What is the Digital State? What is our Digital State of Mind?
What does the Digital State mean for brands and for businesses? These are the questions Simon Pont looked to answer by bringing experts from advertising, marketing, media, publishing, law and finance together. The result is a collection of 16 essays touching on personal and professional ways digital is transforming our lives, our culture, and our industry.
My favourite sections from the book include : Faris Yakob’s section “Digital Currents and Invisible Futures” touches on everything connected to the One Machine becoming an extension of individuals; using systems to bring access and information together, and people together. Simon Pont’s first section, “Utopia, Dystopia. Discuss” looks at how digital has the power to be good or bad, just like anything else humans have touched throughout history.
Judd Labarthe “How the Digital State Can Cure Modern Marketing” explores the digital age and emotion, where old concepts still work and add value. Christian Johnsen “Stories into Action” provides a point of view on great stories to motivate using digital platforms. There’s too much emphasis on platforms. Malcolm Hunter “Digital Through a Human Lens” discusses that the “more technology changes our lives, the more we need to put humanity at the heart of everything we do.” Finding control over the Digital State, rather than letting it control us is the theme for Greg Grimmer’s “Escape the Walled Garden to the Paradise Beyond.” Overall the compilation of essays provide a rounded view of digital from financial to emotional. Some are more focused on advertising and marketing, based on who wrote the section. But, there is something to be said for a broader context to what the Digital State is and what it means and to look at it from all angles. Each essay takes the narrative from a different perspective which creates digestible bite-sized portions easy to taken in during your commute.
You can buy "Digital State: How the Internet is Changing Everything" by Simon Pont (Editor) at Barnes&Noble