Marshall McLuhan. Photo via the Musuem of Broadcast Communications.I was introduced to the writings of Marshall McLuhan when I was an undergraduate communications/journalism major at State University of New York at Buffalo in the early 1980s. We read McLuhan's best-known books, including Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man; The Medium is The Massage (my personal favorite) and The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. I have to admit that McLuhan's writing style put me off somewhat. But, while his books were certainly challenging, I was successful in grasping the essentials of the basic theories put forth by McLuhan, including these key concepts:
- Each medium, independent of the content it mediates, has its own intrinsic effects which are its unique message.
- The message of any medium or technology is the change of scale. The railway, for example, did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society. Rather, it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, thus creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure.
This “medium is the message” theory applies to our new digital world as well. Digital media is now “the message” because it is digital media that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.
It is this specific McLuhan logic that, I believe, applies to an event that occurred earlier this month called The Influencer Project: The Shortest Marketing Conference Ever. The event, presented on July 6 by ThoughtLead, promised “60 of the Web's Leading Thinkers Share How You Can Increase Your Digital Influence for Good and Profit in 60 Minutes.” The gimmick was that each speaker presented his or her talk in 60 seconds, and then it was on to the next presenter.
I signed up to “attend” this conference online. I was curious as to how the medium (digital media in the form of a series of intentionally short presentations) impacted the message (how to market your product or service effectively in today’s digital world). There’s no doubt the "60 Speakers in 60 Minutes" concept was clever and catchy. It created buzz. Most important, it proved to be an effective delivery method that yielded useful information (albeit not necessarily new information). Earlier today the event organizers sent out an email stating that, from the date they got the big idea for the "60 in 60," they accomplished astounding results from a marketing standpoint:
...a little over a month later, we had generated more than 4,500 new leads, been mentioned in more than 4,000 tweets, generated more than 1,000 Facebook fans, and built a global community of passionate, engaged thinkers and doers.
In the recent past, when I took the time to attend a conference (in person or via webinar), I wanted time to reflect upon what I’d heard. I've always appreciated having a few minutes for my mind to wander with new information in order to think through how it might apply to my situation. I also valued an opportunity to dig deeper by asking questions of the presenter. The “60 Speakers in 60 Minutes” did not afford those luxuries. But, in the end, it didn't really matter because the online event delivered exactly what it promised: dissemination of expertise in an innovative new format that was short and convenient. In this case, the medium trumped the message.
This brings to mind another famous McLuhan quote (words uttered decades before the emergence of today’s digital world): “The future of the book is the blurb.” To expand on that thought, if the success of the "60 Speakers in 60 Minutes" conference is any indication, it appears that the future of the conference presentation is now the sound bite. It's too soon to say whether this is a good thing.