Tools for Considering New Media

In McLuhan for Managers (Viking Canada, 2003), Derrick de Kerkckhove and Mark Federman don’t provide “seven habits of successful companies” or a new strategy for business success. They offer four questions that were originally asked in Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book, Understanding Media.

This ultimately makes de Kerkckhove and Federman’s book a far more timeless work. It provides a mechanism to step outside the current mindset and ask, “What haven’t we noticed lately?” Granted, the questions address media; but modes of communication are fundamental forces in the businesses and marketing. In McLuhan’s words, the “medium is the message” that our customers and employees are responding to.

McLuhan’s questions are:

Enhance
1. What does the new medium enhance, extend, enable, intensify, make possible or accelerate?

Obsolesce
2. What is pushed aside or made obsolete by the new medium?

Reverse
3. When something is extended or enhanced beyond the limit of its potential, it will reverse its original characteristics.

Retrieve
4. What does the new medium retrieve from the past that has been obsolete?

If we apply the questions to blogs, here are some of the answers and responses that a marketer might come up with:

1. What do blogs enhance?
Personal, intimate communication. The sense of individuality, creativity and relationship.
“Hey, blogs might be a good way to build relationships within the organization and to introduce our staff to potential customers.”

2. What is pushed aside or made obsolete by blogs?
Cold, impersonal writing. Broad, shotgun marketing that doesn’t appeal to anyone in particular.
“We’ll need to rethink our markets. We should think carefully about our target audiences and what each of them needs to hear.”

3. When blogs are extended too far, how do they reverse their original characteristics?
Blogs can be boring and rambling. If they aren’t properly labeled and presented, they can get lost in the noise of the Internet and become a distraction rather than communication.
“Let’s be sure our blogs are well presented and targeted. We’ll use search engines to ensure that the right people find them.”

4. What does the new medium retrieve frohe past that has been obsolete?
The art of language. A well-presented, fervent argument was th foundation of human communication from Socrates to the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
“Let’s help our writers present ideas well. Let’s provide tools for our staff to improve their writing and share their ideas effectively.”