Happy Sunday Funday War & Peaceniks! I have an admission: I’ve been making this map (including the newest version below) all wrong.
Last month, I spoke at Streaming Media East, a conference about all things… streaming. You can see the whole presentation, here. After I presented, a young, professional programmer/mathematician named Verity Scheel approached me. I call them young, not to demonstrate any lack of gravitas, but rather to contextualize their age to mine, and to literally everyone else in the room.
“Great presentation,” they said. “But you know, your map is wrong.”
To be blunt, I dread these moments. If you’ve seen me present, I typically start with the Media Map, and say “I redraw this map, twice a month, by hand, in powerpoint.” It’s a bit of a groan/laugh line, but it’s also true. And painful. I often make mistakes. People often find them. While I very much appreciate being kept honest, I also get very embarrassed and ashamed. But that’s a me problem.
I asked Verity what they meant. They said, “your map, it’s not to scale. Is it?”
No it’s not.
The goal of the map, and all my infographics, has always been to replace opinion with math; to start the conversations they may spark with a common language of fact. So the map has always been powered by publicly available and verifiable data - the valuations and KPIs of the companies represented. However, from the very first Media Universe Map three years ago, I found that making the size of the objects on the infographic to precise scale created a wholly unreadable chart. By including companies as large as Apple and Amazon on a map with companies as relatively small as Tegna and Bandai resulted in a few, massive Trillion Dollar Death Stars, and countless teeny “planets,” so small they could not be seen with the naked human eye.
And so, I took liberties with the scale - for aesthetic purposes (I knew for the map to resonate, it needed to look good); for contextual emphasis (showing Google 9 times larger than Netflix does not truly reflect their positions vis a vis each other as much it represents the feelings stock traders on any given day); but mostly for utility (how useful is a map that cannot be read)?
To demonstrate what I mean, look at the newly drawn map above (now clearly labeled in the lower right-hand corner with FOR VISIBILITY, OBJECTS ARE NOT TO PRECISE SCALE), and the alternate Big Media Map below, which is made to the relative scale of the current valuations of each firm.
The second chart (showing just a subset of the planets) actually shows a more accurate portrayal of the original intended thesis of the Media Universe map: In the war for attention and dollars, the Trillion Dollar Death Stars have disproportionate reach and resources - to the point it is hard to see how “traditional media” can compete. This is true in all the segments of the modern Media economy - tech, gaming, social media, audio and video. To survive, traditional media will need to stop being traditional.
However this alternate map also demonstrates the innate difficulty of including a full spectrum of the Media Universe, in a readable or useful way. You can only see all the planets on this version because all the type is large enough to be read. But if you click and zoom in, you will find it nearly impossible to see the graphical representation (or size) of key Media players such as IAC, Dentsu, Paramount or Roku - even at high magnifications on a screen close to your face. Now (since the first use-case of the map was for the NYU class I teach) try to imagine this image projected onto a classroom wall, or conference screen - with any hope of communicating relevant insight.
So, yes, to make the map and its information readable, I do take liberty with its scale. I am relatively certain that doing so is what makes it popular. It looks pretty good, and people find it useful. This is why many universities, executives, board packages and pitches include it to demonstrate the scale and fragmentation of the Media industry. I have never denied my lack of adherence to scale. I have been asked about it numerous times, though only on Reddit and LinkedIn. When asked, I have readily admitted that the scale is not precise, for legibility purposes.
However I have never before labelled it as such. To be very frank: I thought it was pretty obvious. But that confirmation bias is a me problem. I guess the surprising thing is that no one had ever called me out on it in person before. Until Verity.
I told them that no, the map is not to scale, because I find it impossible to make a map to scale that would be of much use. The mathematician responded by saying “you could use AI programming to make it more dynamic and spatially accurate, but I don’t think you’d be able to use the kind of software necessary - it would be too hard for you.” I tell you this not because I was insulted (they were 1000% right, there’s no way I could use what they described), but rather to show how fucking brilliant Verity is.
Here’s a sample of how they think:
My customary activity while riding in the car is to invent new writing systems, drawing on my tablet to try different calligraphic curves to start establishing what shapes I want to represent various sounds. (I tend to develop featural writing systems based on sounds represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet.)
(I should note Verity isn’t just a genius at math and programming, but also a talented cellist and composer.)
