Is media covergence really overrated?

I have heard it said that the sign of a weak politician is one who claims to have been misquoted when held to account for a statement made to the press that turns out to have an unfortunate downside. Now I don’t lay claim to any political ambitions myself (ok check out the new picture hanging in my office … er come to think of it it’s the only one) but the quote in Bizcommunity recently has raised a number of eyebrows*. Now I’m not going to point out that of the nine trends I highlighted in the article Bizcommunity chose trend number 9 as the heading. I’m not going to point out that very few of the eyebrows raised have taken the time to read the article properly either; nor will I point out that Virginia Hollis of The Media Shop said much the same thing two weeks later—her point was ‘I am going to fall off my chair laughing next time a new media person assures me that new media is about to replace traditional media in terms of media spend’. Illustrious company indeed. So what am I going to point out? Firstly that I stand by what I said. Media convergence is overrated and I am astonished at the number of people who think that the way out of a really tough market is to talk media convergence as if it is going to provide us with a magic bullet. It won’t. In fact in a tough market all it does is distract us which is why we have to stay focused on the present. Does that mean we shouldn’t be doing anything in the new media space? Besides the question proving there is such a thing as a stupid question the answer is of course we should. We need to play in the new media space because that’s how we develop new media competencies. Why do we need these competencies? New media wrecks traditional media economies and that brings me to my second point. When new media arrives in a meaningful way (and it will) you had better be sure the corporate culture, and its resourcing, is ready. Playing in that new media space helps you do that but that doesn’t mean setting out with a purpose other than to ask the right questions, even if you don’t understand the answers. You certainly don’t set goals, or revenue targets. You let the market guide you, you develop your core competencies and you pounce when the opportunity presents itself. * (If you haven’t seen the article it’s the one entitled ‘Convergence is overrated’ and can be found at http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/423/31774.html )