I was interviewed by Derrick Ashong from Oprah Radio, part of the Oprah Winfrey Network. He was smart, personable, fast-moving, and definitely a great person for this space. The experience left me thinking about how FastCompany magazine said that Ashton Kutcher is the new one to watch on the salvation of media and entertainment. To me, the potential savior list looks a bit different:
* Oprah
* Jon Stewart
* Conan (especially if he doesn’t go to Fox)
* Rick Sanchez from CNN (from the news perspective)
To me, the thing they’re all missing is a deeper integration to social media tools for two-way conversations, for a deeper sense of loyalty and connectedness. Jimmy Fallon does that stuff reasonably well, but then, his show isn’t all that interesting to me. He’s got the social thing figured out a bit better, but the payload isn’t there.
Derrick Ashong, the guy who interviewed me from Oprah Radio made a good moving coming out to South by Southwest, because he showed, in that gesture, that he knew where the stories were, that he could get information from the ground-level stuff that we all uncover, and that he was there to learn as much as he was there to pluck stories from the air.
I think what’s next for media and entertainment will be a hybrid, not a fast shift away. But I think it will also be gatekeeper-free.
What say you?
I have intent on the brain. So does Tim Sanders, it turns out. During my speech at the first ever GR2L event (get ready to live), I talked about shifting from connections into intent. I was talking about networking at that juncture. I want to expand. And I have a comparison/analogy to light this up.
The difference between talking about human business and social media and doing it is the difference between having recipes and running a restaurant.
We go to events and network. We collect business cards. Why? Because we don’t know what else to do. We know we’re supposed to network. We talk about why it’s important. The thing is, what do we DO with these? Jon Swanson wrote about switching back to a dumb phone when he realized that he didn’t really have to check email and Twitter every waking hour.
Jon’s restaurant doesn’t need an always-on recipe. See it?
Intent and Execution are the gold standard
My friend (I’m calling us friends) Tom Peters has spent decades on the variation of the theme that “execution is everything.” He pushes us over and over again to DO. Because again, Tom knows that having a box of recipes is nothing compared to executing on them and putting food down in front of people. Tom urges us to look at the buying trends in the world and realize that Baby Boomers and Women should be our main markets (in most cases).
Tom’s restaurant caters to those crowds quite well. Are you doing the same?
Open With a Few Dishes
Having a huge recipe box of ideas is one thing. Starting a restaurant and seeing what your guests like is another. We’re all in this space picking up ideas. We go to big events, we read tons of books, we surf hundreds of blogs, but if we’re not trying a few of these recipes out, we’re not really moving forward. We’re thinking plenty more than we’re doing.
What recipes should you start on today? (Here’s a hint: pick just a few, or one, and learn to make it so that your guests sing.)
I Believe This is a BIG Thing
I think we have to accept that we have a big enough recipe box. I think we have to look at what kind of “restaurant” we want to run, what kind of guest we hope to attract, what kind of cost-per-dish we’re aiming for, and what kind of experience we want people to have…
…and then we have to DO.
Will you take a moment and talk about your restaurant? I know I’m hungry.
sign up for the 
subscribe to the 
follow Chris on 
