Above, I spoke at Burson-Marsteller's spectacular London offices.
I've been a lot of talking since arriving in London last week and Amsterdam this week on the subject of "every company is a media company" and what happens next.

I'll have a fuller report later this week but so far the reception has been excellent and there's quite a good understanding of the concept but a wide difference in how corporations and PR agencies are taking this message and moving forward -- or not.

A common phenomenon in the media industry is that if a publication becomes the thought leader for its target segment, it's very difficult to dislodge it, even if it's not that good. If it's where people have to read it becomes the leader and usually it's a winner takes all position. The same is true for corporate media. For example, look at the success of Zappos. I don't know of any other online shoe retailer even though there are (probably) many others.

That's the same opportunity for every company -- to establish their thought leadership in prime position, through their own media channels. It's then very difficult for others, coming along later, to dislodge them. This is where smaller, more nimble companies can get a jump on larger competitors in terms of amping up their corporate media efforts.

PressPage, a Dutch startup that builds future-proof digital newsrooms has been my partner in this tour and the team, led by Bart Verhulst, CEO has done an excellent job in managing the logistics of this European tour and has brought together lots of interesting people from different backgrounds for our group discussions on the future role of corporate media and what might become be the funding model for serious journalism.

I will be speaking at Ragan's prestigious 2013 International Social Media & PR Summit in Amsterdam later this week.

Please see:
About SVW: Heading To London, Amsterdam, Berlin, And Warsaw - Presentations On Corporate Media EC=MC

PressPage: A Quick And Effective Corporate Social Media Newsroom

Some days it seems as if the universe is conspiring to provide me with exactly what I need, in the right amounts,  and at the right time. Johnny Marr, the former guitarist of The Smiths, playing just down the street from me at The Fillmore -- was concrete proof of this conspiracy. 

There's no need for Johnny Marr to prove himself with flashy guitar licks, and theatrical moves, as his mid-gig special guest, Billy Duffy from The Cult, did.

Johnny Marr's singing was very good, and so was the performance of the young backup band touring with him. And he's a very modest man, far from a rock and roll stereotype, but totally absorbed in the roots of the music.

And he finished the set with what must be the best guitar intro ever: The Smith's "How Soon Is Now?"

The venue was hot and everyone was dripping, and it must have been much worse on stage. Before he came on for the encore he changed into a dry, loose fitting white T-shirt with three large words, one on each line: "Johnny Fucking Marr." Indeed.

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Below, there's a clip of Noel Gallagher from Oasis talking about The Smiths, and Johnny Marr around 1.20 min, and his unique talent. He tells a story related by Johnny Marr, describing how he tried  to recreate his intro to "How Soon Is Now"  and it's like a five minute comedy sketch, and he just can't do it. "Even he's not as good as he is." Brilliant. Thank you universe for a superb night.

More:

Johnny Marr to collect Godlike Genius prize at NME Awards 2013

Fans Have New Reason to Worship Johnny Marr - NYTimes.com

Rolling Stone: The Smiths' Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke Reunite in Brooklyn to Play 'How Soon Is Now?' Marr closes solo show with surprise reunion.

I was walking along Haight Street and spotted a poster competition for the upcoming Haight Street Fair, June 9, which has always been one of the best San Francisco Street Fairs. For a long time it was organized by the wonderful Pablo Heising, a good friend and one of the neighborhoods best community leaders. 

Pablo's Haight Street Fair was instrumental in bringing the neighborhood back to life. It showed that it could be a safe and fun place to visit, instead of a reputation as a violent, crack and speed infested no-go zone. The Haight Street Fair started in 1978 and quickly became the best loved and the best attended street fair in San Francisco, and an important community resource.

My wife and I used to publish a local neighborhood newspaper in the late 1980s called "The Street - A View From The Haight." It was a perfect excuse to get to know Pablo better and celebrate his life in a feature interview, calling him "The Mayor of Haight Street." It was a title that stuck well, and struck true to his thousands of friends.  

A dark and troubled time...

Pablo was always a modest man, quiet and unassuming; he achieved so many good things, and without any fanfare. He was a gentle giant in his community. His passing at 61, was a shock and we lost a kind man. And we lost a first-hand witness to an important period in the neighborhood's fabled, but also deeply troubled history.

The Haight-Ashbury story is as rock & roll as any cautionary tale of a rock star's life. From the heady thrills of life on an adoring world stage, there is the inevitable fall from grace and the slide into a bottom-less dark place of drug addiction and mindless acts of self-destruction. And then the painful, gradual rehabilitation, a reawakening, a blinking into a harsh sunlight but at least back on track, back onto a track of work and slow, gradual improvement. The Haight-Ashbury is no longer a neighborhood of crack houses and cracked kids, and Pablo was very important in the resurrection of what was a very damaged community for most of the 1970s and into early 1980s.

Pablo lived very simply, which probably was due to his Digger background, a radical group that ran free stores, and free community kitchens, and whose egalitarian philosophies are a key influence in the software engineer culture of Silicon Valley and beyond. Pablo should have bought some crack houses and flipped them to provide himself with a little bit of security as he grew older but he didn't. Many people, such as my landlord,  made fortunes in the Haight-Ashbury real-estate market as the neighborhood moved well beyond  gentrification.

In the mid-1990s, Pablo was forced out of his rented apartment and came to live with me and my wife and two kids,  for a couple of weeks up in Forestville, which is about an hour or so north of San Francisco. He was a long-time friend of my wife Mervana because both had worked for many years at Bill Graham Presents; we were very happy to have Pablo all to ourselves for a short while.

Pablo worked with many other city neighborhoods showing them how to organize and provide local services.  And he also organized the other great San Francisco street event -- The Castro Street Fair.

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You can learn more about Pablo here in this profile from the San Francisco Chronicle: Pablo Heising -- 'Mayor of Haight'

Here's an interview with Pablo shortly before he died from Haight Ashbury Beat, one of the more recent in a series of publications from the Haight (which includes Rolling Stone): Watch 2006 Pablo Heising Interview | haight ashbury beat Episodes

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Pablo's spirit can still be found at events such as the Haight Street Fair, which always seems to mark the start of a yet another great San Francisco summer season of street events and music festivals. This city has a wonderful cultural life and it doesn't require money to enjoy it. 

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More posters...

My favorite in this year's Haight Street Fair poster competition is the one above. This first poster below, is one of my favorites from past years. It was designed by Kathleen Bifulco, one of the art editors on our publication "The Street." [Kathleen's husband Chris Dichtel wrote a historical column for the paper and many of our other friends were involved too -- "The Street"was a close knit editorial collective.] 

Here are the other posters from this year's poster competition from a Haight Street store window, (my apologies for my feet!):

[A note about the Culture Watch section: Startups should make sure that they expose their staff to as much of the local cultural life as they can manage because it builds a diversity in ideas and in services opportunities.

A business that doesn't take an interest in its communities will not be in business for long. Culture is constantly being disrupted and replaced, it is innovative and wildly creative -- and it constantly generates new languages of expression, and these reflect how society thinks about things, and what it thinks about itself. To understand "social" you have to be in it, you have to go out and about, and you need to be social. Social media is not enough.]

I saw this last Saturday and I highly recommend it. Smart dialogue, excellent musical performance by Allison Lovejoy, and it's  A KILLER STORY @ The Marsh Berkeley.

Pre-show cabaret performance at 7:15pm

Arrive at 7pm and enjoy"Noir Era" food and "Killer Cocktails" in cabaret-style seating.

FRIDAY, May 3 The fabulous Mr. Lucky sings crime songs and more...

Allison Lovejoy is playing the score for this excellent and entertaining "Noir" play at a wonderful venue Friday and Saturday nights through May 18.

The show begins at 8, and we have pre-show cabaret from 7:15-7:50, with great food and cocktails in the Marsh Cafe.

It's on Allston Way, 1/2 block from downtown Berkeley Bart.

Tickets are available on Goldstar for $10.

Discount code on the website is "bourbon"

http://www.themarsh.org/a_killer_story

In three days I'm off to London for a week,  then Amsterdam, hopefully a few days in Berlin, and then Warsaw (above) returning in early June.

I'll be making a series of presentations around my favorite topic: "Every Company Is A Media Company - the transformative business equation of our times."

I first started talking about how every company is a media company more than eight years ago. The concept wasn't well understood at the time but now, interest has sky-rocketed and it's a topic that has shot to the top of the priority list for many corporations, as they try to capitalize on the amazing media technologies that are becoming available.

Silicon Valley is central to this global trend in business, its startups are creating powerful media technologies and services -- it's rapidly transforming into a Media Valley.

