Welcome to the latest season of Media Voices: Big Noises! This season, sponsored by Glide Publishing Platform, we’ll be talking to publishing people with something to say. Media Voices co-host Peter Houston is tired of hearing the same old industry buzzwords. The publishing platitudes are starting to wear a bit thin, and he’s decided to see if he can shake the conversation up a bit by speaking to some of the biggest characters in the business.

Next up this season is Amy Kean, bestselling author, LinkedIn Top Voice, former Head of Innovation for Publicis and now CEO and Creative Director of Good Shout, a company that helps people communicate better. Amy is also a self-confessed weirdo and Peter’s big question for her was, could media do with more weirdos to stem the tide of painfully undifferentiated products that Neil spoke about last week?

We also spoke about fear, ego, jargon and how to spot a good weirdo rather than someone that’s going to be an HR problem.

Here’s a taster of some of what Amy had to say:

The insecurities of being average

The media world as it is now has lost its identity. It’s painful to watch. It’s cringe-worthy. No one wants to be different. We are run by formulas, and the ‘tried and tested’. And the problem is that everybody wants to fit in. The media industry is so familial, and so small, and so tight-knit, that all we want is each other’s approval. So being different, being odd, being unusual, being genuinely creative has taken a backseat. I hate it.

It’s [because of] two primary things. Fear absolutely – fear of being laid into by the rest of the advertising community, fear of having a massive public failure, but also insecurity. The only industry that’s more ego-driven is politics.

There was a survey conducted, and apparently advertising and media is the most stressful industry. People have the most breakdowns, the most serious stress conditions like clinical stress, because we take ourselves so seriously but also we’re incredibly insecure. And when you’re insecure, that’s when you adopt various different tactics to fit in socially. So that’s why you see everyone just doing the same thing for the same types of kudos from their peers, because we’re too insecure to stand out. People talk about bravery in our industry, but I haven’t seen any in the last five years.

Working in the industry for 20 years, I saw that tipping point about 10 years ago when the industry started to become flooded with really average people who were more concerned with sales and digital. And when you’re average, you’re also incredibly insecure. I always say… there’s nothing more dangerous than an average, insecure man. Because you develop bravado, you develop an act to enable you to survive in social situations when you’re average. So I think the insecurity comes from a lot of people who aren’t very good.

Something that I talk a lot about in my job and Good Shout is about people communicating better. The use of jargon in media and advertising… we’ve all seen trade press talking about unleashing the power of data and real-time agile solutions, and from one month to the next we’re either talking about immersive virtual worlds, or Metaverse strategies, and it’s all just jargon. Meaningless jargon.

There’s a load of research been conducted into how jargon is actually a sign of insecurity. So the more jargon you use apparently, the more insecure you are.


Thanks to Glide Publishing Platform who have sponsored this season of Media Voices: Big Noises. Glide exists to make publishers more successful by removing any need to get bogged down building Content Management Systems, providing an industry-leading SaaS tailored to let publishers do more and spend less. Publishers using Glide direct more resources at their audiences and products, and focus on building things that make them money. You do the content, Glide does the management.

Glide have created 3 expert guides to getting much more from a new or headless CMS, created for editorial, technology, and product teams. You can get the whitepapers here.

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