Successful convergence means having the willingness to subordinate your media expertise instead of imposing it. It means treating a new medium on its terms – not yours. It means having the patience to relax and follow your curiosity instead of hyperventilating and chasing the crowd. We need to be convergence contrarians – willing to challenge conventional wisdom, yet able to explore other possibilities. Now I don’t care what software, hardware, firmware, floppyware, infoware, or underware that technology convergence creates for our creative communities. I just care that real editorship is involved in the process, contrarian and contentious all the way, because I trust absolutely that interesting things will follow.
Predictor: Diller, Barry
Prediction, in context:A 1995 article for Wired magazine, carried the keynote address delivered by QVC CEO Barry Diller at the American Magazine Conference in Laguna Niguel, California. Diller also served as chair and CEO of Fox Inc. and worked as an executive at ABC and Paramount, and his words come from those experiences. Diller says: ”You cannot begin to understand the nexus of all these new technologies until you jump in and experiment. Open your mind to new ways of perceiving and processing. Learn the unique properties of this new universe. That takes patience, the patience to pursue the possibilities of unintended consequences. Knowing that should not be inhibiting, but liberating … successful convergence means having the willingness to subordinate your media expertise instead of imposing it. It means treating a new medium on its terms – not yours. It means having the patience to relax and follow your curiosity instead of hyperventilating and chasing the crowd. We need to be convergence contrarians – willing to challenge conventional wisdom, yet able to explore other possibilities. Now I don’t care what software, hardware, firmware, floppyware, infoware, or underware that technology convergence creates for our creative communities. I just care that real editorship is involved in the process, contrarian and contentious all the way, because I trust absolutely that interesting things will follow.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Don’t Repackage – Redefine! We Have to Resist Media Imperialism – the Tendency to Colonize, to Define New Technologies in Terms of the Old
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/diller_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney