Greeters: John O’Keefe & Bob Wessling; John Heidt to lead the  pledge of allegiance.  PP & PDG Bill Goodwin gave the invocation:

If you can start the day without caffeine…
And always be cheerful, ignoring your aches and pains…..
If you can resist complaining, and boring people with your troubles…
And eat the same food every day and be grateful for it…
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time…
And take criticism and blame without resentment…
If you can conquer tension without medical help…
And relax without alcohol…
Or sleep without the aid of drugs…
Then you’re probably… THE FAMILY DOG.

Joining us for lunch for the first time as MEMBERS of the friendly WVRC were Andrew Mukhey and Richard Thompson. President Dwight announced the upcoming District Breakfast July 31 please let him or Don Nelson know if you are interested in attending.  The manager for the Polio + program is the speaker.  Also the Literacy Breakfast is August 10 if you are looking for a project or get involved with.  And mark your calendars for Oct 27 for the Paul Harris Celebration in downtown LA.

Lenny Friedman was fined $100 for Sunny's birthday (or inadequately planning in the President’s view) but sounds like he had a pretty good plan for her ;) Finally (or so we thought) President Dwight asked the club members TO SIGN UP FOR AVENUES OF SERVICE, PLEASE =)

Yay for Bill Goodwyn who reminded our President we might want to introduce our Guests: John Heidt introduced Ivan Finkle, who has an interest in supporting Uni High, Eric Davidson introduced Cys Bronner, Ed Jackson introduced Richard Satnick

Steve Pettise sent a flag from his new club in Utah (pic included)

Ed Jackson introduced the speaker, Dr. Jeff Cole, wearing his Uni high tie. Jeffrey Cole has been at the forefront of media and communication technology issues both in the United States and internationally for the past 25 years. An expert in the field of technology and emerging media, Cole serves as an adviser to governments and leading companies around the world as they craft digital strategies.

In July 2004 Dr. Cole joined the USC Annenberg School for Communication as Director of the newly formed Center for the Digital Future and as a Research Professor. The Center is a research and policy institute committed to work that has a real and beneficial effect on people’s lives, while seeking to maximize the positive potential of the mass media and our rapidly evolving communication technologies.

Prior to joining USC, Dr. Cole was a longtime member of the UCLA faculty and served as Director of the UCLA Center for Communication Policy, based in the Anderson Graduate School of Management. At UCLA and now at USC Annenberg, Cole founded and directs the World Internet Project, a long-term longitudinal look at the effects of computer and Internet technology, which is conducted in over 25 countries. At the announcement of the project in June 1999, Vice President Al Gore praised Cole as a “true visionary providing the public with information on how to understand the impact of media.”  Ten years into the project, the World Internet Project, through its unique data on Internet users around the world, is the leading international project examining the ways in which our social, economic and media lives are changing. Cole regularly presents trends and insights of the project to the White House, FCC, Congress, Department of Defense and to governments around the world. On the corporate side, Cole advises Microsoft, WPP (Group M), Ericsson, Sony, Time-Warner, AT&T, AARP and others in their traditional and digital media strategies.

In the 1990s, Cole worked closely with the four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) under an anti-trust waiver that allowed the networks to work together for the first time dealing with television programming issues. Meeting regularly with the CEOs, general counsels, heads of programming and others at the networks, he issued annual reports to the television industry, Congress and the nation. Upon the release of the 1996 report, Cole held a joint press conference with President Bill Clinton, who referred to the Center for Communication Policy as “the premier educational institution setting trends in entertainment.” Nationwide there was unanimous praise for the quality of the reports and their contribution to the television content debate.

Cole has testified before Congress on television issues and has spoken as a keynote and panel member at more than 500 conferences on media and technology. He has worked with both the Clinton and George W. Bush White House on media and telecommunications issues, including detailed briefings on the Center’s work. He regularly makes presentations across the U.S. and in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.

In 1994 the Center co-sponsored “The Superhighway Summit” in UCLA's Royce Hall with the leaders of most of the nation's major media companies. For the annual Family Reunion Conferences in Nashville, Tennessee, Cole has worked with Vice President Gore to produce films opening the 1995 through 2002 conferences. The annual films were screened before an audience of 1,400 including the Vice President and President Clinton.

Cole was a member of the Executive Committee of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) from 1997 to 2001 and was the founding governor of the ATAS Interactive Media Peer Group.

At UCLA, Cole taught over 35,000 students. In 1987 he received UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award

Back to the program, the speaker began by describing himself as an old TV guy most of his life.  In that medium - television is the only mass medium knowing it is going to be the mass medium  and in hindsight said the community should have tracked viewers and their behavior before tv), e.g. where did your hours for tv come from? What did you do with that time before?  Now with the web and digital can track users since researchers did not in the 1940's. They can also track non-users to dial up or to broadband which means it is always on.  Why is there a 2% drop off in these users and do they come back and who are the non-users and how do they do things without technology? His Center studies the United States and 35 countries tracking people to see how technology impacts our lives.

One point he articulated was that traditional media or mass media does not disappear it changes, e.g., radio still exists but is a smaller industry now.  Most mediums survive as smaller players/ businesses with the advent and increase of the internet.  Another example includes movies.  We have seen decreases in popularity (theatrical film) and how you measure such as Avatar is sighted as the most successful movie but it really wasn’t b/c when considering today at $14 a ticket vs. Gone With the Wind an average ticket was 23 cents one recent movie ticket would be the equivalent of 609. Music was another of example of business models he called extortion. For 2 songs you may like on a CD will cost $15 and today even though the price has been driven down, the love of music is greater and more prevalent.  The environment of music has changed, there are no more tower records or virgin mega stores to shop in.  We now go online and steal or spend $2 for the song(s) we like. Sony music produced a Cher album in2003 for her hit Believe.  They self admittedly said, there were no other good songs on the album but were able to sell an album for one song.

Newspapers was another media example he used and mentioned teens don't read newspaper s and never will.  When a newspaper reader dies they do not replace themselves.  We now count no newspaper towns vs. towns that have a paper. Today's generation though reads more to receive information through the internet and may have more knowledge of current events b/c of this than teens who do not read papers. 

When the Internet becomes available these industries die.  Our speaker was called dangerous and an alarmist for saying this but he considers himself an optimist and said television is the only exception.

As the gap between our home screens and the movies is getting smaller and our handhelds on our phone are constant companion, TV is escape but our time to walk, sleep, shower comes from TV time

1975 16 hours a week in front of TV

Today 45 hours a week in front of screen phone, tablet, computer Teens sleeping next to phone for alarm, use phone for their watch or to tell time.  There is now an acronym for this compulsive checking on their phone called FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out (in their social network.)

Social networking is the real deal, it causes people to login more than to check email. Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace to reach teens not touched through news or TV but through the internet and paid  $580M but sold $900M in advertising deal s with Google and advertised their movies etc but could not hang on to their teenage users with rise and fall of creation of similar sites such as geo cities and Friendster. Online community is like a nightclub when too many people come in you leave (like when your mother wants to friend you on Facebook) The speaker projected Facebook will grow to 1B users for another 4-5 years but will only survive as a place to communicate with family and to find people. One more trend - no one wants to give up Internet even with spy wear etc but many are tired of it defining and controlling them. Want a resource not a ball and chain aka Enough Already!  With the iPhone, iPad, Kindle, you are ever available and always working.

Studies have shown people say the internet has caused them to be 75% more productive, 5% of people responded they are not less productive because of the Internet  but the trend on whole is that people are taking on more work on more days to the price of exhaustion.

For every hour an employee does stuff for home at work they are doing at least three hours of work at home with rising technological tools. Also we are developing device fatigue

It was a fascinating and enriching presentation and if you would like to learn more, please visit his website at: www.digitalcenter.org

—YOE Aly Shoji