Last week, a speaker slot at the INMA European Media Conference led me to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

As part of a keynote speech I was able to explain my thoughts on why also the distribution of media content is changing by the paradigm shift and why the importance of cross media platforms is expected to rise.

In summary, the value chain is shortened, classical distribution is greatly simplified, almost disappears. At the same time, users are increasingly open to innovative, individual products to consume content. Flipboard and Buzzfeed are just the most prominent examples. Therefore, providers with brandwide Content can now specialize in this field without having to deal with the content creation – provided the publishers share their contents. Presumably, however, this will only be a matter of time and pressure for change.

The entire presentation is available as a video:

…and as a presentation on Slideshare.

My personal conclusion: Those were exciting days in Estonia – a great country with a friendly, Hanseatic, international culture. What is striking is the tasteful, harmonious style, visible from the numerous bars and restaurants, buildings and parks to fashion. The old Soviet buildings present a clear but authentic contrast. English is spoken well everywhere, WiFi a mandatory and the food is excellent, even in a simple pub.

Both on and off the conference I was able to meet many interesting people, participate in inspiring lectures and discussions and gain useful insights to an industry that is fundamentally changing worldwide.

On the one hand, you sense the uncertainty, which is understandable, but very clearly also the willingness and openness to change.

To go into details of all lectures would go beyond the scope of this blog post.

However, I would like to point to a very comprehensive, international study on digital consumer behavior of the users by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, presented by Nic Newman. It demonstrates once again how serious the upcoming changes will be and how differently the regional markets partly will develop.

The situation was once again summed up to the point by the Executive Director and CEO of INMA, Earl J. Wilkinson. Main message: Stop talking, take action! And he demonstrated this with the findings of his trips to all parts of the world. You can find some other very exciting insights in the Conference Blog.