Jacob Shwirtz's Shwirtzings

My Big Work-Life Update

After over two years working on amazing, forward thinking projects, across all brands and levels of Viacom, its time for me to move on. I don’t yet know what the next full-time adventure in my career will be, but I couldn’t be more excited for what 2013 has in store.

Its been an amazing time, working at the nexus of such fast-moving trends in Social TV, social media and digital strategy overall. Within Viacom I served as a thought-leader on ever-changing trends and a facilitator, working across silos and levels to connect lots of dots, launch lots of pilots, arrange enterprise-wide deals and whatever else I could to insure we maximized our potential.

My famous wall of case studies in my office at Viacom about Social TV

Among external highlights, I’ve been a regular speaker and panelist at conferences about the future of TV, a guest blogger for LostRemote (the leading blog on Social TV), a subject for the book on Social TV, a member of the ‘top ten social media mavens in the media industry,’ and a resource for bleeding edge startups as they tried making the right connections across the complex landscape of such a large media company. I’ve built amazing friendships and professional relationships with so many people. No doubt these will continue and come into play wherever I end up next.

As far as what’s next, in my immediate future, the wife and I are embarking tomorrow on an amazing journey through America’s south. You can follow along as we #ShwirtzTheSouth (www.ShwirtzTheSouth.com)! The road trip spans from Savannah, Georgia to Las Vegas, Nevada, where I’ll be organizing an event I’m really excited about right before CES. Just to be clear, this event is not affiliated with Viacom.

An all-expense-paid, closed-door gathering that will span 2.5 days, The St0ry (www.TheSt0ry.com) brings together 30 of the brightest, most innovative minds, to discuss and strategize the future of storytelling and digital strategy. From C-level executives of hot startups to PhDs, Emmy-winners, published authors, film makers, artists, activists and managers of really successful YouTube content, this will be a one-of-a-kind event. I’ve also recruited Kevin Smith and Eliza Dushku to join the group as “guest catalysts.” This recent blog post best describes my inspiration for the event: The Great Storytelling Revolution.

That’s about all for now. Big life changes! Lots of excitement, lots of opportunities and I’m going to take my time deciding on next steps. If you have something interesting to share, don’t hesitate!

The Great Storytelling Revolution

As someone who’s always worked in the Internet space, I am noticing a new trend – the use of the language of storytelling to describe more and more of what we do. From product design to marketing, social media to corporate strategy, the themes of storytelling are becoming more and more apparent. Storytelling is as old as time (if there was a time before storytelling did it really exist?) but now its mark is appearing in the world of Digital and affecting much more than ever expected.

After reading this you’ll undoubtedly start noticing it too. Mashable announces a new homepage design that includes “storytelling units.” Story Worldwide launches as a ‘post-advertising’ agency focused on storytelling and making the point that “brands are competing with filmmakers, writers and entertainers, not other brands.” The news app startup Circa, getting so much buzz, focuses on creating “stories, not summaries.” A whole new offline, retail shopping experience debuts in New York named Story.

Just today there was press about Buzzfeed’s success, which is predicated on not displaying a single banner ad. They have amazingly talented people working with advertisers to figure out organic, storified ways of communicating their message into the fabric of the site.

The list really goes on and on and I promise you’ll start to notice it too, if you haven’t already.

I have a theory for why this is happening. We all know and talk about how social media is an engagement platform, not to be confused with traditional, overt marketing platforms. My theory is that we’re just starting to understand what that really means. Engagement requires a human touch, frailty, honesty, a soul. Stories are the best conveyors for that and ‘storytelling’ is a much more powerful iteration of ‘engagement.’ The better we become at storytelling, the more successful we’ll be.

From parody Twitter accounts to supercut videos, TED talks to the latest meme of the day (check out @SeinfeldToday) and so much more, we live in amazingly creative times, defined by a renaissance of storytelling that empowers altogether new tools to craft stories, new platforms to convey them and new ways to engage with them (and each other).

