For more information about the conference, contact Nellie Jones at (315) 443-3368 or nvjones@syr.edu.

A Different Kind of Media Conference

Are you moving more of your business online, but making less money? Join the club! Monetizing online media is the single biggest challenge faced by communications companies today, whether they create content, distribute it or advertise it. Few models have emerged to help media companies maintain their revenues, much less increase them. While countless past conferences have grappled with this issue, the focus has been on ways to induce traditional, nearly obsolete business models to work online.

The Newhouse School’s M.O.B. (“Monetizing Online Business”) Conference takes a different approach, focusing instead on ways to deduce entirely new, successful media business models based on the realities of 21st century media use.

This one-and-a-half-day conference will examine three key areas:

1. How consumers actually use new media;
2. How that usage can inform the development of new media business models; and
3. What tools are needed to implement those new models.

Moderated by Newhouse School professors Vin Crosbie and Stephen Masiclat, this will be an interactive conference with extensive audience participation. The aim is to explore and clearly define the new business models that have the best chance at profitability for media.

2010 Conference Schedule

		Thursday, June 24 The Greatest Change in the History of Media Moderator: Vin Crosbie . adjunct professor, The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
8:30		Continental Breakfast
9:30		Welcome Newhouse Dean Lorraine Branham
9:45		A Conversation with David Zaslav & Larry Kramer Consumers are finding content everywhere these days, and the best media companies now understand that their first responsibility is to create great content and then deliver it to their audiences on every possible platform. Discovery Communications has become a leader in using partnerships and acquisitions to help transition to the new digital world. Zaslav, Discovery president and CEO, and Kramer, writer, media consultant and Newhouse School adjunct professor, will discuss how a traditional media company learns to take chances.
10:15		How Media Consumption Has Changed Since 2000 Consumption of news, information and entertainment has radically changed, and not just online. Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, presents the latest data and trends.
11:00		How Traditional Business Models are Based Upon Old Consumption Media economist Robert Picard spotlights five points about the difference between media business models based upon people having scarce access to information and today’s economics of media surplus.
Noon		Lunch Guest speaker Jonathan Dube, Vice President and General manager of ABCNews.com.
1:30		How Viral and Social Media Affect Business Models Presented by Adam Penenberg, investigative journalist, New York University assistant professor and author of Viral Loop.
2:00		How Media Companies Must Metamorph Publish2 CEO Scott Karp, whose company aims to “replace the Associated Press in the 21st Century,” describes what the new information ecology means for media companies.
3:00		How Broad is the Spectrum of Change? Vin Crosbie outlines how the change affects pricing, packaging, community, locality and even storytelling in the 21st Century.
3:45		What Are the New Business Models? An audience discussion with Ali, Crosbie, Karp, Penenberg and Picard.
4:30		Cocktails
		Friday, June 25 Fostering Intrapreneurship in Media Organizations Moderator: Stephen Masiclat, Associate professor, The Newhouse School, Director graduate program in Media Management
8:30		Continental Breakfast
9:30		Welcome Newhouse Dean Lorraine Branham
9:45		The Entrepreneurial Mindset Presented by Thomas Kruczek, executive director of the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University.
10:35		How to Bring Intrepreneurship to Large Media Organizations A panel discussion with Dennis Crowley ‘98, co-founder of Foursquare; Michael Duda, partner & chief corporate strategy officer, Deutsch Inc.; Larry Kramer, writer, media consultant and adjunct professor in the Newhouse School; Laurel Touby, founder and senior vice president of mediabistro.com; and Jason Young, transitioning CEO of Ziff Davis Media.
Noon		Larry Kramer Closing remarks

The Newhouse School is one of the nation’s most comprehensive schools of public communications, spanning all areas of the industry—from print and broadcast journalism to advertising and public relations to media and communications management. As such, it brings together experts from all sectors of the industry to provide convergent solutions. To date, no one has tried to solve monetization in a comprehensive way, taking a 360-degree look at all media. That is the strength of the Newhouse approach

Senior media executives responsible for business strategies in online, digital and mobile media will find the event especially relevant.

For more information about the conference, contact Nellie Jones at (315) 443-3368 or nvjones@syr.edu.