Digital Media Management

I've teach graduate students a course in Digital Media Management at the Baruch Zicklin School of Business (City University of New York). I constructed the course, continually refine it, and am proud of the ways I've revised my presentation of the "Content Value Chain" and its aspects.

I've also, always, got plenty to learn. Which is one reason I'm excited to be taking the IESE (a European biz school) course on Advanced Digital Media Management for the next three days.

Journalists and Business

Was talking with Jeff Jarvis, Anthony Moor, and another professional this evening at the Online News Association conference about journalists studying business issues. While Jarvis, who teaches an entrepreneurial journalism course, (rightly) said journalists don't need MBA-level business training, he and I agreed business acumen is needed. The question, though, came up of how to convince journalists they should learn anything about the business side. (I don't see the divider like I once did.) Here's one answer:

Only a fool doesn't care about the value of his work. And one of the best ways to understand the value being placed on what you do is to understand the ways business people think about it. That way, you have a much better chance of making sure you continue to have work to do, that it's sustained.

The Message Controls the Medium

Reading Jeff Jarvis' riff on Vin Crosbie's despair over the resistance to change, and came across this gem from Jeff:

We realize that we are teaching change [to students]. ... The structure of the industry changes and with it their jobs. And the structure of narrative changes as we have new ways to tell stories. So we are also teaching our students choice. They no longer pick a medium at the beginning of their careers and stick with it. Now, every time they tell a story, they have to make choices about the best ways to do that for their audience and for the story itself.

So, instead of McLuhan's "medium is the message," we have to do something I've been trying to educate myself to do for a generation: choose the appropriate medium for the message at hand. Hozzanah.

Oh, one more thing: I'm jealous of the offer Jarvis' journalism school makes to educate its students in the new tools forever: "As the tools of journalism continue to evolve in the Internet age, they can return to the school throughout their careers to update their technical and professional skills." I live in terror that my MBA (like Jarvis' school, part of the City U of NY) is rapidly decreasing in relevance, though it be a year old, and wonder when someone will supersede WACC and APV with some other way of valuing a company -- as just one example. So, c'mon educators: follow suit, will ya?