Technologies such as social and digital media need to be understood for their storytelling potential, not as technological ends in their own right. In an attempt to avoid using buzzwords, the language of storytelling has taken over how I describe what I do, what I think others should do and why I’m so excited to be in the Digital field (which is the fastest-growing storytelling medium in the history of the world). Any company or person not seriously pondering how to understand and relate to these trends is in danger of being left behind.

This is the key reason I decided to name my pre-CES gathering of 30 mavens The St0ry and it’s the inspiration for what I know will be a vibrant, passionate brainstorm over our several days together.

Will storytelling take social TV’s center stage in 2013?

As social TV continues to evolve, with more start-ups, more consolidation and broader impact on our industry, it seems appropriate to take stock of 2012 and try to foresee what 2013 has in store for the hottest buzzword in the media industry.

The easiest way to understand social TV in 2012 is as a technology and marketing vehicle. Digital marketing and digital product teams at media companies spent 2012 building apps, connecting to APIs and starting to understand metrics involving use of social by our audiences

On the product side, as an industry, we tackled questions like “how do we let people vote via Twitter?” and “do we need ACR solutions or should we not encourage on-demand consumption?” Perhaps most related to the bottom-line, we started figuring out that TV Everywhere is a major demand that needs to be supported.

On the digital marketing side, Twitter remained the de facto horizontal second screen experience. No “killer app” for social TV came close. We figured out the role of GetGlue, Viggle, IntoNow and others, while waiting for Facebook to make a bolder move in TV (we’re still waiting!) More broadly, we saw Pinterest, Instragram and Viddy become extremely important. Finally, we were excited to see Tumblr launch an ad product and work on discovery, justifying increased resources dedicated to Tumblr engagement.

Regarding the above, 2013 will see us evaluate the impact of Zeebox’s major US partnerships (that include heavy on-air promotion, unlike any other player in the field). We’ll continue to anxiously await Facebook’s TV strategy, while keeping tabs on the new Viggle-GetGlue merger. The biggest highlight will be TV Everywhere.

But there’s something even bigger that 2013 has in store; a new understanding that has the potential to overshadow other trends. It may take until the second or even third quarter, but eventually industry executives will start to think of social TV as much more than a technology or a marketing/distribution platform.

The big win, the ultimate expression and promise of social TV, is the understanding of digital and social media as storytelling media. TV’s best expression isn’t as a marketing tool for radio and social media’s best expression isn’t as a marketing tool for TV.

When conversations of social TV originate within the departments of TV executives, we’ll know we have arrived. Just as they don’t rely on their “digital executive” counterparts to tell them which cameras to use, or which editing software to use (even though both the cameras and the software are digital), so too will they take a much stronger stance in social strategy.

A key project to keep tabs on is Syfy’s Defiance. A massive investment and over two years of work brings us this new show and simultaneous online role-playing game (created by Trion Worlds) that will launch in April, 2013. More so than any other announced project, Defiance holds the best hope for showing the true power of convergence.

This switch in mind-set, namely the evolution from technology and marketing to storytelling, is a driving force behind my latest project, The St0ry. For 2.5 days before CES, in January, 2013, I’m assembling 30 innovative, fascinating people, behind closed doors, for an off-the-record discussion and brainstorm about the evolution of digital trends and the elevated stature of storytelling in what we all do. Although the event is a private one, I’m confident there will be several outcomes and conclusions that we’ll publicize.

Will social TV storytelling take center stage in 2013 as producers struggle to do more with less? Big bets like Defiance will be on everyone’s radar in 2013, so stay tuned…

-reblogged from my posting to LostRemote.com

Social TV: How Viacom is transforming audience engagement

Social was a term on the tip of every media and marketing tongue in 2012, and it’s poised to stay there in 2013. Social media has permeated so much of what people and companies do. Within Viacom, it’s informed and evolved how we market our content and how we connect with our audience. It’s introduced new revenue streams and challenged old ones. Social is also starting to impact the very nature of the content we create, even melding with our traditional medium of television to give us an entirely new space to play in – Social TV.

At Viacom, we can no longer afford to think in terms of TV in cycles or seasons – the rhythms that have dominated the television industry for most of its existence have been replaced. Social media gives us a permanently open line of communication with the audience. Indeed, it’s forcing a redefinition of our relationship to our audience. How they consume our content, what they do with it, how it’s used as the fuel in their social conversations are all key topics we spend a lot of time thinking about.

