Where are the Advertisers ?

I don't own a PVR. Instead, I use my TV system provider's box to time shift some things I like to watch. This system works for me, and I can access content both via the traditional set-top box and TV or via my tablet with the TV Channel's apps. There's probably more ways than that as well, but between these two I manage.

What strikes me as I watched a few favourite shows in the last few days (as I have some down time), was that there's no ads. Yes there are commercials, but they are for the content that channel already has - they weren't able to; or weren't thinking they could sell ad space on these shows in this media to their clients.

Now, I grew up many years ago on a diet of TV, so commercials are just the "price we pay" for this content, and I understand that. The absence of them (and the repeated prompts to watch one or two other shows) makes me wonder...Is the world of on-demand digital content just to hard to measure by the traditional Neilson yardstick, or are there really no interested parties..?

In a fragmented world, did something actually get missed...

360º to the Customer

Sometimes we can't see where we're going because we're looking in the wrong direction.  Numerous times this past week, by numerous people (coincidence?) I was reminded, and I also reminded others that we really can't go wrong if we keep the customer in front of where we are trying to go.

So if you're lost - turn around, find the customer, and go in that direction. It's never wrong.

The Value of Interaction

Recently, I was faced with a small- a very small - group of people to work with.  Smaller than usual.  In some senses, it should have been easier, as there were fewer people to know, and I could go deeper with each.  But what you lose in a group that is few in numbers is the collaborative effect.  The interactions of people with each other is tremendously important.  We often underestimate that, and the result is that we talk at one other without ever having a discussion.

If half the act of working with others is listening, and it's hard to hear what isn't being said.  Think about that when trying to expand your own understanding of something new, or exploring an existing topic to try to uncover previously hidden gems of insight.  We need others not simply as sounding boards for our ideas, but also to reinterpret them through their own lens of experience and add perspectives we may not have acknowledged.  Interaction, collaboration - call it whatever you like... we learn through each other as much as from each other.