Janet Stilson

Looking Under the "Hood" of Very Successful People

Recently, someone asked me what kind of journalism writing I liked to do the best.  That was easy to answer.  Because in addition to the pleasure I get from digging down deep into issues and trends, I love to write profile articles about people that I find inspiring.

Successful people generally have some really interesting stories to tell, and they give me clues about the key character traits and personal philosophies that lead to the highest levels of achievement. Plus, they're just fun to speak with. (Sure beats meeting people at a cocktail party!)

I really enjoyed writing profiles of four individuals who were named "People to Watch in 2012" by The Financial Manager magazine. While all of the executives I wrote about were fascinating in their own ways, the comment that resonated most deeply for me came from Patrick Walsh, who is pictured here.

Teetering On The Economic Cliff Edge

You could have heard a pin drop last week when Heather Goodchild spoke before a group of media executives in New York. Goodchild is managing director of media and entertainment debt ratings at Standard & Poor. And she was delivering a very grave assessment of where the economy is headed, and the media business in general, at the Media Financial Management Association's Outlook 2011 conference.

She had the demeanor of Bette Davis in her bright red dress, big pearl necklace and conservative hairdo. And Davis could have hardly done better in conveying a tone so very similar to a doctor telling a patient about a very serious ailment with the utmost tact.

Goodchild noted that the gross domestic product (GDP) outlook is worsening. S&P has lowered its GDP forecast for full-year 2011 to 1.6% from 2.4%. A 2.5% GDP is considered normal, and S&P doesn't expect it to rise above 2% for the next two years.

Our Fish Eat Fish World

Can you believe that some sharks have around 300 teeth? Or that every so often a shark gets pregnant without a male around? Those are just two of many facts I learned while writing about Discovery Channel's Shark Week, which has been riveting audiences for 24 years now, and gets underway July 31.

The big mama shown here is named Curly, the "star" of a new Shark Week special called Jaws Comes Home (Photo Credit: Discovery Channel). I really like that show.

My article will appear in a magazine called Delight!, which just published the first story I wrote for them, about Travel Channel's Man V.Food Nation series. You can access it here:  Download Delight - Man V FN - June 11

The primal world of sharks puts me in mind of the media industry, where companies are constantly shape shifting in hopes of climbing up to a higher rung on the food chain. I've been listening to many media deep thinkers in the last few months talk about how the business is evolving.

Defying Journalism's Realities

It's enough to give give a journalist whiplash -- finding out that there's actually a news organization that's hiring reporters in droves, rather than laying them off en masse. It runs counter to the general trend that most news services have faced over the last several years.

So it was a particular pleasure for me to write an article about Allbritton Communications' raging success, Politico, which is both a newspaper and an online news source dedicated to providing Washington, DC insiders with the very latest news about their various interests. That's Politico's bustling newsroom in the image above.

Advertising's Growing 'Community' Agenda

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Maria Luisa Francoli, CEO of the media-buying ad agency Havas Media North America, and CEO of Havas' MPG Global buying unit. That's her, pictured at left.

I heard Francoli speak at a recent MPG Collaborative Alliance session during Advertising Week, hosted as always by the witty Mitch Oscar. And that prompted me to pitch a Q&A story featuring her thoughts to TVNewsCheck. They snapped it up.

Like Francoli herself, Havas and MPG have roots in Spain, but they are giant multinational ventures. Havas Media North America spent $2.7 billion on ad placements in 2009 alone,

Putting Social Nets to Work

Second Life isn't just a fanciful way to pass the time at IBM. When new employees join the giant corporation, they are asked to create their own avatar. And they attend virtual gatherings on Second Life as part of the orientation process, meeting with other new recruits as well as their managers.

That's one of the things I recently learned when interviewing Jackie Alcalde Marr (top photo) and Mary Ellen Kassotakis (bottom) concerning how companies are using social networks to engage their employees.  Along with Arthur Jue, they have written a book called Social Media at Work - How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance.

In my line of questioning, I tried to put myself in the mind of a media company that had gone through a painful downsizing in the last year and which had limited resources for new HR tactics.  Needless to say, that didn't take a lot of imagination.

Alcalde Marr and Kassotakis rose to the challenge. And along the way, they provided examples of the interesting social networking activities that are taking place not only at IBM, but at Nokia, British Telecom and their own company, Oracle.

Clash of the Cable-Telco Titans

Is the cable industry about to price itself out of relevance for a large share of Americans? That was one of the key questions I walked away with after hearing Craig Moffett speak recently.