This trend also necessarily begins to change our relationships with other companies, specifically those in the start-up ecosystem. The rate of change in the social TV landscape is extreme. As a result, we talk to start-ups, entrepreneurs and vendors small and large on an ongoing basis. Very few are turned away. It’s invaluable to hear the perspective of people on the front lines, working to empower our audience with new tools, new ways to create, share and even monetize their passions.

Our challenge is then to translate those conversations and insights into tangible pilots. Only in this way can we truly learn, understand the impact and evaluate deeper partnerships. IntoNow, for example, launched in early 2011 as a new player in the Social TV space. MTV was perhaps the first company to pilot their system, with a great contest and integration around Jersey Shore. Just a few weeks later, Yahoo! acquired IntoNow.

That sort of quick testing, early analysis and keen eye for partnering with stand-out startups is becoming more and more critical. Not all bets pay out, but we, and others in our industry, can’t afford to sit and wait.

We also recently entered a partnership with Zeebox, a successful Social TV company from England that launched in the U.S. two months ago with major partnerships from NBCU and Viacom. We believe Zeebox is fundamentally different from earlier players in the space and are working across the organization to maximize users’ experience when interacting with our shows on their platform. New players, technologies and ideas are entering the social TV marketplace at a breakneck pace. And, if we, as a content creator, only look inward for social innovation, we’ll fail.

We continue searching for the best entrepreneurs to work with and that’s why we’re excited to be a part of Mondelēz International’s Mobile Futures program. Companies like Mondelēz International are spending large amounts of money on traditional TV ads, and with the addition of Social TV they are getting more bang for their buck as it extends reach and drives further engagement – in fact, research has shown that connecting digital extensions to TV has been proven to double television ROI. Like Viacom, Mondelēz International recognizes that cross-screen integration is quickly on its way to becoming the most powerful strategy available to brand marketers and giving new meaning to the term “connected experience.”

-reblogged from my posting to the Mobile Futures blog

Speaking at StoryWorld

I’m excited to announce I’ll be speaking on the “Beyond Social TV - Now With Real Storytelling” panel at StoryWorld, in LA, in mid-October. You can see all the details here. 

The overview for the panel is:

While spoiler tweets, 2nd-screen apps and check-in badges have been getting all the buzz, they barely scratch the surface of how television can really be social and break the fourth wall. This panel will look at the heart of what makes a social TV experience thrive from a story perspective, going beyond today’s 3rd person experience where fans talk with each other about TV programs, and looking at the 2nd person experience where fans interact with TV characters, and the 1st person experience of fan fiction and fan co-creation. We’ll discuss the platforms, tools, techniques and best practices every Social TV storyteller needs, with insights from the networks.

Sounds great, right?! Totally up my alley and aligns with what I’ve been talking passionately about for several months. If you’d like to register for the conference, use code SWSPEAKER for a special rate of $525.

Spike is Social TV

Although my role at Viacom spans all our brands, every so often I get to work more hands-on with a specific one for a specific project. These days I’ve been working closely with our Spike team on the All Access brand.

The All Access concept is to take viewers deep inside the worlds of tech, gaming and comics - and do so across platforms and media, embracing the potential of Social TV. Spike is doing this with over 17 hours of live coverage from the upcoming E3 video game event as well as a weekly show that airs Thursdays and midnight (hosted by Katie Linendoll). After E3, Spike is also going to ComiCon for loads more live coverage across all screens.

At these mega events, Spike gets exclusive interviews, product demos, access to product launches, the key CEOs, celebrities and more. Content is streamed across all platforms, including on-air. And viewers are made part of the action through social interaction and live/dynamic poling where the on-air talent can basically have real-time conversations with the audience.

Spike’s 2011 live E3 multi-platform special was the number one destination for E3 coverage last year, garnering more than 10 million combined online and on-air viewers, and was also the largest live streaming event in Viacom history.

