C is for Collaborate

Operating on both sides of the "marketing divide" as I do, has some significant challenges.

Marketers/media people see me as some new media maverick infected with a shocking level of transparency.  Online/web advocates see me as a dyed-in-the-wool suit with a potential to infiltrate the mix with robber-baron ideas.

Candidly, there are very few of us hybrids out here - these are two worlds that just don't mix well, at least not yet. If I'm wrong then count how many web developers are at the next  CMA Awards event or how many marketers are at the next MESH conference.

Refreshing then to read a post from Steve Rubel on the chasm he also noticed at a recent Silicon Valley conference for CEOs and a modicum of progress being made to cross the divide.

"On the one side of the valley is, um, the Valley (go with me) - e.g. the tech industry. On the other side lies the media-industrial complex. This is the giant yarn-ball that includes marketers/agencies, media and entertainment companies.

Silicon Valley (e.g. the tech/Internet businesses that dot its landscape) created many of the popular Web 2.0 communities we live in. They revolutionized our lives. The Internet today is the life bloodstream for some one billion Internet users worldwide. There's no putting the genie back. Our lives are changed forever as the Flat Earth communes online.

However, for it to continue to thrive economically, Silicon Valley must break bread with the media-industrial complex. The challenge is there is a vast chasm in the culture and ethos between the two sides. Scoble alludes to this in discussing Yahoo's challenge in finding the right CEO who can address all of these very different constituents.

Tech and Internet companies develop their products in the open. As I mentioned last week, beta (e.g. unfinished products) is viewed as a good thing. A beta brings valuable feedback that makes version 1.0 even stronger. Further, many Valley companies happily share and open kimono to all - competitors too. Take Yahoo's Hack Day for example, which is now underway in London.

This is very different in the media-industrial complex, where secrecy rules. He/she who dies with the most information is king/queen. This is why leaks are constant, more so than in tech. Washington DC operates in a similar way, though it's even more complicated there.

However, technology is changing all of us. We are all becoming more and more Valley every day, whether we like or not. We live online in the Valley's creations. Business recognizes that to thrive, it must embrace technology because that's what we do as consumers.

Very slowly, media, marketing and entertainment companies are changing their cultures to become more like their counterparts in Silicon Valley. Take business casual attire, for example. It started in the tech industry and now most of us have it at least part time.

The changes go deeper, however. Media companies like the BBC, WeatherBug, The Economist, The New York Times and Reuters have lab sites (these liks go to the lab pages). These are sandboxes where consumers can play with and give feedback on betas.

Marketers are joining the club too. American Express just launched a beta program where you can test new concepts. Everyone is beginning to recognize that the principles of Wikinomics that were pioneered in the Valley - openness, peering, sharing and acting globally - are good business overall. It's like the end of communism in the 1980s. The changes were gradual at first, then dramatic.

Last week's event certainly was a step in the right direction to closing Silicon Valley's Valley. Progress was made. But we still have more to go. However, it's clear that the Valley and the media-industrial complex are committed to closing the gulf and that is very exciting."

So a message to both sides, let's get together ...C is for Collaborate (or conversation and community if you'd rather):

To the marketeers, dispense with C being about conquering, capturing, commandeering and controlling
To the webheads, forget about C being about capitulating, conspiracy theory, constant criticism and  commercial-free.