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YouTube checks facts, iPhone produces VR films, and work faces radical change

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From YouTube's new automated fact-checker, to the future of VR film production; Craig Hanna introduces the latest global perspectives that have caught his eye...
global perspectives

Global Perspectives is my regular round-up of the best marketing ideas and insights to inform and inspire. Here’s what’s grabbed my attention this week…

YouTube begins fact-checking.

Last week I asked: “Do tech companies need to be regulated?” While I believe the answer is, and always will be, a resounding yes, self regulation may help determine the depth of regulation that we eventually settle on. That’s why I liked the fact that YouTube was introducing automated fact checking which is definitely a small step in the right direction.


Is work set to change?

The future of work has been a low hum conversation for years. But with Covid-19 that hum is now a very loud buzz and in our opinion is key both to the post-Covid recovery (and what it will look like) and to the very future of consumption and therefore marketing.

I liked this deep dive from Deloitte asking about the very nature of work post-Covid. The future has to be about the strengthening of the social contract between employers and employees (and government) so we have trust, equitable sharing of profits and collaborative problem-solving of the big issues we all face.

And this resource page on the future of work from Royal Society of the Arts has lots of amazing content on this subject, yet again focusing on the need for a new social contract. Of course this mindset impacts marketing too and means we have to change how we go about our business. This article from GMA editor Mel Dixon sums up the marketing changes needed for 2021 rather well.

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Education is ripe for disruption too.

Linked to the future of work is the future of education. Rising costs for attending university or college and the maturity of online learning technologies are making a lot of people ask if attending university is the future or if there is a better path. This marketing changes needed for 2021 argues that we need to focus on skills rather than pure academic qualifications.

Certainly Google agrees (many others are planning to follow) with their new certification program offering practical training leading to roles with starting salaries of over $70k. The first 10k places are free (US residents only) but even after that the cost will be $49 a month. It’s backed by over 50 other large employers and Google says they will treat it as the equivalent of a degree. Wow! Compare that to $250k of college debt and it’s easy to predict a devastating swing away from the traditional education route. The question is how will traditional institutions fight back?


The great (un)bundle.

There are apparently only two ways to make money in business – bundling and unbundling. This came from an original Harvard Business Review Article from way back in 2014 but as Ben Thomson explains in detail, nothing has changed and in fact this is core to most tech companies’ business model. Certainly the recent announcement of Apple One shows that the world’s most valuable company is going all in on the bundle concept. They are more right than wrong.


VR + iPhone = the future of cinema?

A VR app, an iPhone and an imagination are now all that’s needed to make a blockbuster film.

“The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed” is the now famous 2003 quote from author William Gibson (Neuromancer) and one that I agree with 100%. The problem is not generally the innovation itself, it’s the refinement of that innovation and the problem of scale, the lack of a working ecosystem and insufficient democratisation of knowledge that is usually why there is a delay between the possible and actual.

So for years I’ve been hearing about VR, about the future of film, about the visual power of the iPhone but wow now we can see it coming together! To see how, check out the new VR film app Diorama and then take a look at what Steven Soderberg has created on an iPhone for his new Netflix release High Flying Bird.

 

What’s on your reading list? Join the conversation in the comments below.

 

Title image by Markus Spiske from Pixabay

Craig Hanna
Author: Craig Hanna
Managing Editor at GMA | www.the-gma.com

Craig Hanna is part owner and regular contributor to the GMA. He is also a product manager at Acquia for Site Studio, a low-code platform for building and managing enterprise websites in Drupal 8 (Craig was a co-founder of what was known as Cohesion before its acquisition by Acquia). Previously Craig established the training and consultancy business at www.econsultancy,com (Now part of Centaur Plc) and was responsible for the launch of their US office..

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