Peter Fisk

It’s 1994 in Montreal, and three friends – Shane Smith, Gavin McInnes and Suroosh Alvi – decide to launch a free punk magazine called the Voice of Montreal. Two years later, the magazine drops the “o,” changing its name to Vice. By 2014, the business, having since relocated to New York and now known as Vice Media, has become a multi-platform news and entertainment group worth more than $2.5 billion.

Vice, however, is not just another news website or magazine. It has followed a different path. At a time when many legacy media organizations are struggling to stay afloat, Vice has found that magical point of convergence where good journalism, positive cash flow and (most elusive of all) the millennial attention span meet.

Recently, Vice Media has launched a full-fledged news division,  a 24-hour news network and raised $500m from investors excited by their ability to reach new audiences. For the company to have reached this point is largely due to CEO Shane Smith, who has emerged as Vice’s much-tattooed chieftain.

The way Smith sees it, there’s little about the Vice formula that’s magic. “We look at it very simply. We want to do three things. We want to make good content, we want to have as many eyeballs as possible see that content, and we want to make money so that we can keep paying to do that content,” he says.

Vice has grown up whilst staying counter-cultural. Retaining the spark that made it a hit in the first place, first among Gen X-ers, then among the coveted millennials. On a given day, the website features provocative headlines like “I Went to a Blowjob Bar in Bangkok, Thailand” and “We Asked Drug Addicts to Rate the Music at Copenhagen Central” alongside news about unrest in the Middle East.

Even corporate advertisers love it, Vice includes among its clients the likes of Google, Levi’s and Intel, all of which have created branded content with Vice. According to Smith, Vice’s ad inventory is sold out on every platform, including its booming YouTube channel, across the next eight months. “Even when Vice was at its craziest and most zany and salty, we were still 50 percent ads,” says Smith. “I think that the skill lies in getting the brand what they want, which is brand lift, while also getting the content that we want out there, rather than the content that [brands] want or that everybody thinks that they want. Our success lies in finding brands that are sophisticated enough to realize that they should sponsor that content.”

Smith himself is known for being provocative, whether by announcing his intention to build Vice into “the next MTV, ESPN and CNN rolled into one” or by calling the competition (in this case, Gawker) “a bunch of bitches.” But it’s that same disdain for PR-friendly cautiousness that makes Smith such an effective leader, says chief creative officer Eddy Moretti. “I think [Shane] sees the media world, by and large, as a system that suffers from a bureaucratization and standardization of something that should be the most beautiful, human, cultural artistic thing,” Moretti says. “At the core of Shane’s vision is that if he holds onto that, he can cut through all the bullshit, and the company can continue to grow without losing sight of the secret behind its success.”

So what can we learn from Vice about the future of media?

1. Be platform-agnostic: Vice started out as a magazine and like others ventured online in the mid-to-late 1990s. Yet this was more than a print-to-digital transition. Vice publishes records, publishes books, makes TV programmes and produces films. It goes where its audience goes.

2. Know your audience: Subject, platform, treatment … that’s the recipe. It’s not enough to know what your audience likes; you have to know how they like it. “Young people have been marketed to since they were babies, they develop this incredibly sophisticated bullshit detector, and the only way to circumvent the bullshit detector is to not bullshit.” says Smith.

3. Have your own voice: Any decent publication will cultivate a tone of voice. But where others might opt for something collegiate and inclusive – collaborative, accessible and straightforward – the voice of Vice is challenging and rebelious. It is exclusive rather than inclusive (you’re either in the club or you’re not), it’s polarising and  provocative. Contributors and audience revel in it. “We want you to love us or hate us.”

5. Create some noise: This may mean social media engagement but it needn’t. Vice’s Twitter and Facebook shares are good but not spectacular. Creating some noise means more. First, it means getting readers and viewers to talk to each other about you face-to-face. Second, it means getting the rest of the media to talk about you (think Dennis Roadman in North Korea!).

6. Make money (without losing audience): This is the delicate balance. Vice generates significant revenue through sponsored content. Clients, past and present, include Intel, North Face, Dell, Nike and Red Bull. So far its audience is onside. Perhaps this is down to the skill of its film-makers, a rigid divide between (editorial) church and (advertising) state, or an uncanny knack to pick brand partners that perfectly reflect the attitudes of its followers.

Realizing that he could not draw, aspiring animator Ed Catmull decided to change his academic focus to physics and computer science. He joined a small off-shoot of George Lucas’ filmmaking empire, Graphics Groups which actually made visual technology products for healthcare. Combining science and art, Catmull drove the creation of “PhotoRealistic Renderman”, an image-rendering process used to generate high-quality images. It was a business that intrigued Steve Jobs, who bought the business from LucasFilm in 1985.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X25aIZ7URHM

Whilst the technology was cutting edge, it wasn’t a good business, and to stay afloat, Catmull started making short animated commercials. John Lasseter, a creative director soon joined to help. Out of financial necessity emerged one of the most imaginative movies of all time, Toy Story. It was the beginning of a long sequence of award-winning success.  Both Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 are among the 50 highest grossing films of all time,  with Toy Story 3 being the all-time highest, grossing over $1 billion worldwide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5HN3-l_f-U

The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion, but retained its independence, allowing the creativity and technological inventiveness (perhaps best articulated in Wall-E) to flourish without the distractions of a big business. Pixar’s movies and licensed characters continued to be loved by children – and adults – across the world. Steve Jobs loved the brand so much, that even when he didn’t own it anymore, he still used his Pixar email address rather than Apple’s address, “because it’s much cooler”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjwBdyzsLZU

Pixar’s “Braintrust” meets once every few months, putting its smartest, most passionate people together in a room for the day to think bigger ideas, solve the most difficult problems, and do what individuals can’t or daren’t. Ed Catmull says “a hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms”. Pixar finds that decision making is better when it draws on the collective knowledge and candid opinions of the Braintrust group, finding that straight talking encourages collaboration and more daring creativity.

Philosophy was founded in 1996 by Cristina Carlino, who brought over 30 years of experience in clinical skin care and beauty, including her previously created brand Biomedic, a medically-based skincare range.

What Cristina believed in more than anything was the combination of function and emotion, science and inspiration. “What is in our bottles and jars inspires better skin, what is on our bottles and jars inspires better days”, the latter a reference to the quirky poetry that adorn every piece of packaging. Philosophy was acquired by Coty in 2011, and in 2016 became part of P&G’s premium beauty portfolio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRrludELRnE

The philosophy is based on both advanced science (for example, millions of women get hooked on the hydrating properties of its “Miracle Worker” cream), and on “celebrating the beauty of human spirit”. Everyone knows that there is no magical formula to prevent skin aging, but Philosophy gives you “Hope” recognises that beauty is as much a feeling inside as an outer appearance. “We believe that skin care can give us better skin and inspiration can give us better days” it goes.

But that’s the point … the brand isn’t about the product, it’s about the consumer … whilst the product is scientific and functional, it’s the inspiration that engages people, that brings like-minded women together, and that builds loyalty and advocacy. It’s not about how good the manufacturer thinks the product is, it’s what the consumer believes. Philosophy as a brand inspires its consumers to believe not just in the product, but that they can be more. And together, as a like-minded community, they can be even more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Xy1nOunT8&list=PLKF_y6jOy-L6NZ-jgl9FyJv_KwM_Z4YWb

In 1947 Ole Kirk Christiansen bought the first plastic-injection moulding machine in Denmark to start manufacturing plastic toy bricks. Within 4 years he had patented the stud-like bricks that locked together as systems.

For the next 56 years, Lego seemed the perfect company. An iconic brand, the business was still run by the family, grandson Kjeld Kirk now the CEO. However in 1993, sales slowed dramatically, blamed on everything from low-priced Chinese imitations to kid’s new love of computer games.  Lego responded with wave after wave of innovation. Jumbo sized for toddlers, pocket sized for girls. Computerised “Technics” range for the most inventive, and video games for the lazy. But kids were growing up faster.

Licensing of Star Wars and Harry Potter ranges tapped into trends, but were short-lived. It sought out new spaces – fanatical about finding uncontested “blue oceans” rather than more competitive “red oceans” – and encouraged diverse creativity. Clothing and jewellery, theme parks and education added to the brand’s extensions.

Yet in 2003 Lego almost went bankrupt. The unbridled innovation had lost a sense of direction, trying to be too many things to too many people, forgetting what it was really about – “playing well” as the brands origins in the Danish phrase “leg godt” translate.

The family ceded control to a professional CEO, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, who brought tighter focus to the portfolio, and added discipline to the creativity. He sold the theme parks, moved out of the head office, and outsourced production to Czech Republic and Mexico.

However Knudstorp still believed in innovation, it just needed discipline. It wasn’t about blazing a trail into every market, but focusing on the best opportunities for profitable growth.  Investment focused on the ideas which fitted best with the core brand, and delivered a long-term return. By 2006, the world’s third largest toy maker started growing again, with profit growth double revenue growth, always a healthy sign.

