Don't consolidate, innovate
There's a short piece in the Globe and Mail this morning that caught my eye... though I gather not everyone will find it as interesting or funny as I did. It's a short article about a speech Canwest executive Leonard Asper gave this week.
Media folks in this country seem to love to rail about the regulation in this country that prevents them from competing in global markets. They trot out the notion that regulation just encourages mediocrity, not excellence and competitiveness on the world stage.
I'll give Asper credit for identifying his future competition:
To compete with Web giants such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and others, Canadian media companies not only need to get bigger -- they need Ottawa to let them consolidate, Mr. Asper said.
"There will never be concentration like there was before because you have Google, you have MSN and you have Yahoo. You have all these companies that are competing against The Vancouver Suns and the Ottawa Citizens," Mr. Asper said. "So let us consolidate."
I've got an idea. Instead of pissing and moaning about how the government won't let you consolidate - INNOVATE. The next innovation in media could be sitting inside your company, and you wouldn't even know it. Why couldn't Flickr have been born inside a media organization? Digg? Technorati? Any of these could have been set up for a minimal investment inside Canwest, but instead, the most creative you can be is to throw a tantrum about how the government won't let you do more mergers? What's the word I'm looking for.. How.. mediocre.
