10/13/2005 01:36:00 PM 
Could you briefly describe your role at Business Week?
Last June I began writing a weekly column on media and marketing called Media Centric. This week I started up a blog called
Fine On Media
Why does Business Week care about the world's of marketing and media?
For the same reason we care about any other industry that takes in multiple billions of dollars in revenues and touches the lives of billions of consumers on a daily basis. Media and marketing are also at a pretty unique inflection point right now. Virtually every established business model in both industries face, to put this as gently as possible, an era of convulsive change.
What are the key developments that most interest you in the marketing world today and why?
Where to begin? The ongoing transition from consumers interacting singly and passively with one medium at a time to consumers surrounding themselves with multiple media at all times. The convincing counter-narrative that the Internet presents to advertisers that rebuts the long-held value propositions of traditional media. The continuing trends towards ad-skipping in certain media, and the ways in which marketers will try to end-run around them. When I was younger I cringed at my elders' assumptions that kids didn't read or were having their brains destroyed by pop culture and television. The media choices have multiplied but variations on these concerns persist. The current one, though, is that the next generations are molding a new world of technology and media that will be way too bewildering for poor, single-tasking 20th Century minds. (This one I find more amusing than anything else.)
Broadly, all past assumptions are under great stress and the future appears up for grabs. It's a fascinating moment.
What impact are bloggers having on your world- good and bad?
There have always been more good information sources and vivid writers than the structure of mainstream media could accommodate. Now it's easier to find them. This is a net good for anyone interested in information flow. It also makes it somewhat terrifying if you run or are
employed by any mainstream media outlet.
If you could be CMO at any brand today, where would you like to be and why?
At any company willing and/or insane enough to try anything that's located on the South Island of New Zealand.
Any books that you consider to be essential reading for marketers?
Right now all I can think of are the stacks and stacks of badly written sales and branding books I see here and at Ad Age, where I used to work. In other words: I'm drawing a total blank.
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