marvel that the whole process took me 30 mins.

Thirty minutes from start to finish. Even I’m amazed. And very chuffed!

Anyway, I just thought I’d share that with you. If you’re based in Cardiff, please chip in and share your wifi hotspots!