Larry KRAMER	Charles CRUMPLEY

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Navigating the Future of Business: Consumers, Content, Curation, & Convergence

Larry Kramer, first president of CBS digital media and former chairman, CEO, and founder of MarketWatch Inc

LARRY KRAMER served as the first president of CBS Digital Media. Prior to joining CBS, he was chairman, CEO, and founder of MarketWatch Inc. He is an adjunct professor in media management at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He has been a senior adviser at Polaris Venture Partners, a venture-capital firm. He started his long career in the newsroom and spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor. He was assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner. He went on to create one of the most successful early internet media companies, CBS Marketwatch – sold to Dow Jones for $528 million – and then head up digital operations at CBS. He has made a career of helping to blend the cultures and business practices of traditional and new media companies.

According to Kramer, every company today is a media company. There are four factors that are affecting businesses today: Consumers, Content, Curation and Convergence. He discusses this in his new book, C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today.

Consumers are in control. Technological developments have allowed consumers to circumvent and, in come cases destroy, traditional distribution, advertising and company marketing messages. Content is king. Everything is content including advertising, publicity, and customer service. And every company is responsible for creating compelling content for their customers. Curation is valuable. While old media silos are breaking down, consumers are building their own and have access to unprecedented amounts of information. Businesses need to help consumers curate the information most useful to them. Convergence is happening throughout all formats and across all platforms. No traditional medium is untouched by the technological changes of the past 15 years. We are truly in a “Gutenberg moment” where all business models are being tried and tested.

In C-SCAPE, Kramer explans which strategies are dying and which strategies will help businesses survive and thrive in a radically changed media environment.

CHARLES CRUMPLEY is Editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal.

The Drucker Business Forum is produced by The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University with additional support from the Pearson Foundation. The series is co-presented by KPCC.

Breakfast 7:45 A.M. TO 8:30 A.M.
Forum 8:30 A.M. TO 9:30 A.M.

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