On May 21 2013 Tim Cook stood before the US Senate. Apple had enjoyed unprecedented success over the last decade, and globally the brand’s popularity has soared with international revenues double those from local markets. He was asked whether Apple is still proud to be an American company. He emphatically replied yes, more than ever. Whilst the question was supposed to be about taxation, Cook replied with a bigger passion. Whilst iPhones and iPads are manufactured across the globe, the ideas behind their success – design and innovation – happens within one zipcode, 95014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHO-hiTQs_Y

At Cupertino, in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley where Steve Jobs grew up, then surrounded by orange orchards, and later by tech start-ups, Apple is building a new futuristic campus. Shortly before he died, Steve Jobs made one final public appearance, in front of Cupertino’s planning committee. He talked of his love of the place Apple calls home, and the people, “the brightest, most creative people on the planet” he called his team. He wanted to ensure he secured a great place for them to continue his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyQfye4vAQ8

In the same month, Apple launched a huge marketing program with the slogan “Designed by Apple in California”. It’s a signature that has been enscribed on the back of every Apple device for decades, but it says more about Apple, and the business world now than ever. It reminds us that we live in an ideas world, that Apple is a creative business, working with the best technical partners across the globe, to create great products, with a brand that captures the world’s imagination. Whilst most businesses are now a mosaic of nationalities, heritage and iconic images are what inspire us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1Q8ofD-s3E

The rest of Apple story has already been told. From the early days of 1976 when Jobs and Steve Wozniak launched Apple 1 at the Homebrew Computer Club, and made his first million that year, to Apple 2 two years later when his wealthy had grown to $100m. In 1984 the “Mac team” flies a pirate flag above their office, and launches the Mac at that years Superbowl. But soon after, they were gone, refusing to be slaves to conventional management.

Rejoining Apple in 1997, having made $1.5 billion at NeXT and Pixar, Jobs “thinks different” with his multi-coloured iMacs. iPod and iTunes, iPhone and iPad soon followed. Whilst people loved and hated Jobs, his passion was to make things people loved, to create a better life. This purpose, more than the pursuit of money or innovation, is what has inspired Apple, and inspired consumers, to build a great brand.

New muscle tissue, replacement arteries, livers and kidneys, even a heart transplant … Organova’s 3D printers are ready to play with nature, made to order in a lab. As millions of people sit waiting around the world for organ transplants, and alternative is rapidly emerging. Print the perfect replace now, ready in a few hours, rather than waiting years for a suitable match.

Co-founder and CEO of the San Diego-based innovator, Keith Murphy , says “Surgeons are very limited by what they have available today. If you can give them tissue to order, you can multiply, exponentially, the types of surgery that we can even envision doing. By uniquely using a patient’s own cells, surgeons can do even more remarkable things.”

Working in partnership with the University of Missouri, Organovo leads the way in bio-printing, or tissue engineering.  The NovoGen MMX Bioprinter uses human cells and shapes them into real tissue, unlike other players who make the organs out of synthetic materials and then bond them to existing cells. The printer ejects a liquid filled with thousands of human cells, guided by lasers. The process repeats, creating hundreds of layers of cells, held together with a gel. The cells begin to grow, meshing themselves together, as they would in the body, and into actual tissue.

Organovo partners with commercial businesses like Pfizer, and academic institutions, including Harvard Medical School, to bring together the best research and expertise, and to test the emerging tissue samples.  Hundreds of patents have been filed, and sample kidneys and livers already produced.

Here is an extract of an article from the Huffington Post:

Three-dimensional printing has been used to make everything from pizza and prosthesis and now researchers are working on using the emerging technology to fabricate hearts, kidneys, and other vital human organs.

That would be very big news, as the number of people who desperately need an organ transplant far outstrips the number of donor organs available. On average, about 21 Americans die every day because a needed organ was unavailable.

What exactly is the promise of 3D printing organs and tissues, or ‘bioprinting?” How does the technology work, and when might it start saving lives?

For answers to these and other questions, HuffPost Science reached out to Dr Antony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a world-renowned expert in the field, to find out.

See below for a lightly edited version of the Q & A.

Can 3D printing end the shortage of organs?

