Recently a friend talked to me about the ‘renaissance of relationships in the media environment‘. He argued that it was the Black Death that sparked the Renaissance in the 16th century in Europe. Why? Because after the Black Death people focused more on the quality of their present day lives instead of that in the afterlife. In his view the status quo of the way we are doing business these days is a new form of the Black Death that will lead to a Renaissance of Relationships: interactive, true experiences, really listening, etc. As one of our studies focuses on the future of media, I think that Black Death takes another form.

This weekend in the USA, “TV Networks getting a beating: Survivor hitshow -20% ratings”. Wauw that sounds serious especially since it is not just Survivor, the downturn is industry wide even worsened by advertisers who stop spending due to the credit crunch. I asked a few members of our Board of Inspiration who have close ties to the media-industry: What is going on? 
One replied:” It’s hard to judge the reason. It looks like a of perfect storm. On the one hand, there is no question that there has been a steady erosion of the network’s position since the 80s, initially and for a long time because of cable TV.   Certainly, the HDD is changing habits - storing all episodes to watch in one go, not feeling that you have to see thing when it’s broadcast (and certainly this is true for fiction).   The opening up of the web(-video) and games has shifted audiences dramatically - even though one might argue that on an annual basis the average ‘tv viewing hours’ total is up - that’s not entirely true.   The tv is merely on, but most dramatically younger men are disappearing, critically, while the population is ageing.  But that’s not the only explanation, the issue currently is in part the conservatism and fear of the current generation of executives (who only want lookalikes) and the economy is preventing any marketing - so they market on the networks, but nobody’s watching the network so nobody knows to watch the network. When will we see the Twin Tower moment for television? Any ideas?”

Sometimes you grab a book that you’ve already read, and the moment its in your hands again, it triggers all sorts of new thoughts. I had picked up the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience ” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and somehow connected it to the need of vending machines…

Coca-Cola’s believe is that for sustainable business it needs sustainable communities. That is their bottom line. And after several years of effort to ‘do good’ for the communities they are part of they clearly gravitate towards water. This is not illogical for a non-diversified company with water the most prominent feedstock of their products. We are waiting for the ‘beyond oil’ era, but Coca-Cola will never be a ‘beyond water’! The UN PRI organized a webinar around water, and they invited Coca-Cola to talk…

Broadcast yourself! Sure, why not, everybody does it nowadays. Youtube, Myspace and all the other platforms are for some friends already the favourite ’station’ to ‘watch tv’ and ‘listen to the radio’. I think the idea is great, but when I see what they are watching and listening I can’t share their enthousiasm. But what surprises me even more is how fast they seem to agree with me and abandon their new born stars. And why is that? The key words in this matter are probably story and effect.

I’m talking about the upcoming great spectrum land-rush. This is something I learned very recently during my research into the Future of Media. The “digital dividend” is the radio spectrum left up for grabs when the first wave of digital television channels are allocated and analogue switch-off commences. . Like we learned in our Africa Online study, ether might be usefull to extend the reack and bandwith of WiMax etc. Unfortunately the frequencies it can use are limited since it will interfere with radio, tv or communication devices. We always tend to look ahead, what is TV going to look like, but it sometimes also interesting to look behind. What is the impact of a plainfield of Ether, ready to be used…. for what?

In several of our Future Studies a strong driver for change is the rise of micro-economies. Whereas we see an increasing rise of international treaties and co-operation several regions are striving for independence on a smaller level. Fueled by the rising prices of natural resources (like oil and gas), these regions see an opportunity to be independent from their original ‘motherlands’. Ever since the independence of Kosovo this movement is speeding up. And with the recent recognition of South-Ossetia and Abkhazia by Russia, a new step has been taken.

We are all connected to networks, physical ones and digital ones. We increasingly explore and navigate the structures of the city roads, the Internet, globalization and even the cells of our bodies. Over time we have explored more and more of these networks. which has disclosed an abundance of information and revealed millions of new possibilities. But did the disclosure of all this information make the world more complex, or did it merely demystify that what was already there? I think for the larger part it has been the latter.

The World Wide Web (the Web) is a system of interlinked HTML documents. The documents can contain client side scripting or interact with the server, these are called web applications. An Operating System (OS) is the software on a computer that manages activities and the sharing of resources. An OS runs the programs, so to speak. The Web Operating System can either be seen as the operating system running a network of computers (hardware) the scale of the Web, or running the Web itself. I would call either one of these a GRID.