Companies can quickly change their competitive landscape, and their position in it, by mastering the art of media publishing. If they are able to do it first, they can overshadow their much larger competitors because in the media world, if you become the go-to media source in your sector -- it's very difficult to challenge that position. It happens all the time in the media industry, and now it is happening in other industries too. Think Zappos, who else do you know that sells shoes online? 

I'm happy to help enterprises become media companies and teach them the best practices of a media organization, and guide them through the treacherous waters of social media, and the many other media channels.

Rediscovering best practices

I often see corporations making big mistakes with their media strategies. Sometimes they are trying to reinvent the wheel, when we already have figured out best practices on how to do certain things, from hundreds of years of newspaper publishing. 

My work in this area will become the foundation for a new, services side of SVW that you'll be hearing more about over the course of this year. It's what will help support the editorial coverage, and enable me to continue working as an independent journalist.

Best-of-breed media services collective

I will also be meeting with companies that offer a variety of media services to enterprises of various types, and pull together the best of them into a group of top-class media services providers.

From digital newsrooms, to crowd sourcing ideas, media content development, to building communities around a company's thought leaders, there is no need for companies to develop their own in-house technologies when there are some excellent platforms available that they can be put to use right now.

Speed to market is vital -- you need to become the "Zappos" of your sector.

I'm hoping this carefully selected media services collective will become an important resource for every company that's trying to become a media company.  

Please stay tuned for more details, and stories from my travels.

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If you'd like to book a session with me and your teams, send me a note: tom at SiliconValleyWatcher.com. From May 5 to 12 I'm in London; From May 12 to 20 I'm in Amsterdam; then possibly Berlin if I can finalize some meetings, and in Warsaw until June 5.

Foremski's Take: Most Intel watchers are agreed, that Intel's new CEO, insider Brian Krzanich, is a safe choice but that Intel needed someone to "rock the boat." 

They miss the fact that Intel is a supertanker, you can't rock a supertanker no matter how much you jump up and down - you can just gradually change its direction.

What they also miss is the new Ms. in the executive office: Renee James, the new President, the partner to Mr. Krzanich in Intel's  "two-in-a-box" leadership team.

 "I work for Brian, but the rest of the company works for Brian and I," James said. "We put the strategy together as a team."

Intel goes inside for new CEO: Brian Krzanich | OregonLive

Her appointment shows the enduring influence of Andy Grove, former CEO and Chairman, and the creator of Intel's notorious "Marine Corp." culture. Ms. James worked as his technical assistant for four years - a mundane title that disguises the fact that it is always a fast track position into the top ranks of Intel.

Take a look at what Andy Grove said about Ms. James in a rare 2009 interview:

[Grove] says his onetime apprentice has found her own style, and a unique voice, in a potentially inhospitable environment. "That kind of puts hair on your chest, to do that and survive, as a woman in software in a company that's a manufacturing company. To do that, you have to have strength."

"Renee has an incredible ambition to do things and succeed and then do something harder and succeed. It's a driving ambition and it makes her undertake high-risk things. And it's not that she doesn't worry about the bumps...But she takes them on."

"I would like to see her in the top role, or one of the top roles, at Intel."

Rewriting the rules: Intel's software chief challenges convention | OregonLive.com

Mr. Grove got his way.

It's significant that she was head of Intel's software group, the company employs more software engineers than hardware engineers.

And its also significant that she is not an engineer, but has qualifications in business and marketing, similar to Paul Otellini, the retiring CEO, who was sometimes criticized for not being a technologist.

Intel's alchemy...

Mr. Krzanich has a Chemistry degree as did co-founder Gordon Moore, because making chips is all about chemistry -- it is an alchemy that transforms common sand into shiny square slivers of advanced technologies, worth more than their weight in gold.

Intel's board, which by-the-way is very much a "Grove" board - it was completely restructured by Mr. Grove in the mid-2000s - essentially went back to basics with the appointment of chemist Mr Krzanich, but made sure there would be an"outsider" perspective in Intel's strategy with the appointment of Ms. James as co-leader.

Another significant point: Ms. James is based in Hillsboro, Oregon, where Intel is the state's largest employer. Its Silicon Valley HQ, where Mr. Krzanich works, is hundreds of miles away from its massive manufacturing operations in Oregon, and Arizona.

