Reality Check...

It's time to let go

A few years ago on a trip to Maine, Neva and I indulged in a particular “guilty pleasure” that had its roots in a teenage fantasy neither one of us had realized, up to that point, we shared. The act produced an incredible mixture of feelings and emotions. There was the rush of adrenaline, like a ride on a world-class roller coaster, mixed with intermittent waves of guilt for allowing ourselves to be irresponsible and maybe even a little dangerous and immature? I have to say, it was more than a little out of character for both of us. But, as so often happens when you open a Pandora’s Box, our giggly pledge to do it “just this once” was quickly forgotten when it was time for our next getaway. Habits, especially bad ones, form quickly and die hard.

It all began with a rented cobalt blue Ford Mustang convertible complete with a V-8 engine whose roar echoed off the hills and valleys as we wound our way from Bangor to Bar Harbor. After that, there were thrilling encounters with Dodge Challengers, Chargers, and a Camaro, I believe it was. Muscle Cars…or at least modern day homages to the motorized icons of Americana that had been the stuff of dreams back in the days of our youth. GTOs, Firebirds, and Corvettes…oh my!

It was a fun dalliance but, surprisingly, also a little sad. Even as we’d be thundering down the highways smiling a little too broadly and singing along with the classic rock on the radio a little too loudly, there was always a sense that these now too big, too loud, rented machines were mere shadows of a past long gone. A nostalgic reminder of a romantic time - our teenage years so long ago - when cars were way cool and nobody ever thought twice about what they might be doing to the environment. It really was a simpler, less guilt-ridden time. Or, as Forbes.com put it…

“We grew-up believing that having and owning a car was a crucial part of life, something that was a must-do. Getting a driver’s license was a rite-of-passage, showcasing that you were progressing from being a kid to becoming an adult.

Being able to legally sit behind the steering wheel was a source of pride. You were in-charge of a multi-ton beast, demonstrating your strength and virility (for both men and woman!). The car gave you street cred among your late-teens peers. It was also a source of freedom, being able to escape from the overshadowing heavy-handed control of your parents and stood as a path to your rightful independence.”

According to the article (and many since) that lusty, emotional connection with our cars came to a screeching halt when Millennials and Gen Xers got behind the cultural wheel…so to speak. Heightened concerns about the environment are, of course, a driver behind the shift, but really, the young’uns are just not that into cars. No James Dean-esque American Graffiti hot rod fantasys. No nothing. Just four wheels, an engine, and a Spotify playlist. A utility to get from point A to B when there are no better alternatives. I weep…

As a rule, most of us don’t do change very well. When we’re emotionally involved in something, especially when that thing is tied to so many experiences and memories, we tend to hang on like the kitten at the end of the rope. We cling to denial far too long as we move through the five stages of grief associated with the loss. We find ways to describe the change as just a “blip.” A fad. A trend. Nothing a little improved gas mileage or less smoggy emissions won’t remedy. But…at some point, reality forces us to confront the fact that it’s over. It’s time to move on.

Late last summer, Dodge announced they would no longer produce gas-powered Challengers or Chargers and Chevrolet let us know that an all electric Corvette would be offered in 2024. Both acknowledgements that reality had finally sunk in and forced their hands. Clearly, the car business has entered a new era. Damn Millennials and Gen Zers…

Harder For Some…

What the car industry came to realize - environmental and governmental pressures aside - was that support for continuing down the muscle car path no longer existed. Save for the Boomers and a few older-souled Gen Xers, nobody wanted ‘em. Culture had moved on and the beautiful monster machines, so much an object of fantasy for decades prior had now joined that “remember when” list occupied by hula hoops and civil war re-enactors. Reality is a bitch…

Now it’s time for the television industry to do the same. Traditional broadcast TV, as constituted, is playing out the string. Technology, economics, and a very different consumer culture make it a when, not If, proposition. And yet, many in our business continue to focus on finding the “new and improved version” of the old design. Believing, I guess, that prettier pictures will magically make a new generation discover the error of their ways and fall in love with something they now barely give the time of day, much less, actually care about. Denial. It’s sad.

