The Essential Metric of Customer Capitalism Is Customer Outcomes

The further development of future scenarios is an important aid for social dialogue, but one has to acknowledge that this is a specialized task which presupposes a broad view on the entire sector, a well-developed network of professional contacts who can be mobilized as information points, access to accumulated research findings, and above all the right mindset and willingness to focus on knowledge generation at a generic level. Scenario development is also a process rather than an activity; models and texts should be revisited and reviewed regularly. Internet years are short; workshop participants pointed at one-year- old surveys which were already obsolete in their conclusions.

Parallel to the present volatile character of the industry itself, the discussion about its course of development should not only take place in the form of general expectations (scenarios) but also be issue-driven. The traditional form for social debate was and is strongly influenced by the (static and predictable) positions of the discussion partners. In order to become truly anticipatory, it is key to be able to insert recent developments into the debate.

Since there is an existing tradition of social dialogue, there is also a pattern of expectation with regard to this type of activity. It should be made clear in an early stage that the new model assumes common analysis, assessment, and the joint development of creative solutions, and by definition is not an extension of the equally important negotiation process between industry partners on matters which require settlement via collective bargaining and agreement. It would make sense to mirror the existing diversity and the arrival of new market players in the composition of discussion forums.Traditionally, a key role is given to the social partners at media production level (both employers and employees), but this is no longer self-evident in the information society age.

We are witnessing a paradigm shift in power structure and a changeover, in economic terms, from the logic of supply to the logic of demand. This brings the news and information consumer to the fore as a key stakeholder in the debate about future communication structures. Media consumers, however, are fragmented and individualized, which means that we need to find new ways for them to be represented. The internet is already a meeting ground for many, and possibly could be used to organize input and feedback from the different categories of users. It would be worthwhile to create a test bed for this kind of involvement.