I love media – in all of it’s forms – but boy do the sands shift swiftly. Sports Illustrated will never live to see another swimsuit issue. Pitchfork, a 30 year old music magazine, is being folded into GQ. The once esteemed Baltimore Sun is failing under its new Sinclair ownership. The Barnes and Noble in downtown NYC just shuttered its doors. Once the enemy of independent bookstores, it now is a sad loss of a neighborhood store. According to Forbes, 200,000 media jobs were cut in 2023.

Tech media companies have not been spared. Spotify, Netflix, YouTube… the list of cuts stems from a variety of circumstances. Many say it was an overstaffing during the pandemic when media consumption was at an all time high, and that this is just a market correction. Methinks not. 

On a personal level, I’ll miss glossy mags, lavish movie sets, and big studio extravaganzas, but when one medium shrinks, the void gets filled. Today’s void filler is the emerging creator economy. It grows noisier each day with their own new media companies like JellySmack and Tubefilter. Aggregate associations like Creators Guild and Influencer Club help brands discover creators. Will anyone but the top 1% of creators be able to eke out a living as a creator? Hard to say, but we are seeing a huge shift in advertising dollars that are bolstering the creators. 

Every year, Freeman issues a large study of events industry trends and sentiments. The epiphany this year is that it’s not your grandpa’s trade show. A new generation of experience-hungry and pandemic-deprived attendees do not want to endure panel after panel (notice no one is requesting more keynotes). They want experiences that make them “feel”. They want memories. They want good food and after hours parties.

Changing Keys 
When choosing speakers, Freeman’s study points to audiences that want leadership’s POV more than celebrities. And they relish a mixture of aspiration and inspiration. 

This study is worth the read and is guaranteed to make you do some soul-searching about how to shake it up. 

Graphics Prompting for Dummies
The best way to learn to write a good prompt is to start with the simple, and keep iterating with more nuance. The Washington Post has a nice tutorial to show you how to put the finer touches on DALL·E and Midjourney. 

Davos and DeepFakes
OK, maybe you weren’t invited to brave the frigid temperatures and show off your winter wear at Davos, but along with talks about pressing issues like climate change and geopolitics, the future of AI was very much front and center. 

Ethical AI practices are going to be a sticky wicket. Conor Leahy, CEO of Conjecture, spoke at a Davos event, reported by Time Magzine. He beseeched the audience to start regulating the easy AI stuff that we can all agree is bad. Deepfakes, he says, are evil. They are hurting our political process, defaming women, and stealing livelihoods. He lays out a strong argument

Juicy Speakers
At the PCMA conference in San Diego, the Clintons (both Hilary and Bill) were featured speakers. Just a few days before their appearance, Bill’s name had been listed on the Friends of Jeffery Epstein documents released in court. The New York Post offers the most tawdry discussion of the relationship. 

PCMA took a calculated chance that the Clinton’s would attract crowds. Attendees of the conference were of two minds. Many objected to the long lines and intense security checks to get into the room. They simply skipped it. 

There’s a certain irony to the Clintons appearing as the guest stars at an event for catering to meeting planners. While the Clintons waved the flag for in-person meetings because meetings  amp up human connection, when you get right down to it, it’s meeting calendars that have brought both Bill and Hilary to their knees over the years.  

Event planners are speaking AI
Let us count the 20 ways. GlueUp shares some sensible ideas about about how to integrate AI throughout the event process.