“E3 All Access Live” will be supported on Spike TV through “GTTV with Geoff Keighley,” “All Access Weekly” and “Playbook 360;” online on Spike.com and GameTrailers.com; socially through its Facebook and Twitter feed @SpikeTV; on popular gaming blog, Kotaku; and through mobile phones and tablets including iPhone, iPad and Android devices, as well as on the big screens in New York City’s Times Square. Also, for the first time ever, Spike will partner with sister Viacom networks, including MTV2; MTVU; VH1; Tr3s: Música y Más and others to provide additional programming coverage.

How ‘Viewers C’s the Moment’: A Social TV Research Exploration

Over the last several months, at Viacom, we’ve been conducting detailed, proprietary research on Social TV. Today we released the results and I wrote the blog posting below as an intro. This is re-blogged from my piece on the Viacom blog.

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“Social TV is about integrating your favorite TV shows into your life,” said Austin, a 23-year-old from Boston who uses Twitter, Facebook and GetGlue to socialize around television. Though there isn’t one single app or service that users are flocking to right now, the lack thereof hasn’t deterred viewers from finding creative ways to socialize around television and, like Austin, integrate their favorite shows into their lives.

Keeping up with how our fans consume and socialize around our content is one of my main goals here at Viacom. That’s why I am very excited about our new breakthrough research that digs into the emerging trends of Social TV.

While most of the social TV research out there focuses on volume – how many tweeted during a show or how many ‘friends’ a network has – we chose to explore the social TV phenomenon through the lens of the viewer. We set out to get to the heart of how our viewers think of social TV, what kind of apps, services and sites they use when socializing around TV, and what they want their social TV experience to be. To those who socialize about the shows they love, we found social TV is much more than a tweet or a ‘like.’

We coined the study “Viewers C’s the Moment” because of three “C’s” that kept coming up: communication, content and comments. Our viewers are engaging in an average of seven different social TV activities (online or offline) on at least a weekly basis. They are using multiple devices and services to interact with different social circles while watching a show. A few sentiments we heard over and over:

• Social TV is about interacting with the TV… and the best part is that I can do it with my friends
• Twenty years ago it was enough to watch TV, but now it’s fun to see what your friends are watching, and if they’re laughing at the same parts
• The whole experience of watching TV is becoming more fulfilling

As this new and exciting space evolves, we’ll continue to program with social in mind, and continue to evolve our strategies for engagement. With this research in hand, we’ve got some great fodder for thought.

The Methodology: 1) a national online survey of 1,566, ages 13-54 in January 2012 and 2) 24 ethnographies in Boston and San Diego.

Read the full press release detailing the “Viewers C’s the Moment” study by clicking here.

The day you’ll know social TV has arrived

This is a piece I published last Friday on LostRemote.com, The day you’ll know social TV has arrived:

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A new wave of conferences, meetups and events has swept through our convention halls in the last 18 months. TVnext, Social TV Summit, TV of Tomorrow, NewTeeVee and others bring together media, startups and vendors to discuss the future of television. After attending many of these and following all of them I have deduced a way to measure the arrival of “the future of television.”

There is a vast ecosystem of new technologies, social media strategies, digital marketing tools and analytical systems under the umbrella of social TV. Most people think of this new phenomenon as viewers using new digital offerings to socialize while consuming video content. The attendees of “social TV conferences” are therefore from digital product, digital marketing, social media, mobile and research groups.

This is easily understood by looking at the just-released roster of speakers at Hill Holiday’s upcoming TVnext event. It includes executives responsible for digital analytics (Trendrr, SocialGuide, etc.), digital and social marketing at media companies (BET, Bravo, USA, etc.), and third party social offerings (Miso, GetGlue, etc.).

I have nothing but respect for the organizers and their guests, many of whom I work with and have served with on other conference panels. The event’s panels are packed with valuable insights. However, I had an epiphany in realizing that this lineup is similar to previous events:

The future of TV won’t be here until people who make TV are in these conversations!

If social TV is about new digital products and social/marketing techniques then the future is here. If the phenomenon goes deeper, to the core of the TV business, to the very nature of the content we create, then we still have a long way to go. For me, the distinction is between “social viewing” as an evolution in the TV viewing/consumption experience and “social TV” as an evolution in what TV fundamentally represents.

To put it simply, if the TV content is the same then it’s not social TV. Likewise, social TV conferences can’t claim to discuss the future of TV if they only include digital folks.

The day we’ll know the promise and potential of social TV has arrived will be the day that conferences billing themselves as discussing the “future of TV” feature programming executives responsible for creating the content that drives the core business model of media companies.

Until those media executives invited aren’t relegated to job titles with the words “digital” or “social” in them we’ll know the future hasn’t yet arrived.

Until those vendors and startups invited work with content creators instead of digital marketers and social managers we’ll know the future hasn’t yet arrived.

The future of TV can’t just be about new forms of marketing or new types of mobile apps. It has to be – and will be – about new forms of content based on a fundamentally different relationship between viewers and creators.

Job Description of the Future

Below is my prediction for a fundamentally new type of job opening we will start seeing by the end of 2012 from media companies. The fictional job posting is based on a wider set of predictions about how evolving trends will continue to impact and redefine the way media companies create and market content, drive ratings and integrate new technologies and fans ever-deeper within their core business.

This shake-up in corporate structure and human resources is already underway. The movement is based on the slow extinction of divisions between online and offline, digital marketing and consumer marketing, digital content and TV content. As a quick example, most of us understand that social marketing is really social engagement. If all we’re doing is tweeting links to our sites we’re missing the boat.

This quarter and next we’re seeing a crop of new jobs with “multi-platform” in their titles. Part of the inspiration for my hopefully-thought-provoking prediction is actually a frustration with these new multi-platform roles. They refer to a unification of mobile, tablet and web as opposed to the more paradigm-shifting unification of online, offline and on-air.

Perhaps its a necessary step. In the longer-run, companies quicker to embrace the real potential of “multi-platform” will succeed. This realization will quickly extend to all parts of the business by the end of 2012.

Maybe we should call it omni-platform for a year and then just go back to calling it “content,” regardless of medium? If you hang an iPad on your wall does it become a TV? If GoogleTV was a portable device would it be a tablet? If you watch The Daily Show on Hulu are you suddenly watching digital content or is it still considered linear content?

The bottom line is that successful media companies will evolve cohesive department structures around creation of content, marketing of content and distribution of content. Each must and will include responsibilities across all platforms and mediums.

New job description:

Forward-thinking, content-creating media conglomerate seeking VP of Media to help usher in new era of content creation, marketing and monetization through holistic, digital-linear, online-offline-on-air strategies.

About the role:

Similar to how there used to be roles such as “VP of Telephone,” we believe “digital” and “social” as job titles/responsibilities have almost entirely lost their meaning. Everyone in the company “does telephone” and so will everyone soon “do digital” and “do social.”

This realization is exerting ever-more impact on our main business of content creation. As a result, “digital” will no longer be one or more separate departments (product, marketing, research, etc.) Likewise, “linear” is evolving and no longer pitching, producing and distributing shows the same way either.

Responsibilities for online, offline, on-air, web, mobile, tablet, smart tv, social and more no longer fall within separate teams but are rather uniting into new core business pillars of content creation, distribution and marketing.

Responsibilities include:

• As the concepts of “online,” “offline” and “on-air” lose their meaning (especially to story-tellers), you will act as the digital sherpa that guides non-tech-expert professionals to embrace how evolving cultural-digital trends and technologies impact their way of working.
• You will play a key role in the re-integration of responsibilities around our new pillars – each to include traditionally-digital and traditionally-linear responsibilities.
• Establish new work-flows within each pillar that maximize the impact from closer collaboration of roles that used to work in separate departments.
• Manage the ideation and execution of new tools that allow for deeper engagement of our audience within our processes, content, brands and experiences.
• Partner with content creators to re-think old paradigms and practices of greenlighting, casting, shooting, what a “season” is and what a “repeat” is.
• Launch innovative forms of content that have built-in strategies for driving engagement, tune-in and monetization beyond advertising.
• Assist marketing and distribution groups to better integrate and execute across all platforms and mediums

*The above represents a personal opinion and has no relation to my employer, any current or planned job openings or restructuring.