Categories: Articles

Robert Scoble, Sebastien Provencher, Steve Rubel… And You Are Media

Sebastien Provencher from The Praized Blog has a great post titled, Robert Scoble Is Media.
Here’s a snippet:
“It made me wonder: why would Robert Scoble accept ‘friends’ invitation from people he does not know? Why do you want to be connected to people you don’t know and alert them to stuff you’re doing? And then it hit me! Robert Scoble is media. He’s building his own broadcast network. He understands that media is completely fragmented and, by participating in all these new social communication vehicles (blogging, Twitter, Pownce, Facebook), he’s aggregating readers and viewers,
thereby increasing his penetration and his worth as a media. I’m convinced Robert reaches close to 100% of all early adopters in Silicon Valley (and a good chunk in North America). He now has tremendous influence on ‘influencers’.”
Shortly thereafter. Robert Scoble posts this Blog posting: My Facebook Secret Is Out_
Here’s a snippet:
“Facebook makes my blog seem very one-way. I can’t see anytime one of you writes something, or puts some media up, even when you do it on your own blogs. Facebook makes our media a lot more two-way.”
This is where the learning and Marketing kicks in. There are two prime pieces of content that I’m constantly unraveling here at the Twist Image Blog and in my Podcast, Six Pixels Of Separation.
1. Content is media. Scoble, Sebastien, you, me and anyone else who creates content is creating media. That is the advertising. Everyone keeps searching for the ad model in Blogs and Podcasts not realizing that the content and the individual producing it are the media.
2. Personal brand. Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion had a killer post last week called, The Golden Age Of Individualism, where he states: “Individualism is as old as American ideals, though it’s certainly not a global phenomenon. However with the Net Gen taking over the work force, the value of personal brands will continue rise and perhaps be a prickly force to be reckoned with. This means big changes in the workplace and a critical importance for everyone to be team players even as their stars rise online. It also means that personal brands will become unofficial spoksepeople at times (perhaps involuntarily).”
So, we have the idea coming full circle: individuals are creating content, the individuals are the media. The media they are creating is also a form of advertising. What is the advertising selling? Their personal brand. Who’s buying their personal brand? Lots of people who, prior to tools like Facebook, Blogging and Podcasting, were relegated to trying to find people in their city who, hopefully, had similar interests.
I’m hoping that Blog postings by the likes of Robert Scoble, Sebastien Provencher, Steve Rubel and the thoughts you get here will further the concepts of my upcoming business book, Six Pixels Of Separation, that individual personal brands will see meteoric rise because individuals are the media.

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.