Garfield is funny, has a breezy writing style, is a good storyteller, and is often self-deprecating and irreverent. If you like his work as co-host of NPR’s On the Media or as a columnist at Advertising Age, you'll get along easily with his book.
Compiled over four years, the book reads like a collection of Garfield’s engaging radio and print stories. He gives us a primer on the evolution of the media landscape of recent years. He does it through loads of stories, many of them are now classic “power of the consumer voice" case studies.
Garfield first guides us through a timeline of seminal events between 2005 and mid-2009 that nicely illustrate the evolving disruption in media. He then zooms in on the revenue models of post-advertising media, the dawn of the widget, the rise of crowdsourcing and influencers, and the flaws of consumer generated ads. You will find a discussion of Garfield’s top ten word-of-mouth principles. One whole chapter is dedicated to the digital fall and rise of Comcast.
I caution you not to get too excited about Garfield's promise to deliver the solution for institutions navigating the disruptions brought on by our digital culture. His solution doesn't go beyond his admonition of, "listen or perish."
Organizations are struggling with massive challenges brought on by digital disruption such as serious gaps in skills, culture, process, distribution, business and revenue models, compensation, policy and a host of others. In the face of these challenges, Garfield's "Listenomics" offers little toward a solution.
Garfield gets low marks in my opinion for pulling it all together, delivering relevant insight or providing direction.
But, The Chaos Scenario is worth the read for its orientation to Web 2.0 culture and its collection of media and brand stories. For anyone fairly familiar with today’s social media environment, there won’t be anything new here.
At the book web site, TheChaosScenario.net, Garfield offers a daily email for thirty days which include chapter synopses and pointers to some good articles and blog posts from around the ‘Net. I don't see much productive organizational value in the discussion questions bundled in with the emails.
Who should read this book?
- Anyone who is curious about or just getting up to speed on the modern media landscape.
- Highly recommend for media educators for use at secondary or post-secondary levels as a modern media primer.
- Media specialists looking to bolster presentation material, or for a client leave-behind.
