State of the Media

Brian Solis, Twitter and the social media bell curve

There's a couple of social media gurus I follow not only because I'm interested in the subject, but only a few seem to be able to extol the benefits while recognizing the weaknesses.  In that small group is Brian Solis, CEO of Futureworks PR (their site is on Facebook), and my apologies for saying the name wrong in the intro.  For some time, people who follow me and Brian have been telling me he and I need to hook up and talk concepts and issues and we've been trying to coordinate out calendars for some time.  Finally happened a couple of weeks ago over the phone.  We talked for almost an hour about a variety of things but the primary focus was on Twitter and how they are doing a great job at hampering their own growth.  And, as a side note, how the rest of the social media industry should pay attention and NOT do it the way they are.

Anyone out there in the Twitter family should pay attention.  Here's the discussion.

Brian._solis

What transparency costs

Something happened this week that brought up the issue of transparency, journalistic independence and why both are needed for a vibrant media that properly serves the industry.  As many of you know, I was asked to start a blog on EDA Cafe back in June and started a series of podcasts focusing on the bottom line of design automation.  in other words, finding out the industry could justify its existence financially to its customers.  

We started out with a couple of interviews with the CEOs of Magma and Tanner EDA and then of the Real Intent CEO.  The first two readily admitted that figuring out the real ROI of EDA tools is something that has not been done well and needs to be done better.  The third interview had the same revelation, but you might notice that the interview is no longer available on EDA Cafe.  Real Intent lodged a complaint to EDA Cafe regarding the statement in the interview from the CEO that they could not accurately estimate the ROI but were sure they had the right price point on their tool.  I also pointed that out in the written introduction.  They wanted the interview taken down, and since Real Intent pays for their presence on EDA Cafe, their demand was met.  One complaint and it's gone.

So that's what we have to deal with.  Many publications on the internet are ultimately controlled by the companies they cover.  Those publications believe the companies supporting them will pull that support unless the toe the line.  That means, ultimately, you can't really trust the content on those publications.  It's not that the publications are unreliable, just the content they allow on the site because they don't really control it. Specifically, EDA Cafe has not violated any form of journalism ethics because their business model is not set up to maintain them.  They are paid for industry happy talk.

Some people might put New Tech Press into that same category because all the content is sponsored, often by the company that is being written about, but this is where maintaining independence and transparency comes in.  New Tech Press requires sponsoring companies to accept the condition that they can only control the factual content of the material, not the way it is presented.  We maintain the right to contextualize the content.

We recently had an article sponsored and were all ready to publish it when the sponsoring company said they didn't want to be identified as the sponsor.  We refused to publish it on New Tech Press because that request not only violated our agreement, it also violated our commitment to transparency and independence .  I'm sure we will never be approached by that company again, but then, we wouldn't accept their business again either.

My point is, and always has been, that ethics only count when you actually have a choice to maintain them.  I was approached by EDA Cafe to start doing this podcasts and I made it clear, then, that since I am not getting paid to do any of it, I am going to ask the questions I want to ask and post the answers I get.  I don't have to be honest about it.  In fact, some people think if I engage only in happy talk, some companies might be more interested in hiring me.  But I didn't go into this business because I thought I would get rich from it.  I'm in it for truth and to help the industry right itself.

I still have several interviews to finish editing and posting from my time at DAC.  Not sure if EDA Cafe will allow them to be posted, but I'm going to finish what I started.

Oh, I wasn't entirely accurate about the Real Intent interview being taken down.  It is taken down from EDA Cafe.  It is still available on iTunes (search under Lou Covey or the title From the outside in), here, and soon on New Tech Press and the NTP Network partners.

Business press, trade shows and deja vu

I've received a bunch of angry and a few cordial emails about my supposition that DATE was either dead or not long for the world.  Grant Martin of Tensilica even made a comment on my post yesterday pointing out how valuable the content and meetings were for him at DATE.  Some people pointed me to Peggy Aycinena's rambling review of DATE (that I had begun to read but stopped after I saw the first comment complaining that she hadn't really talked about the content.)  So, for the record, I know that the content in technical conferences like DATE, DAC, Semicon, etc. are all outstanding stuff.  I know that the chance to meet with colleagues face to face is important.

That's not the point.

Back in 1995 I started writing a State of the Media report for clients to let them know where editors had moved to, what they were promoted to and what new publications they should be looking at.  In 1998 I started noticing that magazines were starting to struggle.  In 1999 I noticed ad revenues were starting to slip.  In 2000 I predicted that if we didn't start advertising again, we weren't going to have any press to cover industry.  That prediction has almost come to fruition.  I never said the press that covers industry was unimportant or lacked value.  I said if it wasn't financially support it would go away.

So here's my point: It is happening again.

When companies stopped advertising, the money didn't go away.  Most of it went into tradeshows and technical conferences.  The DATE and DAC conferences exploded and a tradition in the EDA world began where 70 to 90 percent of all marketing budgets went into tradeshow support.  Then the bad times really hit, and companies started scaling back, choosing to drop the smaller conference and some eventually pulling out of conferences altogether in favor of their own private confabs.  Companies that were not exhibiting but had willingly signed travel approvals for employees to attend, started cutting travel budgets... even if it was just to drive from San Jose to Santa Clara and attendance started dropping.

Now the quality and value of the content didn't necessarily drop, just the attendance.  That meant that the companies that organized and ran these events started seeing their own revenues drop.  Trade show floors are starting to look like ghost towns.  Exhibitors that are still participating are grumbling "Why did we even come here?"

What we still seem to be ignoring is that someone has to foot the bill.  Corporations have been doing it for a long time but they are not that convinced that the conference is worth the sponsorship money, especially when up to 90 percent of the shrinking marketing budget is tied up in that support.  If those same companies refuse to pay the bill for their employees to attend to get that great content and make business connections, the cost has to come out of the employees' pockets.  If they can't/won't pay it, the presenters will be speaking to empty rooms.

And that's the bottom line folks.  I know that there are important things presented and discussed at technical conferences, but they are not charities passing out free food to the homeless.  The financial model is as broken for trade shows as it is for media.  If it isn't fixed it ain't gonna last.

Unofficial DATE 09 report

OK, the speculation is off and running.  Have received three separate reports from attendees at DATE 2009 in Nice,  France that state the attendance, minus exhibitors, is under 1,000 with more than three-quarters from universities.  So with about 25 exhibiting companies, down from 168 last year, it looks like DATE and DVCon are about equal this year.  Last year and the year before, total attendance was 4700.

The question is, however, how many attendees were coming for DATE and how many for the ARTEMSIA conference, co-located with DATE?

Looking forward to the official numbers.

Let me hold your hat while you and him fight.

OK, so I'm reading this opinion piece by a guy who says what's really wrong are entrepreneurs and VCs in SiliconValley are not willing to take any risks anymore; that the way out of the problem is to find more risk takers.  This guy makes his living advising small companies and helping them find funding.  I go, "OK.  This guy seems to understand the problem."  So I send him an e-mail asking him what he's willing to risk to help start-up companies with disruptive approaches.

He says, "Oh I'm not involved in that anymore.  You should go talk to some guys in Silicon Valley."

Can we make a rule that before you are allowed to start to rant about a problem, that you'd at least be willing to make some effort to resolve the problem?  What's that?  No? Alright.  Just thought I'd ask.