Something to Think About

I spent the last three days reading Nimble, a new Razorfish report on publishing in the digital age.  It’s a must-read for anyone struggling to deal with the dissolution of traditional media business models.

There was one section that really struck a nerve.  It’s great advice for publishers, but it’s also relevant to brands and agencies.  The point: In the future, editors will become curators for managing digital content.  Not only will the editor be responsible for the content itself, but he or she will also have to keep an eye on user comments, partnerships, dynamic content, and integrated services.

So it won’t be about exercising authority (editor). Instead it will be about managing a complex ecosystem of content and information, delivered whenever and wherever it is relevant (curator).  Big change for the media industry.

The same principle applies to the rest of us as well.  Brands and agencies are all about authority.  In effect, we’re all editors — filtering through reams of data to identify the information we wish to present to our customers.  We say exactly what we want to say, where we want to say it, and how we want to say it.

Now we need to become curators – dynamically collecting, organizing and presenting content from diverse sources across multiple platforms, in a way that is 100% relevant to the user.

It sounds kind of trite: We used to be editors.  Now we need to be curators.  But the implications are dramatic, and will transform your company, your job, and ultimately your brand.

In order to get thinking about this issue, you should download a copy of Nimble here:

http://nimble.razorfish.com