The success paradox – The more successful you are, the more inferior you are?
Laszlo Kövari
A fundamental rule of (clear, high level, integrative, etc.) communications is that nobody should make statements about things that are well known to their audience; only an anomaly may provide an exception to this rule…and we must give close attention to anomalies.
So I am going to make statements about things that are known to everybody, and draw attention to some patterns that go unnoticed, thus raising some questions that may trigger answers/statements that may not be well known.
Any field maybe picked for demonstration: investment, financial markets, technology or politics in particular, or leadership, integration, communications, etc. in general. I’ve chosen media. Big media content vs. user generated content. The aversion against big media has been the same as the aversion against monopoly. Not against content produced by big media, since the perception of this content is largely influenced by the aversion against monopoly. The aversion against monopoly is in analogy with the aversion against authority, which is of course only justified if authority has no foundation, if it lacks the factor of superiority. When we look at the issue of big media content versus user generated content we can not disregard the question of superiority. When we type in “superiority in media” in google, 10 mostly irrelevant hits come up (January, 2008). Superiority is manifest in quality, leadership, the factor of integration, etc, which is another way of saying that superiority is the principle of quality, leadership, integration, etc. Superiority is in polar opposition to quantity, and perhaps it’s needless to say: quantity is the predominant measure of success in media (and pretty much everywhere). Also, everybody knows, that quantity and “the mass” are analogous terms and that the mass lacks any trace of superiority. The mass is inert. It doesn’t want anything, it doesn’t think anything, and due to its weight, it only accepts a downward pull and fully opposes any efforts of an upward lift (positive influence).
Since both big media content and user generated content are based on the mass and serve the mass, the “big media content vs. user generated content question” does not even exist in actuality, it’s just an illusion. Another point that maybe made (but I won’t make it here) is if we can really talk about leadership in media, where the goal is to serve the mass. In such a setting the direction of “evolution” is downward. Since events are unfolding downwards, following a pattern of proliferation, those, who are positioned lower, are the ones who are perceived to be the most successful: success, even leadership without superiority. There is only one type of aversion that is justified: the aversion against media content, which serves the mass.
The emerging need that maybe served partially by user generated content is specifically this justified aversion against the monopoly of the mass. (Superior) concepts maybe presented in a user generated content format, which could be picked up and developed by production houses adequately equipped to do professional production and then such content maybe consolidated (perhaps in the form of programming on a specialized channel, and/or distributed through a variety of media channels). This however requires true leadership that subordinates money to a cause (maybe even to the cause of quality) and successfully integrates best practices. Such efforts would be influential in the true sense of the word, and by integrating those who are in polar opposition to the mass, they would create new (however small) markets, which could be served / developed purely by quality content.