So they were right to point out my obvious inability to use programs they could likely use in their sleep. In fact, Verity was quite polite in asking their question about scale, hearing my admitted purposeful ignorance of math, and moving on. After the presentation and our conversation, I sat down to drinks with Verity’s fellow mathematician colleagues. I pointed out that they were the first person to ever call me out on my lack of scale at a public presentation.
“That’s disappointing,” another older mathematics expert, now noted engineer in the streaming space said. “For someone who uses so much data, you should be less careless with it. Your points are generally right, but your representations of data could be misleading.”
I wanted to argue. But I could not. Instead I said: “You’re right. I will try to do better.”
I spend a good deal of time telling people to “follow the data.” Because it will tell you the basic truths, and you cannot argue with it. But, on the one big thing people know me for, I had not been as transparent as I often publicly expect others to be. It was then I decided to add the scaling caveat, and to create a parallel map to offer a scaled representation of select planets in Big Media. The fact is, the “real-life” map makes my original point and ongoing thesis even stronger. The Death Stars are sucking most of the gravity out of the ecosystem, and creating a nearly unnavigable atmosphere for everyone else. Yet, on the IRL map, the scale itself is not actually visible. Just the typeface.
So, moving forward I will continually update both maps. One intended to represent the trends and scope of battle in the Media Universe (the valuations, data and math of the main map is as accurate as I have always strived to make them); and another to show the true measure of the stakes at play; sizing the players to scale, side by side.
More importantly, this brings me to a my main point, and to a very common theme for me: Question Everything.
The only way to avoid mistakes of the past, and chart your best path forward, it’s important to wake up stupid every day AND question the conventional wisdom of the moment - even (or perhaps especially) if it comes from me.
Whenever I speak to a room of Media professionals, I ask how many read the quarterly earnings of their clients, partners, competitors or employers. Very, very few do. It’s confounding, because these reports are not hard to read, and because they are far more straightforward and much more honest than the earnings calls hosted by those companies’ CEOs. The data tells the true story of where the major players in our universe have been, and where they are going.
In my writing, my design, my speeches and my teaching, I strive to question everything, all the time. But the episode with Verity proves something very important: The only way to do this consistently and effectively - the only way to attempt to see things as they truly are - is to constantly surround yourself with different and diverse points of view. This means people from different cultures, of different races, from varied economic backgrounds and faiths, of all genders, with divergent neurologies and physicalities, and those of different ages.
Verity is not just mathematician, programmer and musician, they are much younger than I. They are also neuroqueer.
An adjective describing someone who is both neurodivergent (a person on the autism spectrum, or someone whose brain processes information in a way that is not typical of most individuals) and also queer (a person who is not heterosexual or not cisgender), with some degree of conscious awareness and/or active exploration around how these two aspects of one’s being entwine and interact.
A verb meaning to embody and express one’s neurodivergence in ways that also queer one’s performance of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and/or other aspects of one’s identity.
It’s important to note that as concerned as Verity’s fellow, older mathematicians and programmers were about the scaling of my map, none of them approached me after my presentation to ask me about it. They kept their opinions to themselves and were perfectly willing to let me leave without pointing out where they thought I was wrong. If I hadn’t sat down for drinks (yes, I rudely invited myself to join them), we would not have ever discussed it. And, if not for Verity, I would not be writing this now.
Only Verity (who not only sees things differently, but also feels compelled to speak out about what they see) took the risk to talk to me about it. And, they did so in a way that made me see it differently. Their youth probably offered them the courage to speak truth to power (even if I was wrong, I was the authority in that room). And their singular view of the world allowed them to speak in a way that pulled me in, rather than push me away.
All of which gives their name, Verity, so much more meaning - at least to me.
So, I apologize for the lack of scale and transparency on my Media Universe Map. I promise to do better moving forward. And I hope this anecdote offers insight that my infographics cannot:
Always look for new ways to see the world around you, even those things you think are obvious, or believe to be fact. Seek new people, and new points of view, to inform and clarify your vision. Especially now, question every thing. And, for everyone’s sake, never be afraid to speak truth to power.
In short… strive for verity.
On June 26, I’ll hold my next webinar, where I will question everything I can in one hour. The webinar details are below my signature. If you see them, thanks for being a paying subscriber! If you don’t, try it, you might like it!
Have a great week.
ESHAP
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