2012 Media Solutions Lab

2012 is shaping up to be a big year.

Post-Steve Jobs. 

The critical need to extend on-air brands beyond radio.

Creating content for iPads and mobile media.

Getting a jump-start on many new businesses ready-made for talented radio people.

And we’re just warming up!

Start the new year ahead by getting an important early look at the opportunities and challenges in 2012. 

The Media Solutions Lab is a one-day, in-person opportunity to work face to face with Jerry Del Colliano who is recognized as the leader in seeing the future for broadcast, digital, print and interactive media.  Jerry is a media advisor, speaker, educator & publisher of Inside Music Media.

The Media Solutions Lab is a 100% learning event.

As always, there are no vendors.

No pitchmen. 

No commercially sponsored topics.

This is 7 hours of intelligence gathering to prepare for the opportunities and challenges for the 365 days ahead.

As a professor at the University of Southern California, Jerry's motto was "the teacher and the taught together do the teaching".  

Last year's attendees loved the Media Solutions Lab. 

Their report card on this event? 

92% said it met or exceeded their expectations.

This year’s Media Solutions Lab will be held at one of the finest meeting venues in the country – The Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona on Thursday, February 9, 2012 when the weather outside will be 70 degrees and sunny.

Inside, we work in a positive atmosphere of approval and acceptance learning from each other.

Here for your consideration is a preview of The 2012 Media Solutions Lab. 

This is not a convention or show so space is limited.  Reserve your seat(s) as soon as possible.

FORMAT...

One-day interactive format. 

Comfortable classroom-style seating.  

Here a review of Jerry's 2011 predictions with status updates and warnings. Then on to what is ahead for the next 12 months – emerging trends for 2012. 

Attendees are invited to interact at any point in the presentation. 

Complimentary breakfast, lunch and breaks are included in this fascinating and inspirational program – and The Phoenician food is outstanding!

As is our custom, the Media Solutions Lab will not be recorded.  All brainstorming and comments are between Jerry and the attendees in a dynamic learning situation. 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND...

Individuals who work in the following industries will benefit most from attending the 2012 Media Solutions Lab:

•  Radio
•  New Media
•  The Music Industry
•  Entrepreneurs or Future Entrepreneurs
•  Mobile Content
•  Social Networking
•  Generational Media
•  Publishing
•  Television and Video

And … Anyone who wants to see the future better and enhance their core skill development to achieve outstanding results.

WHAT YOU WILL COVER...

•  Emerging Media Trends for 2012 – Jerry’s Predictions for the Year Ahead

•  Intelligence Gathering – Jerry will mashup the very latest content as of February 9, 2012 from over 20 critical areas for this 7-hour media intelligence briefing.  Here is a preview:

MODULE 1

Emerging Media Trends for 2012

Jerry’s annual predictions continue with updates from last year’s guidance and fresh, emerging trends to track in the year ahead.  Take notes.  Ask questions.  Add context.  You will see the future in radio, new and social media, changes in the music industry, mobile content, golden opportunities for entrepreneurs, social networking, streaming, consumer trends, what Apple will be doing in the next 12 months, the pay model, new publishing, video and app businesses.  Each year attendees grade this one component of the Media Solutions Lab as the most valuable and worth attending.

But there’s more …

MODULE 2

The Most Useful New Media Secrets for 2012

Jerry’s laser sharp insights complete with cautions and opportunities. Here’s an appetizer:  The one sure way to make radio a growth business again.  New sources of revenue that are almost recession free.  Developing the iPad with saleable content.  Preparing for Apple's next move that will affect radio.  What's after FM. Radio formats in trouble.  Changes in social networking you can take advantage of.  Tracking the local dollars to interactive media.  Hot prospects in mobile content.  What to do with the digital dashboard now coming to market.  Which pay models work and what don’t.  Businesses you can start – no, that you must start in the next 12 months.  The secrets of making money in music.  The best way to monetize apps.  New rules on streaming.  How to make big money on radio websites doing what most stations are not currently doing.  And more!

To register now and get the best rates, click here.

MODULE 3

Radio's New Defense Against Groupon

Stop the flow of radio dollars out of local markets – frequently up to $1 million or more – with these creative, innovative and moneymaking strategies. That’s money radio should be getting!  Groupon is thriving during the economic downturn, but learn about their developing disadvantages. How to avoid red ink and lawsuits in couponing.  How you can kick Groupon to the curb and do something even better.  Audio couponing – the answer for local radio stations.  We’ll get into it with the latest things you will want to know.

MODULE 4

The Fix for Adult Contemporary Radio

The lack of appealing music for this format's demographic is killing the ratings.  But something more dramatic is happening right now.  The AC radio listener is changing in ways most stations can't comprehend.  You'll come away with a sense for what it will take to save this moneymaking staple of commercial radio.  No, it's not adding a few more up-tempo tunes.  Yes, it involves reengineering everything from the morning show to how music is presented.  Careful adjustment on how to image the new AC.  Why the margin for error in transforming yesterday's declining AC station to tomorrow's ratings winner is dangerously narrow.   

MODULE 5

New Content Opportunities for iPad2

30 million iPads in the hands of consumers by the end of 2011 creates a big opportunity for content creation.  Hear about the "new radio" that young people will actually crave.  How to create, market and grow it.  Learn the critical difference from 24/7 broadcasting and on-demand appcasting.  We'll reveal a new way to organize content – one that is 180 degrees different than over the air radio. How personalities fit in (differently).  Building promotions.  Maintaining audience credibility.  Social networking that feeds audience growth – and it's not Facebook or Twitter.  If you've ever wanted to see radio's future, appcasting is it – and we'll cover it at this year's Media Solutions Lab.

MODULE 6

Emerging Trends in Social Networking

Facebook has a feisty new competitor, Google+.  But big social networks are not the future – not even Facebook.  Not even Google!  The social network of tomorrow is you.  How to build a social clubhouse around you.  What’s working and what’s not going to work.  Jerry shares what he’s learned from his work in focused media networks.  What turns consumers off about social networking sites.  How to integrate targeted social networking into your entertainment product or service.  The mistakes you had better not make or everything comes crashing down.

MODULE 7

The Migration of AM Brands to FM

Why it's not what it's cracked up to be. Some owners are just looking to combine stations and take the savings. But for radio formats being moved to FM to preserve them, there are major roadblocks in the way. Know what they are.  What is even more critical than taking a popular and profitable AM brand and moving it to FM. The missing strategy is an insurance policy on winning radio brands that most owners don't even know. But you will. 

MODULE 8

Dealing With Music Licensing of Digital Content 

How do you get around the record industry's refusal to offer fair and affordable digital licensing of music.  Hear new alternatives to a growing problem – how to use music legally in the digital space without going broke.  There are limitations, but there are also some workarounds to music licensing.  Steps that must be taken to safeguard your venture. You'll hear about some practical ways to use music that other sites are paying for – and it's all legal.  If digital is in your plans, you'll want specifics on how to overcome this giant obstacle to your success.

MODULE 9

Changing Consumer Habits

Attention spans are getting even shorter and this time not just with the youth of Gen Y.  There are developing new habits that will prompt a change in content creation.  How to achieve loyalty and what it takes to win in the digital world.  The rush to time shifting.  What consumers will pay for, what they will now steal and what they expect for free.  How important is “cool”.  Managing information and entertainment in the digital age.  What’s about to happen to morning drive.  The new role of music in a consumer’s world.  The future of the record album.  The abandonment of car radios for digital entertainment centers.  Changing attitudes about live concerts.  The importance of causes to consumers.  How to create compelling, addictive and unique content for demanding consumers.  Steve Jobs always focused on critical consumer behavior and we will do the same for content creators and broadcasters.

MODULE 10

The Pay Models That Work

Steve Jobs’ secondary legacy may have been to make the pay model work.  But which ones are succeeding and which ones are failing.  Learn from the paywall mistakes in the publishing industry.  Steal these ideas from the digital space.  What prerequisite must there be for a pay model to work?  And what about pricing – how to find the sweet spot.  Asking for the commitment.  Servicing the paid model.  What main thing do consumers generally demand from a paid subscription?  What types of media businesses are begging for paid models?  Learn and do.  Paid models are here and we need to bone up on them.

MODULE 11

Peril Ahead for Music Radio –Even on FM

Suicide by CHR.  The decline of adult contemporary.  The aging of the talk format. These and other formats are now at risk.  But there are ways to rethink established radio formats and design them to cooperate with the inevitable – the demanding and fickle young consumer and the proliferation of new technology. Trouble is ahead and we must act to head it off.  The new guidelines for moving profitable brands to FM.  How not to do it.  Even valuable yet – what’s even more important than migrating top radio brands to FM.

MODULE 12

The Future of Online Streaming

The digital dashboard is coming and with it, new opportunity.  Forget that on-air radio stations only gain 3% of their audience share from streaming online.  Now everything is about to change.  How to package streaming content for short attention spans.  To stream with or without your radio format – that is the question. Coexisting in cars with Pandora and Spotify.  Busting through the roadblock of draconian music royalty fees.  The bandwidth bust now that mobile providers are charging more for consumer bandwidth.  Which streamers have the best chance of thriving in the next 2-5 years.  What streaming is destined to fail.

MODULE 13

The Battle for The Dashboard

Research shows consumers are waiting with smartphones in hand for the universal digital dashboard.  Disaster for radio stations that fail to adapt.  How to win a prominent spot on the digital dashboard of the future.  What can be done now.  Critical mistakes to avoid.  How to compete with national streaming services.  Will consumers pay for dashboard access?  I’ll answer that – yes.  We’ll talk more. Here’s how to be good enough to charge a fee.  Plus, we’ll get into advertising changes ahead now that radio will have to share what used to be a radio with the digital entertainment center.

MODULE 14

Start This Business – Not That

Local couponing businesses are way cooler than Groupon.  Become a digital consultant.  We’ll tell you how.  Build hot iPad local apps.  A great new social networking site built around local high school sports.  Zip code news.  Several video businesses that cooperate with consumer trends.  Local music discovery stream.  A digital clubhouse focused on targeted audiences and advertiser friendly.  Bring lots of notepaper – I’ve got plenty more.  These are new businesses you can start within 30 days of returning home from The Media Solutions Lab this year. If you have media skills from radio, you actually have an advantage.  This shows you how to use it wisely.

MODULE 15

Appcasting is the Next Radio

Let’s talk about the new radio.  Content delivered in short bites on digital devices.  Very interactive.  On-demand consumers get to mash it up.  Two-way communication.  No more morning drive – it’s now content for your digital device.  How to create app content.  How it should be different from radio.  The content that will work best on apps.  Breaking down the radio hot clock and rebuilding the best elements in apps – your guide for succeeding in appcasting.  A whole new way to look at “radio” for the mobile world.  It’s not FM chips on cellphones, it’s this!

MODULE 16

Defending Against Apple's iCloud

Apple is getting into streaming audio.  That pressures free radio with another convenient and potent competitor.  Add to that the storage locker that lets consumers access their iTunes library anywhere, anytime from iCloud and you have a new competitive challenge.  Changes radio stations must make now – without delay – to differentiate themselves from music lockers and cloud streamers.  How consumer habits will change – perhaps radically – by the end of 2012.  This is about how to head it off before it’s too late.

MODULE 17

Reinventing Radio in the Age of Customizable Radio

Change mornings.  Do this in the afternoons.  Better answers for commercial loads and spot placement.  Adding new music and still getting ratings.  A list of ways local radio can Pandora-proof itself.  Understanding how listeners have changed and how radio must do better at adapting.  Come away with actionable ideas and avoid making mistakes that play right into the hands of radio's growing list of online music service competitors.

MODULE 18

Moneymaking Radio Websites

It is time to blowup the customary radio website and start over.  Stop driving your on-air listeners to the station's website and send them here instead.  All the details you'll need to get started once you separate broadcasting from the Internet.  Plus ... a business opportunity for entrepreneurs who understand radio and grasp the digital space.  Few radio websites make money.  But there is a way – a relatively easy way – for radio content sites to become moneymakers.  How to handle advertisers who want digital ads thrown in as a radio add-on.  One thing not to do when you start attracting website viewers or else you'll kill your business.  How to price your website and the startling role your radio station will have in the remaking of the radio website.

MODULE 19

The 99-Cent Album

The “value” of music during 2012 based on price for music in the year ahead will likely dip again.  99-cent albums are a consumer success and record industry nightmare.  Changes are ahead.  New pricing will jumpstart music sales.  Music will serve a new role.  Album art and liner notes a fantasy of the past.  Music exists for one purpose now.  Why record labels do not have the advantage in the world of 99-cent albums.  You do.  We’ll go over how.  A different model for creating, marketing and selling music that any individual will be able to do.  If albums could be worth 99-cents, imagine what consumers will pay for single tunes – we’ll nail that number for you.

MODULE 20

Keeping Your Listeners

Surefire ways to breed loyalty in the digital age.  The elements of addiction that make audiences glued to what you do.  It’s different than it was 5 years ago.  Do you know what it takes now?  You will.  We’ll outline it.  Turn-ons – the things that are guaranteed ways to get fans to love you, use you and pass word out about you.  Turn-offs – the things you may not even know you’re doing that make listeners bail out and go elsewhere.  Shrewd ways to help traditional radio standup to digital competition.  You can’t do it like most stations do today.  This valuable approach will trip off a brainstorming session in your mind and with your valued associates. 

MODULE 21

Effective New Commercial-Free Strategies

The big thing in corporate radio right now is gaming the People Meter by presenting commercial-free hours, day parts and even days.  The pros no longer outweigh the cons.  You'll come away with new approaches to commercial-free listener rewards that will work even better.  New, more strategic ways to arrange commercials in light of changing consumer trends.  What one mistake you should never make when going commercial-free even if it is only for one hour. Blunders to avoid in the age of demanding listeners.  Why pushing your website, Twitter, Facebook or texting are beginning to backfire.  Here's a better approach.  Build audience satisfaction the way Apple makes customers happy. We'll walk you through some scenarios.   

MODULE 22

The Radio Morning Show of the Future

30-minutes not 4 or 5 hours.  A lineup of features available digitally for fans to mashup – not a continuing audio show. Interactive relationships.  Social clubhouses built around your personalities.  How to handle music.  For radio companies that want to get into the iPad radio show, all the strategies that work.  Keeping and attracting fans.  Changing the way radio is presented.  Package the morning show for on-demand listeners.  Everything you need to know to be first into the future.

MODULE 23

How Subscription Music Services Will Affect Radio

It's not just Pandora (over 100 million subscribers) but Spotify and a growing list of all-you-can-eat paid monthly music services that have been created by the record industry's desire to license paid streaming models.  That plus the Apple iCloud and Google's interest in competing with iTunes puts music radio's future in peril.  But there are things music stations can do now while there is still time left.  You'll discover what modifications FM music stations can make to more effectively compete with popular online streaming services.  How to handle everything from necessary commercials to how long to talk between records.  And what kinds of things to say.  Plus, a bevy of ideas and useful strategies.

MODULE 24

Steal These Apple Strategies for Radio

Sweet spot pricing – how radio can reinvent their rate structures like Apple.  How to handle cannibalizing of radio rates by buyers who have you bent over your traditional rate card.  The new way to handle discounting – right out of the Apple playbook.  Changing the mission of radio sales – several keys come from the Apple store itself.  Easily adaptable to radio.  Customer satisfaction.  Radio can now rethink how to make advertisers happy and uphold their rates.  On the programming side:  steal what Steve Jobs does to get so much free publicity for his products and services.  Do this – three times a year – and you’ll please more listeners than you ever have before.  Apple has no end to the ways it achieves success and most of them are adaptable to radio. 

And … if we missed what you’re interest is, there will be time for Q&A and facetime.

The 2012 Media Solutions Lab is a substantial learning experience.  Invest in yourself and your future.
 

QUICK 2-STEP REGISTRATION:

 1.  Reserve a seat...

• Register for the full-day Media Solutions Lab here.
   
• ADDED BY YOUR REQUEST! You can also register for Jerry's private Next Day Big Ideas Breakfast (requires an additional $195 registration not included in the Media Solutions Lab tuition).  Sign up for Jerry’s Next Day Big Ideas Breakfast here.

  2.  Choose a hotel...

• Stay on-site at The Phoenician Resort --  click here.
   
• For a variety of nearby hotel choices and differing rates -- click here.  

REVIEWS...

92% of last year’s attendees said the 2011Media Solutions Lab met or exceeded their expectations. 95% said they would attend again next year.

Here is what this year’s attendees said they liked best – in their own words:

• “Thanks for a day full of inspiration, learning, and reinforcing career passion.  It was a productive day and fun too.”
   
• “As always, it got me thinking in all sorts of new directions.”
   
• “You have a brilliant way of engaging an audience without ostracizing any of us, truth radar that seems always on and what appears to be an insatiable appetite for research into what's next. These are valuable assets and that you willingly share them is appreciated by me and I am sure all attendees. The addition of a special group here on Facebook to carry on is a terrific bonus.”
   
• “The upcoming trends portion of the morning session.”
   
•  "Jerry told us what he’s been promising to tell us.”
   
• “Meeting the best people in the radio business.”
   
• “It sparked so many ideas.”
   
• “The interactive format was great.”
   
• “Jerry sharing his research on new media and the attitudes of the next generation.”
   
• “Liked Jerry’s succinct presentation, predictions and groups.”
   
• “Great innovative ideas... it really gave me a new perspective on how to move deliberately into the future. I was also encouraged that we are on the right track in many areas.”
   
• “Jerry’s vision.”
   
• “Jerry’s intro and predictions.”
   
• “Opportunity to network and to have set time aside to focus on bettering a great business.”
   
• “Stimulation provided by the “professor” and the attendees, open discussion with the professor and variance of age of attendees.”
   
• “I enjoyed it all. It was hard to say what I liked most.”
   
• “Predictions and evidence for change, the attendees and their perspective, finding out how others are approaching innovation.”
   
• Digital discussions, brainstorm session, Jerry’s predictions and past predictions discussion.”
   
• “Overview of 2010 and predictions.”
   
• “Learning about the curve that consumers are driving radio into finding out the proper tools to keep up and stay ahead.”
   
• “Discussion of where media is going.”
   
• “I enjoyed the diverse group of creative and forward thinking people. I came away with a fresh perspective and new ideas.”
   
• “The range of topics that were covered. Great insight. Even a couple of usable ideas.”
   
• “I think this conference has awesome information. I would have liked to have had time with more than just one workshop. The conference could have been more than one day.”
   
• “I have stacks of notes.”
   
• “The slide presentation on iPad.”
   
• “Jerry’s overview and predictions. The food.”
   
• “Overall a good variety of topics covered. The Q&A session also brought out good topics.”
   
• “Interesting topics.”
   
• “I enjoyed your vision and insights."
   
• “10 Skills (I will need) for the digital age.”
   
• “Loved the uniqueness of the conference. Enjoyed Jerry’s blunt take on the industry.”
   
• “The lunch was excellent and the Phoenician truly is a wonderful place for meetings.”
   
• “Jerry, I enjoyed listening to you so much. You are an excellent speaker and you are captivating! I enjoyed the team leaders giving their group reports".

RESERVE YOUR PLACE TODAY – Register for the February 9, 2012 Media Solutions Lab here.

Here’s a video message from Jerry Del Colliano: