Going Global Isn't About Instant Profits

One of my biggest frustrations when working inside online media companies these past 15 years was the dismissal by many of my colleagues of the idea that we had the potential to be a global media service. I’ve had any number of MBAs and other media execs tell me, “We don’t want those users. They are too poor to buy anything. Our advertisers don’t care about them. The people we want to attract are people like us — well educated, affluent, upscale, hip, tech-savvy, cool…”

You get the picture.

I argued, listened, remained unconvinced. Then, just because I’m me, and the person occupying the senior content position wherever I worked, I invariably went ahead and made every effort I could to globalize my company’s content anyway.

(First, a brief bit of personal background is in order here. The only break I’ve ever taken in my long career in media was for two years (1969-’71) as a Peace Corps teacher in Afghanistan. That experience opened me up to the vast gaps between our lifestyles in the U.S. and those in one of the poorest countries in the world.

(When I returned to the U.S., and resumed my youthful career as a reporter, writer and editor, I often turned to global topics for my investigative reporting projects. One of the most successful, Circle of Poison, described how inextricably we in the rich countries were interconnected with those in the poor countries, among other things.)

I thought about all of this today as I watched President Obama on TV struggling to explain to a gathering in suburban St. Louis why foreign aid matters. His argument basically boiled down to, “If we don’t help them to do better now, it will cost us more in the long run.”

Amen.

And that is exactly what the people running today’s media companies need to comprehend as well. These people are custodians of global brands with a global reach. Yet, according to an exemplary piece in The New York Times, many online media execs are presently considering widening the Digital Divide by making access slower, harder, and less pleasing in Third World countries than it is here in the Land of the Rich, and Home of the Ignorant.

Just like all of my former MBA colleagues. Well, fwiw, here is a bit of free advice: Wall them off and they will create their own, much more inviting products. That’s the way of this world. And your big brand play will be left behind in the dust.

Posted from New York City from the terrace of my hotel.