First Day of Brainstorm: Tech

Posted by Don Peppers on July 22, 2009 in Fortune Brainstorm: Tech

One of the best sessions of the day was the first one up, with Robert Iger, CEO of Disney.  He said some very common-sense things that I couldn’t help but agree with.  For instance, Iger thinks one of the biggest problems for a media firm in the future will be figuring out just how to monetize its content.  He thinks there are four ways you can do this – advertising, micropayments, paid-for content, and subscription.  My guess, from his talk, is that his current favorite is the “subscription” model.   

He made a point that Disney is both a content creator and a content channel.  (Iger says they don’t view themselves as a cable company, even though analysts point out that 65% of Disney’s current revenues come form cable operations.  They think of themselves as a content company, and their brands include not just Disney, but ABC, ESPN, and so forth.

Iger’s basic issue, however, is that anything that ultimately makes the user experience difficult will lessen consumption, so it’s important to be cautious.  For instance, even though there are people who don’t subscribe to multichannel services, the idea that only the people who do subscribe to these services should be allowed to get programming online is a bit anti-consumer, in Iger’s opinion. 

In terms of who “gets it” when it comes to the user experience, Iger demurred at first, but finally named companies like Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, and American Express online.

Another interesting session involved Charles Elachi, the Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who brought us “back to Earth” in terms of what was really important.  He talked some about the Mars Rover program, and a lot about the philosophical and economic justification of the entire space program.  Some highlights:

• The Mars Rover arrived at Mars at a speed of 12,000 mph, and had to slow down enough to land on the planet in just 6 minutes.  Lots of things had to go right, and nothing could go wrong.
• Over the next decade, the major things in robotic exploration include the fact that we will have a permanent presence on another planet, Mars, and over ten years we will figure out how things really work on this planet.  We’ll see how the planet functions
• Within ten years we should also know whether there is life on any other planet or body in our solar system (like Jupiter’s moon Europa)
• Also, within ten years we’ll know which of the 2000 stars closest to our own solar system have planets, and which of these planets is like ours

Hey, my college degree (from the Air Force Academy) is in Astronautical Engineering, so Elachi had a very willing audience in me.  I found his session absolutely captivating. 

More later…

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Tags: branding, content, user experience