Over the past few weeks there seems to have been a resurgence of panicked conversation surrounding a platform called ATSC 3.0. It’s something many cling to as the silver bullet that will cure all of the industry’s ills. Better, brighter pictures and audio, new revenue streams through expanded data delivery. It’s often characterized as the greatest advancement since HDTV. So far, it’s being used by TV stations covering about 60% of the country and its proponents have characterized its continued expansion as a race against the clock to save the flagging broadcast industry. In fact, a few weeks ago, admitting efforts had stalled, NAB President Curtis LeGeyt and a contingent of broadcasters paid a visit to the FCC and asked that they establish a national task force to break the log jam and get things moving. They told the commissioners that the new tech would allow them to better compete with the Apples, Googles and Hollywood monsters all trying to force them out of business; allow them to keep pace with the pesky streamers in terms of video and audio quality. In other words, they think the solution lies in the hardware.

I myself am skeptical of ATSC 3.0’s magical powers, but a recitation of its tech virtues as qualification for being a salvation is to miss the point entirely. Those things would matter IF there was a critical mass desperately rooting for broadcast TV’s survival. A new audience recently discovered under a very big rock poised and ready to be dazzled. There is not.

You see, it’s like those muscle cars. Once you get past Baby Boomers and maybe the first half of Gen X, there is no sentimental or romantic connection to broadcast television at all. Screen mobility and content independence have become much more important than gathering around the family TV to watch Seinfeld. Better picture quality? Eh. Not important. Better audio? Nope. Just check the stats for YouTube, Tik Tok, and Instagram usage on smartphones. Here’s the hard truth. The decline of the broadcast industry is a software problem not a hardware one. New tech will not be its salvation. And…even more important to note - simply transferring the output of the existing software to a new platform like streaming - enhanced picture quality and all - will only hasten a rapid spiral into total irrelevance. In other words…it’s not how you’re doing it that matters. It’s what you’re doing. Just as all the CGI special effects in the world won’t save a truly bad script, ATSC 3.0 will not save a product that no longer is relevant to the time.

In Search of a Beginner’s Mind…

Meditation teachers talk frequently about the beginner’s mind - i.e. the ability to set aside learned, preconceived notions in favor of approaching each day, challenge, or circumstance with the curiosity and openness of a child - considering all possible options, not just the tried and true. Zen Buddists call it Shoshin. Here’s how noted author Shunryu Suzuki describes it…

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few." Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

There’s a great story told in the documentary AlphaGo about the Chinese game of Go - the oldest continuously played board game in the world - and the computer program that challenged the recognized human master of it, much like the IBM Big Blue computer program that took on chess champ Gary Kasparov in 1997. Cutting to the chase, the computer program beat the human master handily because it entered each match with no pre-learned habits or favorite moves. With each and every play it considered every possibility without favor for one over the other. While the human master was influenced by past precedent and personal habits or style, the computer was not. Big Blue did the same in defeating Kasparov. Shoshin - Beginner’s Mind.

The opposite of Shoshin, by the way, is something called the Einstellung Effect, or mechanized state of mind, which can be described this way:

“We tend to formulate our problems in such a way as to make it seem that the solutions to those problems demand precisely what we already happen to have at hand. With respect to the conduct of inquiry, and especially in behavioral science, I label this effect “the law of the instrument.” The simplest formulation I know of the law of the instrument runs this way: give a small boy a hammer and it will turn out that everything he encounters needs pounding.” Abraham Kaplan, Philosopher and pioneering investigator of the behavioral sciences

By way of example, the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1903…very Shoshin. A lot of making it up as they went along. Reacting and adapting to new learnings and circumstances in real time and - voila! - the human experience was changed forever and commercial air travel was soon to follow. Television definitely started out that way, as well. Before Philo Taylor Farnsworth and his fellow pioneers, who in their right mind would have ever thought it possible to send live pictures magically through the air all around the world. They were true, free-thinking, nothing is impossible, Shoshin freaks. They had to be. There were no books, no accepted practices to achieve what they wanted to achieve.

Today, however, both TV and the airline business find themselves way over there on the Einstellung side of the gauge, living off past glory. For both, it seems, change only comes in the tiniest of incremental steps as the same ol’ same ol’ gets a fresh coat of paint or gentle tweak. Airlines manage to chug on because there’s no better alternative…yet. Broadcast TV? Not quite so lucky.

For the third week in a row I will mention the notion of Civil Media and Civil Journalism, which calls for a cooperative relationship between the media, the people it serves, and the governments and agencies who function to facilitate daily life in each community. Maybe it’s not a notion on the revolutionary scale of Wilbur and Oroville’s Wright Flyer or as gee-whiz as the first TV’s introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, but it is a significantly new way to look at the industry, it’s service, and continued and expanded relevance going forward. It is Shoshin. It’s a new software solution totally non-dependent on hardware choice. It’s an approach that seems to fit with both the needs of the moment and the cultural orientation of the new information consumers who seem to care far less about gadgets and status symbols than the potential value and importance of what’s being imparted. Software. Not hardware.