3D printing is not magic. It is simply a way to scale up the current processes we use to engineer organs in the laboratory. Our team has successfully engineered bladders, cartilage, skin, urine tubes and vaginas that have been implanted in patients. Our goal is produce organ structures such as these with 3D printing to make the engineering process more precise and reproducible. The ultimate goal of regenerative medicine -– regardless of the way the organs are engineered — is to help solve the shortage of donor organs.

How might 3D-printed organs compare to donor organs?

Our goal is to engineer organs using a patient’s own cells. With this approach, there would be no issues with rejection, and patients wouldn’t have to take the powerful anti-rejection drugs that are now required. This is certainly one advantage of customized organs.

What’s the actual process by which organs would be “printed?”

A first step in organ engineering –- whether it involves 3D printing or other methods –- is to get a biopsy of the organ that needs to be replaced. From this biopsy, certain cells with regenerative potential are isolated and multiplied. These cells are then mixed with a liquid material that provides oxygen and other nutrients to keep them alive. This mixture is placed in a printer cartridge. A separate printer cartridge is filled with a biomaterial that will be printed into the organ- or tissue-shaped structure. The structure is designed on a computer using a patient’s medical scans.

When happens when you press the “print” button?

When the “print” button is pushed, the printer builds the structure layer by layer and embeds cells into each layer. When cells are provided the right mixture of nutrients and growth factors –- and placed in the right environment — they know what to do and perform their functions. For some structures, two or more types of cells may be required.

What challenges are you facing?

Scientists have successfully engineered three categories of organs: flat structures such as skin; tubular structures such as urine tubes and blood vessels; and hollow structures such as the bladder. The most complex organs are solid structures such as the kidney, liver, and pancreas. Some of the challenges we face with these organs are learning to grow the billions of cells required for these organs, as well as learning how to best supply the new organs with oxygen until they integrate with the body.

We are exploring a variety of options that include printing oxygen-generating materials into the structures; printing micro-channels that can maximize the diffusion of nutrients and oxygen from nearby tissues; and printing blood vessels into the structures.

How many years away are we from printing complex organs like the heart and kidney?

Science is unpredictable, so it is impossible to make predictions. But I think we can safely say that the timeframe required to routinely print and implant complex organs is decades, rather than years.

What are some recent breakthroughs that have brought us closer to making 3D printed organs a reality?

We are continuing to refine our printers to increase printing resolution and learning how to keep the printing process from damaging cells. In addition, we are making advances in identifying which biomaterials work best for specific structures. And, we are great making strides printing with multiple cells types and controlling placement of cells.

What are the next steps?

One relatively new bioprinting project, funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, aims to print mini hearts, livers, blood vessels, and lung on a chip system. Called a “Body on a Chip,” this project has the potential to test new drugs more accurately and perhaps eliminate the need for testing in animals. The immediate goal is to test effects on the body of biological weapons and to develop antidotes.

You lie on the hospital bed, wheeled along corridors towards a date with your heart surgeon. As the doors of the operating theatre swing open, you are met by the bright lights and gadgetry. Sedated, your eye scans the room for the cheery surgeon in his green gown, maybe putting on his mask and reassuring you that everything will be fine.

Instead you see a gleaming $2.5 million, multi-limbed machine. This is da Vinci, your robotic surgeon, now operating with more precision, speed and efficiency than is humanly possible, in over 2500 hospitals around the world. Relax. As the anaesthetic now kicks in, you are in safe hands, of sorts.

In fact the surgeon is (currently) still part of the procedure, sitting with a computer interface that shows a 3D image of your body’s interior, using a joystick instead of his forceps and scalpel.

The $50,000 endoscopic camera helps the surgeon navigate through the body, as if playing a computer game. An array of diagnostic and operating tools are available, either with manual or intuitive controls. Surgeons quickly learn to finesse the new instruments, although it could be argued that a game-playing teenager might be even better at handling the controls.

Intuitive Surgical develops and builds the robotic da Vinci systems from its base in Sunnyvale, California. It brings together experts experience as diverse as NASA’s ability to operate the space station from Earth, and more traditional hands-on surgeons. Innovations in components, and the software that supports it, are developing fast.  A new fluorescent imaging system is able to quickly identify cancer, whilst a new portable da Vinci system can be placed on a table, and operated with the help of a Microsoft Kinect gaming set.

The benefits are huge – the procedure is better, because the surgeon combine his own skill and judgement, with the precise movements and instruments of the machine – but also faster and cheaper, with many operations possible by accessing the body through a small belly-button insertion which enables much faster procedures and patient recovery.

