An enlightening interdisciplinary networking event/panel discussion took place April 22, 2010 at the Minneapolis Photo Center. Attendees and panelists alike ate, drank, and mingled in the photo coop studio of the beautiful Minneapolis Photo Center for the first half of the evening.

For the second part of the evening, the attentive crowd settled in and listened to a diverse panel of professionals from a wide variety of industry niches, discuss the topic SCRAMBLED CONTENT “Where Is It All Going?”. The discussion was arranged and moderated by Paul Henning founder of Stock Answers, LLC. The following experts from many segments of media took a look back at where they’ve come from, where they’re at today and, perhaps most importantly, where they see themselves and their industries going in the next few years.

Steve Niedorf, professional photographer/Niedorf Photography

“Video is not the future, it is now”. Within a year or two, successful shooters will have to be well rounded in both stills and video. Though the recent changes in the photo industry have been painful, you can’t fix the market, you have to go with it.

If you’re going to make it as a shooter, you have to be really good and smart and follow trends closely. You can’t survive as an ‘ok’ shooter any more.

Deb Pastner, Photo Editor/Minneapolis Star Tribune

Ten years ago the Minneapolis Star Tribune photographers were still using film and there was one photo deadline each night. Fast forward 10 years to today, everything is digital and photographers can send stills and video from directly from their cameras on location to the editors computers. Now content must always be current and “the deadline is every second vrs 11 pm”. This new approach is exciting but stressful. All of the strib photographers shoot both stills and video.

Kat Dalager, Manager of Print Production/Campbell Mithun ad agency

“It’s all about content, both still and moving.” The advertising industry has experienced a lot of pain in the past year, and have lost a large percentage of staff. This has forced a lot of innovation through “integrated production”.

Production is totally changing. Campbell Mithun creates content that can be used across multiple platforms, and combines still photo and TV shoots to create multi- media assets. The line between stills and video is blurring which is shifting the way content can be licensed. The lexicon is changing.

Jennifer Kane, social networking consultant/Kane Consulting

“Content is in motion, nothing is static”. Using social media tools is a powerful form of marketing if you know how to use it, but you have to have “content with a strategy”, not sloppy content to be effective.

As a Social Media innovator, Jennifer spends 25% of her day engaging in social networking relationships, primarily through Twitter. Much of the rest of her time is spent monitoring and studying these relationships. You must keep your content fresh. Adding content increases visibility.

Dan Wallek, Director of Electronic Content & Photo Research/ Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

Print is not dead, but the rapid evolution of electronic products is changing everything, and print products will soon be expected to have an electronic component. Educational publishers are scrambling to compete with trade publishing companies like Disney who offer high-end electronic content basically for free.

The present is “a great period of experimentation” where the old rules no longer apply. These are both challenging and exciting times where publishers are shifting from creating books- to creating content that can but used across multiple platforms.

Laurie Etchen, Director of Production Services/Greenspring Media Group

Since 2006 magazines sales have decreased by almost half and jobs have been cut way back. Current technologies, plus a struggling economy have caused companies to streamline their process and create fewer, but more dynamic and diverse jobs.

For example, as well as directing production services, Laurie has brought all photography in house and is saving 50% photo costs at Greenspring Media. A growth area in the magazine industry is custom publications, all of which have digital editions.

Some of the common themes that emerged over and over were:

• Video is not the future -it is now. The distinction between video and stills is slipping away.
• We are all multi-media content developers now -not just book/newspaper/magazine publishers. Print is not dead but it can’t live without a digital component.
• To grow as a professional in these industries you, have to have a multi-faceted skill set and an open mind.

The event created a broader sense of community across disciplines by helping us all step out of our individual specialties into a bigger conversation. I think everyone left with a better understanding of the common ground that many of our experiences share. We can all benefit by learning from each other to stay on top of the dizzying changes.