Beginner’s Mind Borrowed…

There’s an interesting book by legendary music producer Rick Rubin - The Creative Act: A Way of Being - which talks a lot about the importance of beginner’s mind in the creative process. Rubin points out that all “new” ideas are little more than variations, expansions, or extensions of those already in existence and that the employment of beginner’s mind absolutely includes a study of the work done by others to see what can be gleaned. He also espouses looking outside the boundaries of your particular interest, platform, or influence for inspiration. In other words, Shoshin, or beginner’s mind, doesn’t require sitting in a conference room straining to come up with the one idea Humanity has never contemplated. Instead, it’s having the openness and creativity to admire work both similar and unrelated to your own that leads to new inspiration. He cites a great case in point: The Beatles were huge fans of of Motown, and even though their own very British style seemed somewhat at odds with the soulful, bluesy riffs of songs made popular by the likes of The Temptations and Aretha Franklin, their admiration of that genre provided inspiration for a number of the band’s biggest hits.

Time to Get Very Scary…

This may be the toughest aspect of Shoshin of all. It takes a little time and a lot of trial and error, two things the microwave-style industry of media have never been overly fond of. Even in a day and age when reach and frequency of audience have dwindled mightily, media companies still seem to expect “overnight” results. It just doesn’t work that way. That mindset has led to what I call “low ceiling ideation” - which carries little risk, is easily measurable, and relatively inexpensive. Traditional media has, for decades, been fueled by “low ceiling ideation.” Brainstorming and innovation relegated to “oh by the way” status, addressed at a quarterly department head meeting or annual conference. Ideas collected, filed, and typically forgotten as the phones in the sales department continued to ring off the hook. Ah the good old days.

It’s time for the kitten to let go of the rope. Time to face the scary truth and respond in a way that demonstrates we understand the problem and we’re sure as hell going to do something about it. If I were sitting in a corner office atop a media empire, my first beginner’s mind idea would be to form a very different kind of task force. One comprised of innovators whose sole function was to redefine the product through the pursuit of the seemingly impossible. In fact, I think I’d call them The Impossibles, have t-shirts printed, the whole shebang. They would be a full-time staff of creators, observers, and executors, from all walks and disciplines. No low ceiling ideation or incrementalism allowed. Revolution or bust. If the idea was overtly plausible and/or easily doable it wouldn’t be an Impossibles idea, and the one who suggested it would have be forced to turn in their t-shirt (washed) and membership card.

Remember our story from a few weeks ago, Dare Mighty Things, that detailed the creation of NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance. A part of the story we didn’t get to was that of Ingenuity, the rover’s own little helicopter that flies both independent missions of exploration on the Red Planet and also works in tandem with the rover vehicle. Ingenuity embodies the very essence of the achievement of the impossible, and in fact, was created by a task force to do just that. While Perseverance was being created, the director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory attended a seminar on drone technology and came away with an exciting idea for something similar for the rover. There were several problems with the concept, the most overriding of which was flight on Mars, based on current and all known technologies, was virtually impossible. With an atmosphere 1% that of Earth’s, traditional designs would never have gotten off the ground. That might have been a non-starter for 99.9% of us, but this guy challenged his team to forget all they knew about flight and attack the problem from a zero based, mission specific perspective. In other words, reinvent flight for a very narrow set of circumstances for which there is no known technology or blueprint.

On April 19, 2021, Ingenuity made it’s initial flight on Mars and has flown a total of 42 missions to date. Now, back on Earth this little chopper could never match the power and presence of those magnificent muscle cars once deemed marvels of modern technology themselves, then again, it doesn’t need to. Ingenuity is currently exploring Mars. MARS!!! for god’s sake. An impossibility made possible courtesy of Beginner’s Mind. And that’s just one of thousands and thousands of examples of achievements, both scientific and artistic in nature, that all have two characteristics in common: an extreme passion for the mission and value it represents, and the willingness to start from absolute scratch - Shoshin - to make it happen. So I close with this, in the immortal words of En Vogue - yeah you heard me right - “Free your mind and the rest will follow…”