Having originally been developed under contract to the US Army for battlefield surgery, da Vinci is becoming available, and mostly preferred, by surgeons worldwide. With investments of almost £3 billion, Intuitive is now generating annual revenues over $500m and growing.

M-Pesa (M for mobile, pesa is Swahili for money) is a mobile-phone based money transfer system that grew out of “I owe you” text messages promising future payments in a region where banking is still primitive, and credit cards are rare. Developed by Kenya’s mobile operator, Safaricom and also licensed to Vodacom, it offers a fast and easy payment method across Africa.

Such has been its simple but successful development, with over 3 billion M-Pesa accounts registered (that’s almost half the world’s population?!), that it has become the most admired mobile payments system in the developing world, allowing users with an identity card to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money easily with a phone.

Having seen how markets without fixed-line telephones leapfrogged directly to mobile devices, what is interesting here, is how consumers embrace the added value services of their phones faster much more quickly and actively than in developed markets.

Launched in 2007 as part of a Kenyan high school technology project, M-Pesa initially  focused on providing loans to local entrepreneurs from the Safaricom stores. However people quickly started paying back the loans immediately, or getting others to, in the form of payments and transfers. It has quickly been adopted for all kinds of transactions, from paying bills to accessing real bank accounts.

The service now allows users to deposit money into an account stored on their cell phones, to send balances using SMS to other users (individuals or businesses), and to redeem deposits for regular money at the nearest bank, post office, or Safaricom store. Users are charged a small fee for sending and withdrawing money.

Safaricom recently launched a second financial brand,  M-Shwari in partnership with Commercial Bank of Africa, allowing M-Pesa customers to save and borrow money through their mobile phone, earning interest on the money saved. It includes an emergency loan facility at affordable interest rates, unusual for Africa. From a new payment currency, the business has become a liensed bank.

Making life smooth and easy … or “Lainisha maisha na M-Shwari”, as they say in Swahili.

The Acacia tree in the brand logo represents a bank with roots that run deep in South African society. FNB is the oldest bank in South Africa, originally the Eastern Province Bank founded  in 1838, and today, a division of FirstRand Bank Limited.

“FNB lives and breathes innovation” says CEO Michael Jordaan. “Every employee can be an innovator and can change the way we work” based on what he calls bottom-up strategies, delivered by a bottom-up organisation hierarchy.

These innovations include FNB Africa’s “Bank in a bag” making joining a very tangible experience, online personal banking, a rewards program, digital apps and links to other retail loyalty programs.  At the heart of these initiatives is a  mobile “eWallet” from which customers can make cardless payments and cash withdrawals using SMS confirmations, Pay2Cell, and Facebook Vouchers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBuqrcdrZLI

The eWallet service allows customers to send money to anyone in South Africa with a valid mobile phone number. Funds can be transferred instantly, and the recipient receives a text message indicating that funds have been sent to their mobile phone.

The recipient is then able to withdraw cash at FNB ATMs, buy pre-paid airtime or electricity, send money to another phone, purchase and/or get cash at selected retailers, as well as make once-off payments.

To encourage and sustain this innovation drive, FNB has an annual innovations award, encouraging staff to creatively deliver solutions aligned to the company’s strategy, and contribute towards growth targets. Over 1000 initiatives contend for the award each year.

“It’s incredible to be part of an organisation where its people continuously come up with innovative ideas that are very often implemented. As a leader I encourage people to think out of the box and come up with an innovative set of ideas or solutions that will ultimately benefit our customers, so that our business evolves with new mindsets and visions of the future,” says Jordaan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8DkKEmkPeU

“We’re changing the way banking happens” says Andy Lark, CMO of Australia’s most innovative bank. Leading the way in using mobile and social media, CommBank is using technology to enable its customers to achieve more, as well as making transactions fast and easy. It sees the intimacy of social relationships between its customers as the best way to rebuild trust and transparency, whilst mobile apps seek to help people in their everyday lives, beyond money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRoeoduHKCU

With over 1100 branches, the 48000 employees work as one collaborative team, supported by Chatter, an internal social network. Externally, the bank uses Facebook as its platform to make each customers experience more personal and relevant. Apps then enhance this experience in different ways for different situations.

Take buying a new house, for example. CommBank forms relationships with real estate companies to transform the home buying experience. Bank customers get advance notice of new properties. Find the location on the smartphone map. Arrive and see the details with augmented reality. Check the asking price, and how much mortgage payments would be from CommBank. Click to buy, and the bank will bring together all the necessary people and paperwork to make it happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OztuiMoYX80