[Paul Otellini has an office in San Francisco, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge but still commutes every day to Santa Clara, more than 50 miles away. A former Intel executive tells me he was always the first one in to work.]

Ms. James's desk is next to Andy Bryant, Intel's Chairman -- she's much closer to the working heart of Intel than the distant Santa Clara HQ.

Andy Patrizio at Networked World, writes: 

She should be the CEO because these [Intel's business challenges] are all areas that require vision. Krzanich is an ops guy. That would have been something if Intel picked her, because then three of the largest firms in this industry - IBM, HP and Intel - would all be led by women. But for now she's the number two and really the one to watch.

 Please see: 

- Where Is Intel's New CEO? Should There Be Two? -SVW

Renee James background:

Grew up in Los Gatos, Calif.; came to Oregon to attend the University of Oregon (Class of 1986), where she ran track, majored in political science and later earned a master's degree in business administration.

Joined the company in 1989 when Intel bought the small California company where James worked, Bell Technologies. James spent four years as technical assistant to Andy Grove in the 1990s when he was Intel's chief executive and chairman. Later, she ran various Intel software initiatives and ran its Microsoft group before being promoted to head of the software group in 2005. She is a member of The Committee of 200, a group of 400 women business leaders.

Here she is at Intel Developer Forum in 2012:

One of my favorite media technology companies is BrightTalk, based in San Francisco and London.

Co-founded in 2002 by Paul Heald and Charlie Blackburn, this privately-held company offers an easy platform to create and distribute live audio and video broadcasts/podcasts. It also helps deliver the audience, with a stellar in-house lead generation team under James Miller. This is BrightTalk's secret sauce because it helps boost potential audience numbers way beyond a company's own networks of contacts, and increases the quality of customer leads.

I'm proud to say that I helped kickstart BrightTalk's online summit business a couple of years ago, which is now a thriving multi-million dollar business group.

I recently met with CEO Paul Heald (above) in San Francisco. Here are some notes from our conversation:

- We work with customers to deliver highly targeted audiences that have shown they are interested in key topics, and help them convert them into customer leads.

- The platform is designed to encourage audience engagement,  during the broadcast events, and in the forums. Plus the content is archived so that people can use the archive as a knowledge resource.

- Our online summits are doing very well, they provide an easy way for people to take part in day-long conferences without having to travel beyond their desk.

- We've made some major upgrades to the platform over the past year to make it even easier to use. And also to make it more into a destination site.

- We are building up an impressive collection of content around key topics especially in the enterprise computing space. People can revisit videos and presentations and take part in communities based around  their interest.

- We have very good relations with large professional associations, which are also a great source of audiences.

- We employ many community managers so that there is always new, interesting things to see, and to discuss.

- Our customers love the platform because they manage to get high-quality leads, which saves them money compared with their other marketing programs. 

- Our users are becoming much more comfortable doing live videos, they aren't as self-conscious as some people were a few years ago.

- There's lots more features coming this year, such as better integration with LinkedIn. 

- We also are increasingly producing original content with long video interviews with key thought-leaders that we edit down to just two minutes.

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Here is a recent video interview with me produced by BrightTalk's talented young team, on my favorite topic: EC=MC - Every company is a media company - the transformative business equation.

2 Minutes on BrightTALK: Every Company Is a Media Company 

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Additional info:

At BrightTALK, we believe that people learn the most when they hear directly from those who know the subject best. We also believe that this experience is enhanced through a dialog between speakers and the audience. Our online event tools offer a dynamic environment for everyone involved. It is the interactions we witness and the advancement of knowledge in our online communities that excites us the most.

You can join BrightTALK’s vibrant exchange of ideas as either a viewer or a presenter. We offer viewers live, interactive access to businesses’ top thought leaders. You identify the topics most relevant to you by searching communities, channels, summits or individual webcasts and are introduced to new experts via their timely and relevant presentations. Your comments, your ideas, and your voice will not only influence how others think, but can shape future events available for your viewing and participation on BrightTALK. In addition, webcasts are available on-demand for future viewing and for sharing with your peers and colleagues.

Intel names chief operating officer to succeed CEO Otellini, as chipmaker sees industry shift - Winnipeg Free Press

Krzanich isn't inheriting Otellini's title of president. It will go instead to software chief Renee James, 48, creating a two-person "executive office" at the head of the company. 

Back in early March I suggested it double up: