Customer Reviews

C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today

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I was able to get my hands on advance copy of Larry Kramer's new book this past summer. I read it twice and it inspired me to leave my job at a large traditional media company and go out on my own and start a boutique marketing company with a focus on reaching consumers wherever they are.
The author very clearly explains that all the change in technology in the past decade has been upending many business models. It is best seen as a revolution in communications on a scale not seen since the invention of the printing press. The biggest change is that consumers now have the power to avoid what they don't want to look and choose the messages they do want to hear. So all businesses must learn to think like media companies and become trusted curators and providers of content across all new media platforms. This revolution has put traditional media companies at a disadvantage because often they can't move fast enough to keep up with the changes in consumer behavior caused by all this technological change. AND they are often hampered by business models that try to preserve executive salaries and profits when they should be thinking like a dynamic start up. The "C" stands for Consumers, Content, Curation, and Convergence, all import factors in this new tech crazy world. Great book!

This book is terrific! The author is truly an expert on the media and how tech has changed the landscape. This book offers valuable insight for businesses looking for an edge in the social media age. As a former TV producer who is now running public relations campaigns for large companies, this book make me feel good about my decision to leave the traditional media world and also gives me some great things to think about as I plan media strategies for my clients.

I couldn't help notice how my own career trajectory parallels the chronology of Larry Kramer's dead-on tome, C-Scape. Having made the transition from print journalism to online retailing, I'm well aware of how the Internet has both devastated the lives of those working in conventional media and yet has also afforded them with new opportunities.

Kramer's central premise that every company must become a media company has worked to my advantage. In the last five years, the company I work for, B&H Photo Video Pro Audio, has evolved from a brick storefront in Manhattan to a world-wide purveyor of consumer and professional A/V equipment. Supporting the explosive growth of its online store is B&H's own media empire that now includes newsletters, blogs, guides and videos distributed both direct to customer/readers as well as through daily Twitter feeds, Facebook postings, iTunes subscriptions and uploads to YouTube.

I mainly produce the same types of articles I wrote when I worked at several enthusiast magazines. The difference is that at B&H, the revenue model works. More than one magazine where I was once employed has been trying to increase revenues via email marketing of products direct to readers. These efforts pale by comparison to the inroads by retailers like Amazon and B&H to increase their media presence and credibility.

Full disclosure: I've known Larry since college when we both worked on the same alternative newspaper. I've followed his career from cub reporter to media mogul with a mixture of jealousy and admiration. I read C-Scape in one weekend, a personal accomplishment since my media consumption is monopolized by the printed New York Times, URLs revisited via desktop or iPad and way too many TiVo season passes. That leaves little time for reading books. Yet, Kramer's conversational style and knowledgeable advice kept me away from those other distractions.

Bottom line: Anyone contemplating abandoning the sinking ship of old-line media or who is setting out in business stands to learn a lot about the lay of the new landscape by grabbing a copy of C-Scape and diving in.

This is a good read full of good lessons for media businesspeople, as well as for anyone interested in media and the changes brought on by the ease of distribution, replication, sharing through the Internet. Lots of good stories used as examples for his main key points - that content must be curated in this free flowing sea of information to drive more value in this commoditized information world. He says much more, read it for yourself...

Larry Kramer presents a useful way of looking at the new environment in which all businesses and organizations operate. The C-Scape illustrates and explains that participation in things like social media, mobile formats, etc. is not an add-on to any enterprise - it is an inescapable part of the environment. The explanations here are accessible and fundamental - the thoughts here transcend whatever the trendy medium is today.

To a carpenter, a hammer fixes every problem; to a media mogul immersed in TV networks and digital technologies, better use of media can solve every marketing issue. That's the framework for Larry Kramer's book, which explores the constantly shifting forces of the digital age. Kramer, founder of MarketWatch, Inc. and former president of CBS Digital Media, calls these forces the "four C's" - "consumers, content, curation and convergence." This "C-scape" endows individuals with the power to increasingly call the shots and constrains companies to focus more and more on media for their ultimate success. Kramer's front-row seat in constructing the current media landscape provides the book's rich anecdotes and illustrative case studies, but readers outside the media business will have a harder time figuring out how to harness the four C's. Nonetheless, getAbstract recommends this look at how digital technology has altered business to marketers and executives. Learn about the C-scape from someone who had a hand in creating it.

This book is just awesome. Although the company I work for develops software, and we've been a media company for a long long time, the reading was very inspiring. It gave me plenty of marketing ideas (especially about social media and partnerships), that I started to use right away. The best advice from this book I got was "Partner like crazy"! Enjoy reading!

Larry Kramer provides a great framework for assessing the new digital media landscape: controlled by consumers, where content is king, where curation is a high-value additive in a sea of information, and convergence is the endless cause of anxiety, change and opportunity.

In C-Scape, Kramer cites examples and shows a number of ways that ALL companies are becoming media companies. I've been a believer in this concept since the World Wide Web emerged in the 1990s, but C-Scape got me to look at this concept in a bigger way: that all kinds of products and services can have media layers that create competitive advantages and powerful opportunities to create relationships with customers.

When you hear the name Larry Kramer and see the long list of accomplishments attached to that name, its almost impossible not to find yourself in awe of the man. Larry has accomplished a lot in his life, from journalist, to Chairman, CEO and founder of Marketwatch, first president of CBS Digital media, and his latest undertaking as adjunct professor of Media Management at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University where i had the privilege of learning from one of the pioneers of the media industry.

C-Scape packs the wealth of Larry's vast and extensive knowledge of the media industry into a very easy to read, insightful guide. Larry takes his understanding and first hand experience from 30 plus years of a constant rapidly changing industry and applies it to explain the breakdown of the current media landscape, due to a large scale revolution that has rendered most media business models useless.

In a world where consumers are empowered, anybody can be a content creator and all companies are essentially media companies, C-Scape serves to provide the understanding and guidance, necessary to navigate the current media landscape. I had the privilege of learning the ins and outs of the media industry from Larry himself... Now you can too. This book is a must have for those considering a profession in the media industry as well as seasoned industry vets.

Not only is Larry right about the "C-Scape," but he provides actionable examples of how all businesses could participate as media companies, and how that has become critical for their businesses. This book would make a great gift for executives whose companies don't quite see it yet; it could be a catalyst. The book was an easy read, and the examples and history provided are memorable. It does get a little slow in the middle, and some examples strayed for me a little, but overall it was so good that I couldn't give it anything less than a 5 star review. Well done, Larry!