Masters Of The Information Universe!

Arise! You ink stained wretches!!

We live in the ‘Information Era”.

That, at least, is what everyone says.

And it is true.

What we do almost all day long is process information, of one kind or another.

In another era coal, steel, cars, manufacturing might have dominated the economy and our popular imagination.

Today it is information.

Look at the most powerful corporations in America, indeed in the world:

Google

Apple

Microsoft

Verizon

They are all about processing or manipulating information – streams of zeroes and ones, but manufacturing, processing and ultimately selling information. 

Where is the future?  Google or GM?

Information it is!

And what profession is all about manipulating, curating, producing and packaging information?

Journalism.

That’s right. Journalism.

That is what we do.

This is our moment. Seize it!

These opportunities don’t come along every day.  

When Joseph Pulitzer founded the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, we did not live in the Information Age.  We lived in the Coal Age – the Manufacturing Age.  The powerhouses were men like Andrew Carnegie.  Steel Barons, Oil Barons.  If you had said ‘Information Baron’ you would have been laughed out of the club (which already restricted Jews, Blacks, Asians, and women from joining).

Pulitzer’s mandate for the school was to create a “corps of elite journalists”.

Yeah…well times have changed.

Today – hard to believe, it’s the Information Age.  And Journalists should be the Masters of The Information Universe.

Really.

But they aren’t!

And how come?

Because they relish in their own self-image as the noble, hard working ink stained wretch.

Pulitzer, (so the Dean at Columbia told me), specifically forbade the school from teaching business.  

And why?

Because Pulitzer wanted to create a factory for good, obedient employees for his newspaper empire. He was not particularly interested in creating his own competition. Which makes sense for him, but not for us.

And so my friends, we have a moment when the Information World is, in effect, leaderless.  Personally, I think it is why society is in such a quandry. We may live in the Information Age but it is an era without a clear vision of where we are going or why.  Our cultural leadership, such as it is, comes not from “Information” people, but rather from MBAs who go to Wharton and then Goldman.

Enough!

Arise you ink stained wretches!

Take what is already yours.  Seize control of the Information Revolution.  Own it.  Stop groveling. Stop glorying the role of noble employee.

Stand up and become what destiny, in her infinite wisdom,  has offered you at this moment in time – Masters of the Universe.

And how do you become a Master of the Universe?

You must OWN it.  

And I don’t mean own the photograph or the story you write or your video. I mean own the entire thing. The business.  Build it and own it.  Web sites, video streaming sites, hyperlocal news sites, sources of information for the next generation of phones – the list goes on and on.

What was Michael Bloomberg but a Master of the Information Universe.  He set off on his own and built and owned the mechanism for delivering information about business to business.  He could just as easily have become a reporter for Dow Jones.  But his outlook was different. And today he is worth $16 billion.  

Own it!