The afternoon began with a behind-closed-doors Digital Minds Summit, whose aim was to bring together those TV executives best-equipped to form entertainment’s future, and encourage them to think, brainstorm and exchange about just that.
It was attended by top-tier executives like Disney Media Networks’ Ben Pyne, YouTube’s Patrick Walker and The Project Factory’s Guy Gadney, who reflected on the summit: “I think it’s confirmed what my thoughts were, which is that there is a bit of revolution ahead.”
Guy Gadney, The Project Factory: revolution ahead (MIPCOM)
Revolution, indeed: one of the key themes of the Digital Minds Summit was better preparing yourself to brave today’s ever-changing technology landscape. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Marcel Fenez summed the consensus up best: “It’s all about risk-taking, who takes it, and who pays for it. You can never prepare for risk, you just have to take it.”
Marcel Fenez, PwC: Philosophy of risk taking (MIPCOM)
But how do you take a calculated risk if you can’t even determine where you stand? This was the question Dubai-based MBC Group’s Ammar Bakkar posed to himself. “It has been an educational session, but it opens more questions than it provides answers because this is the current situation: basically, there is so much to learn about our future than to know about it,” he said.
Ammar Bakkar, MBC Group: The Pandora’s box of innovation discussion (MIPCOM)
But not everyone felt uncertain. As Discovery Channel’s John Honeycutt pragmatically put it, “There are three tenets that move our business: Content, advertising, and affiliate. That’s a very simple thing, because that’s what the whole business is about: if I have good content, I can get good affiliate fees, and I can monetise it from an ad sense point of view. So every opportunity that comes at us, that’s the filter that we put it through.”
John Honeycutt, Discovery Channel: The filter for gauging new KPIs (MIPCOM)
The summit then moved on to the Digital Game-Changers Networking Drinks (photo), where MIPCOM’s future-focused delegates exchanged ideas, content and business cards. Autonomy/Aurasma’s augmented reality demo, already shown at that afternoon’s Disruptive Media conference, was a notable hit with guests.
Tech companies such as Smartclip, Monterosa, Vuguru, Akamai, Hulu, Rovi, Samsung, Orange, Vodafone and Yahoo were all present; as were digital executives from TV companies like the BBC, Russia’s CTC Media, Endemol, FremantleMedia and Zodiak.
Plenty of food for thought, then! As one final take-away, below is the Connected TV keynote presentation given at the start of the Digital Minds Summit, by Gerd Leonhard of MediaFuturist.com.
Gerd Leonhard’s MIPCOM Digital Minds Summit Connected TV presentation
