Categories: Articles

Marshall@100

When you think of media, you better think of Marshall McLuhan.

Personally, I’ve struggled with the thinking of Marshall McLuhan. His work is deep, rich and thick… it often makes me feel like I’m stupid because I can’t grasp it right off the bat. I often grapple with a simple sentence that the theorist put forward. The way his words and speaking came together gives pause. And, while his most notable saying, "the medium is the message" is still a concept that is widely discussed, debated and deconstructed, the river of media insights from this one individual is staggering.

McLuhan would have been 100 years old this week.

My friend, Michael Hinton, has been Blogging about McLuhan over at his Blog/online experience, From Marshall & Me. Check this out from his last Blog post, Time gentlemen (and ladies) please!, from July 21st, 2011: "It is time to say good bye to Dr. Herbert Marshall McLuhan – media explorer, theorist, prophet, and celebrity. This blog began in September, 2009, on the anniversary of the stroke that took away his power to speak and ends, today on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Each post, this is number 452, has looked at one of McLuhan’s observations, ideas, thoughts, opinions, or experiences. I am saying good bye to Marshall now not because there is nothing left to say, but because it seems to me a good time to move on. I have had the wondrous experience of viewing the world for a time through Marshall’s eyes and I thank you for joining me in this attempt to understand him better. It has been at various times thrilling, disciplining, and surprising, an adventure, a job and an obsession, but I have never found it dull. And that’s the way I want to keep it."

Dive into McLuhan.

Stop reading this now. Take 15 minutes and head over to From Marshall & Me… and dig in.

It will make you smarter. Promise.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.