The “do” economy (or: why I’m glad Murdoch’s charging for content)

So Rupert Murdoch’s announced he’s going to start charging for content for the Times newspapers in the UK. This guy thinks it’ll work. This guy doesn’t.

For me, it doesn’t really matter either way, I’m just glad he’s doing it.

Do I support pay walls? No.

Do I think it’ll work? No.

But it’s good because someone, somewhere is doing something.

I’ve used this illustration a couple of times when I’ve given presentations about the future of journalism. It sums up the fact as an industry we’re at a crossroads. Lots of different directions ahead, and the only road we know we can’t take is the one we’ve all just walked up.

But all we’re doing is standing in the middle like a huge flock of sheep arguing about which road to take. And going nowhere.

Murdoch’s announcement marks a positive step forward: someone is walking down one of the roads. Will it work? Who knows. The important thing is he’s trying – and only by actually doing something – something different to what we did before – will change happen.

Lindsey Agness at The Change Corporation sums it up:

“The important thing [is to take] action – sometimes it felt like two steps forward and one step back, but it doesn’t matter as long as you are moving ahead.”

Richard Branson built his empire on the “screw it, let’s do it” mindset

“If something is what you really want to do, just do it. Whatever your goal is you will never succeed unless you let you of your fears and fly.”

And now really is the time.  Multimedia journalist Henkrik Kastenskov over at the Bombay Flying Club summed up the crossroads perfectly this weekend:

“No such thing as the aftermath of an Extinction Level Event to fertilise the ground for new things to come. And the global economic recession was exactly that: an extinction level event.

“The impact of an almost overnight disappearing commercial print market in traditional media have had some profound consequences for the evolution of online media as the great meteor impact on the Yucatan Peninsula had on the off’ing of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, preparing the ground for the rise of mammals.

“…nobody gets ahead by following in the footsteps of others! That…new thing is still lingering somewhere off stage. And right now is the defining moment for that new set of rules to be written. It’s Year Zero, it’s come to Jesus time, and you guys out there are the authors of the new manifest. And frankly: at this point, anything goes.”

Sure, somethings will fail. But what have we got to lose? Anything goes. Just do it differently.

In fact, just do it.

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