Technology has changed, not human communication

In the first part of Christie Hefner's presentation, she pointed out that while technology has changed the human instinct for interaction and communication has not. I think this is something that gets lost in the bubble discussions we sometimes get involved in. Techmeme aggregates news stories. Just like a newspaper did, picking out what it has decided are the most important things to read.

Playboy has tried to adapt to that, evolving the delivery of its content to new technology, from print to TV to online to mobile. There are so many communication channels that you have to define yours as a "destination" brand if you want people to visit it. The plethora (dare I say myriad) of choices has also led to some diminishing of existing brands.

So with that in mind it's important to maintain real-world connections that ditch the technology. This gets back to something I said on OTD, which is that it's so valuable to meet people in person. Get out and shake someone's hand, take a blogger to dinner, do something. Meet people. They're the final market and without people, your brand means next to nothing.