The first time I stumbled across the BMV acronym was in the brilliant Umair Haque’s post Apple’s Next Revolution — And What You Can Learn From It
The acronym, Umair informed me, is the way media bankers are now referring to books, music and video. I stared at it for a while, a wry smile stretching across my face. There is something so beautifully dismissive about this acronym and the way it clumps together three very different products and industries around the one thing they have in common: they haven’t really cracked digital yet.
I work in digital, so naturally I think about this kinda shiz all the time. If I worked in BMV I would be thinking about this shiz all the time too – and I’d be seriously excited.
It’s not the first time progress and innovation has changed the face of industries. Recently, digital photography changed the way we took pictures. And famously, Polaroid was late to the party. Like Polaroid it’s understandable that digital progress can be seen as a threat, a competitor and for many in BMV, the end of the line. I don’t think it has to be this way, for me it comes down to three things: being open to the possibility, reframing the way you see competitors and remembering that human behaviour is human behaviour.
Being open to the possibility
No matter how hard you squeeze your eyes shut you can’t imagine a world in which someone will curl up in bed with a digital tablet covered in the words of a book. “It’s just not the same”, you say, “there’s something special about flicking through actual pages”. Try to remember that your grandparents probably thought ATMs were barmy too. A few months ago I met a shopkeeper who confidently informed me that the internet wouldn’t take off. If you think that people will always want actual things like CDs in their lives with the actual booklet that it comes with or real, live DVDs and books with proper pages, you may very well be right. That said, I’d highly recommend you entertain the possibility that the opposite may be true. Just sayin’.
Reframing the way you see competitors
Polaroid stubbornly denied digital photography had a future because they saw it as a competitor and threat instead of what it really was: an opportunity. BMV should try reframe threats as opportunities. Consider what you can learn from those things considered to be threats – and I mean everything from illegal downloaders, to leaked copies of books, what insight does it provide? And how can you use these behaviours to gain invaluable insight to progress your industry?
Human behaviour is human behaviour
The interesting thing about technological advancements is that it’s simply given us more opportunities to do the same things. People are still doing the same thing with photography that they’ve always done. The average Joe is still taking pictures of his kids and family on holiday to share with friends. People who enjoy photography are still fiddling with their shots and trying to capture landscapes at the right light. Only the format has changed. Same goes with BMV, people are still fans of artistes, be they novelists or musicians. They still want to support them, find out more about them, have access to as much information about them as possible. Except today, a music fan isn’t limited to the booklet in a CD, they’re on MySpace and wikipedia. How can you use technology to mimic behaviour that is commonplace for traditional BMV? What would a digital library look like? How can people lend each other films online?
What do you think the future of BMV is? What do you recommend people working in BMV should do to make the most of the times we’re living in? What’s your challenge for them?
Nice post. The interesting thing about BMV for me is probably a little ironic. They lump three media formats together. But actually a digital future might result in that. Whatever format you release something in, it automatically gets transformed into a bunch of other formats. If you write a book and don’t record an audiobook, someone else will. And someone will illustrate it as well. Such is the fluidity of JIJItal meeeja.
I read a nice phrase yesterday which relates to all of this: confirmation bias. We all select corroboration of our viewpoints in the information around us. http://101culture.com/wisdom-of-crowds-or-stupidity-of-mobs
I think that there are mostly 2 kindS of BMVs out there:
1. Those who bury their head in the sand hoping that the revolution will disappear and in the meantime try to fight it in the ost absurd and futile ways.
2. Those who simply waste time worrying about the future. But things are moving very fast. And they’re not going to stop. There is no point in the future where everything will ‘shake-out’ or ‘settle-down’ (Or not until Moore’s Law runs out, the global population stabilises and we solve climate change).
The answer, therefore, is not to build a structure aiming at some likely future scenario but to create an organisation and culture that can adapt to whatever happens.
The organisation would emphasise flexibility, speed and improvisation. The culture would emphasise curiosity, doing rather than thinking, rapid-prototyping and cross-discipline thinking (and doing!).
As for the right now. It’s simple, do stuff that’s right now. Make it good. But don’t get too married to it, be prepared to throw it away when something better comes along.
rock on
A.