Everything you thought you knew about the workplace is already outdated.
Fast Company Magazine
Just a year ago (pre COVID), digital media, content branding, media curation, online product creation, and online journalism were among the hottest and employable professions. Content was king (OK queen).
Every company needed a strong online presence. Millennial VUCANs wanted honest news not fakery. Millennials had discretionary incomes with profitable side-hustles. Gen Z, the first true digital generation, wanted engagement and authenticity. Traditional marketing was moving online and was the biggest platform for advertising even bigger than TV. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter were media mega ballers. The online marketing vectors pointed in the right direction.
All media was pumped on the possibilities and even probabilities for a bright future and huge paydays. Bold entrepreneurial innovators, risk-takers, and VC’s invested in the digital media future. But like similar tribes and VUCANs, they believed their own BS echo-chamber. Well things got disrupted. BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Verizon, and Yahoo downsized thousands of digital media professionals. Buzzfeed fired 15% of its workers who two years ago thought that any digital media meant guaranteed work. Digital media professionals bemoan:
“Working in digital media is like trying to build a fort out of marshmallows on a foundation made of marbles in a country ruled by capricious and tyrannical warring robots.”[i]
It’s now all about ‘show me da money’? This is the mantra of mega-tech companies, startups, and struggling corner retailer.
Work Lesson Earned: So, would you recommend digital media to your kids?
“I’ve toiled in this business for nearly 20 years, and even in the best of times it has been a squeamish and skittering ride, the sort of career you’d counsel your kids to avoid in favor of something less volatile and more enduring — bitcoin mining, perhaps.”[ii]
BTW: Bitcoin is among the most speculative ventures around.
[i] ‘The BuzzFeed Layoffs As Democratic Emergency’, New York Times, January 30, 2019.
[ii] ‘The BuzzFeed Layoffs as Democratic Emergency’, New York Times, January 30, 2019.