6-5-14
Convergence favorite Ken Rutkowski -- host of Business Rockstars and CEO and founder of METal International -- delivered the day one closing keynote at Convergence, going on this week in Santa Clara, CA. He began by pointing out that he's a habitual early adopter, saying, "I was the first podcaster," with Tech Talk, airing in RealAudio from Joliet, IL. He is, he said, a "cool hunter" -- part of a group that will become increasingly important as time goes on.
Rutkowski began his talk with a number of observations, talking about intelligence and how the greatest leaders are not always the smartest individuals in terms of IQ -- since the people with the highest IQ scores may well be too risk-averse to be great leaders. He said, "Smart people build platforms. Leaders build followings."
He also pointed to some unorthodox economic indicators, ranging from the "hemline" model -- the higher women's hemlines, the happier the economic times -- to the way the success of home and gardening magazines reflect relative prosperity, and often a few months ahead of the curve.
Another observation: "Los Angeles is San Francisco 1997." Rutkowski, who lives in L.A., said it meets the conditions for a city that incubates businesses: low office rent, abundant warehouse space, simple immigration procedures, and -- unexpectedly -- a thriving electronic dance music scene to bring the young entrepreneurs together. He also pointed to Austin and some other cities with high potential for incubation.
Rutkowski said that Mark Cuban, Steve Jobs, and Steve Case are what he would call "old school entrepreneurs" who likely wouldn't be as successful if they began their careers today. Today's young entrepreneurs, he said, understand multi-tasking, crowdfunding, and other new ideas. There is, he said, a "changing of the guard" in the top entrepreneurs all over the world, challenging audience members to identify these new key players -- among them Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Baidu CEO Robin Li -- from photos alone, the way they'd recognize the old guard.
He also pointed out that, while Americans under 35 watch five hours of TV each day, they also watch three hours of non-TV media. To take advantage of that, such channels as Al-Jazeera America and Bloomberg are making their content available online within minutes of its being aired on cable. After a digression on binge-watching, he said, "What does this have to do with radio? It doesn't." But radio can learn a great deal from other industries and observing what they're doing.
He also pointed to the way young people are moving to "anonymous" social networks like Whisper and communicating there unidentified but with greater honesty. "Radio's ahead on that," he said. "We don't know who's out there." He also advised radio to learn from such YouTube icons as Captain Sparkles -- who makes videos of his Minecraft games and earns millions of dollars each year -- and Pewdiepie, who has 27 million YouTube subscribers. Pewdiepie is a "cool hunter," he said, and those people attract attention and followers. He added, "You need to become a cool hunter."
Follow Day Two of Radio Ink's Convergence on Twitter at #CONV14
