« OMMA West Kicks off | Main | SXSW Monday - Panels »
OMMA keynote, Arianna Huffington impresses
March 19, 2007
Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post and named as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in '06, impressed the hell out of me with her bold statements and charisma. She talked about consumers longing for authenticity, transparency, and values. "If you can hit upon this, that's when the magic happens," she continued.
Huffington strongly declared, "Don't be stopped by the naysayers. We have to deal with the naysayers - including the inner-critic in our heads. We must break through our own self doubt."
Mainstream Media has Attention Deficit Disorder! Examples:
1) Anna Nicole Smith is everywhere in U.S. media for an entire month, then it doesn't exist ever again. (Drop it like it's hot).
2) Kosovo - does anyone know what's going on in Kosovo today? No, and we should because lots of bad stuff is happening.
3) Elian Gonzalez - how is he doing in Cuba? Does anyone know?
Key insight on the Blogosphere - bloggers like to take little nuggets, investigate, and make them into stories that get AMPLIFIED in the mainstream media. Many times, blogs are the source of the bigger stories. The Huffington Post is a news aggregator for progressive, political news. 800 bloggers write for free because they want their views out there real-time.
There will always be Print and New Media. Huffington used the analogy of Gilligan's Island - "it's not just Ginger OR Mary Ann - let's have a three-way." Meaning: there is a need for magazines, newspapers, blogs, and other forms of online media.
Fearlessness is key. You need to experiment (what works today will not work in a few years). Your organization must carry the torch like Google, where they accept an 80%-90% failure rate as a great thing. 10% success on big ideas is HUGE. Don't be easily discouraged - most people give up way too early.
Posted by ryan at March 19, 2007 9:57 AM
Syndicate this site (XML)