It takes a really insightful media presentation to stop me in my tracks these days, having heard so many over the years. But Moffett (pictured here), did just that.

He's the VP and senior analyst of U.S. telecommunications, cable and satellite at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. And his talk gave me a new view of how the cable and telecommunications company's fortunes will change in the next few years.

It was enough to make anyone holding Verizon and AT&T stock reconsider how long they want to hold onto it. And his assessment of how cable will ultimately checkmate Dish and DirecTV gave me pause as well.

Passionate Pleas and a Passel of Projections

"Our projections are always right. But sometimes we get the years wrong."  That quip, from Gordon Borrell of Borrell & Associates, was among my favorite soundbites spoken at the Television Bureau of Advertising's annual powwow earlier today.

It resonated for me because I've spent the last month checking in with a series of media analysts, TV rep firms and TV station group executives to find out what expectations are for national and local spot TV advertising for full year 2010 and 2011. And my article on the topic published yesterday by TVNewsCheck in anticipation of both today's TVB conference and yesterday's Outlook conference organized by the Media Financial Management Association.

One of the most interesting aspects for me in reporting the story was the debate about whether the stampede of auto advertising this year will be followed by a healthy rise next year. Because that's traditionally been the dominant ad category for stations, it's an important topic for them.

Yesterday, Gene Cameron of J.D. Power told MFM conference attendees that the number of cars sold in the U.S. should climb from about 11.6 million this year to 13.2 million in 2011 -- and that pretty much mirrors what Steve Finlay of the auto biz bible Ward's Dealer Business said today at the TVB gabfest.

As there's a direct correlation between auto sales and auto ad spend, that's a really sweet curve for broadcasters. But interestingly enough (to me anyway), Cameron sees a flattening of auto sales in the 2014 to 2016 period -- when it is likely to hover above 16 million. That's about a million shy of its 2000 peak. And he couldn't tell me what that meant for media because there are so many unknown variables.

There were a few passionate pleas at the conference today for broadcasters to wake up and utilize digital media much more effectively than they have in the past or they'll miss the gravy train completely -- hearkening back to my interview with Rino Scanzoni of a few weeks ago (see post below).

Which brings me to another favorite quote from today, from Tracey Sheppach, a VP at the mighty Publicis, who has earned the nickname Sheppach-olypse because of her dire warnings to broadcasters: "Every person I've met who resists becomes a very unhappy person in the end."

Here's my story on the TVNewsCheck site and here's a pdf version: Download TVN - Spot Forecast 091510

Tough Talk From Rino Scanzoni

When I interviewed Rino Scanzoni a few weeks ago for TVNewsCheck, I could almost feel TV sales executives across the country wincing with displeasure as they read his very frank (some might say harsh) assessment of how stations need to change their ways.

Scanzoni is chief investment officer of GroupM, which is home to four ad agencies -- MEC, MindShare, MediaCom and Maxus. Collectively they managed advertising client purses of some $22 billion last year.

Essentially, Scanzoni, pictured here, doesn't think stations will ever see a return to the glory days of big ad expenditure, and have pretty much missed the boat on attracting a better business because they are slow to change and innovate.

Yet, when the story was posted two days ago, it actually drew some very thoughtful comments from readers, including self criticism along with some explanations concerning why they do business the way they do. Clearly, this is a sore spot, and one that sparks a lot of serious introspection.

Here's a pdf of the piece: Download TVN - Scanzoni Q&A 0810

And here's a link to the story with reader comments.

Spinning the World Forward

If there's anything that's informed my writing over the years, it's a healthy interest in what going to happen down the road. It's certainly a thread running through my film scripts, including the sci-fi movie that's a source of so much pleasure and personal conjecture these days.

And on the journalism front I really enjoyed the opportunity to speak with some of the media industry's deep thinkers for my feature article "Future Shock," which appeared in the Sept./Oct. issue of The Financial Manager, a very interesting magazine that I edit for the Media Financial Management Association.

Shelly Palmer of the online news show MediaBytes (pictured here) gave me a real understanding of what's about to happen when 4G mobile devices become prevalent. And my former boss Jack Myers, of MediaBizBloggers.com, also provided some provocative thoughts about the TV Everywhere concept championed by Comcast Corp., Time Warner and CBS.

The dramatic upheavals that are likely to hit the media industry may not be easy, but I'm betting they'll provide people like me with lots of extremely interesting topics for news stories in the months and years ahead.

Below is a link to the full article.

Download TFM - Future Shock - 0909