Jim Kolleger, CEO of Genesys Partners lead an insightful panel which included three leading CEOs and a leading journalist who has covered many aspects of media throughout his career. Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive of ad and marketing giant WPP, was just back from a rigorous round of skiing and hobnobbing at the Davos World Economic Forum summit. Sir Martin bubbled lukewarm thoughts about the worldwide markets for media that are shifting away from traditional outlets and markets in the midst of a softening dollar. He sees a shift from their traditional 40/40/20 percent mix between U.S., European and Asian markets moving towards a 30/30/30-ish split in the next few years as global brands based in China and India emerge. But more significantly Sir Martin noted along with other panelists that traditional media outlets are weakening in the face of the Web and devices such as the TiVo that are making easier to manage content in more user-controllable, surfable channels. Media in his mind is having a hard time getting around the "superficiality issue," he notes, with few readers having the patience to plow through 10,0000-plus word articles that are the specialty of many print magazines.

James Fallows, National Correspondent for The Atlantic magazine and writer of many highly recognized 10,000-plus word tracks, had to acknowledge that we're dealing with "perfected information markets," in which the buzz of Web delivery is shifting to an environment in which "many businesses will be destroyed, but many built." Daniel Lewin, Corporate VP for Microsoft .NET development, watches kids today and sees fundamental changes coming in content delivery, Key to this is the ubiquity of the Internet Protocol (IP) networking standards upon which the Internet is based. Lewin notes that IP is "the most broadly accepted standard ever," providing global access to content with and emphasis on facilitating that access with effective metadata and the evolution of search capabilities "still in the 3rd inning." Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman of American Online, Inc. and President of AOL Core Service, is someone who served as the mayor of his town for a period of time and sees his role at AOL as being "mayor of the largest city in the world." The mayor is aware that "all politics is local," meaning from a content perspective that the masses providing the "wisdom" of crowds have to provide the core value of most content services today - from AOL's user-driven spam filters to search engine relevance rankings. "Packaging will be the art," he notes, pointing towards a future in which content brand management has less to do with the content than the way its package fits into the personal needs of users. In the eyes of Nancy McKinstry, Chairman of the Executive Board of Wolters Kluwer, this packaging for professional markets requires not just content delivery but also high precision in delivering the right content in the right contexts, as well as services that go beyond traditional models. For example, Wolters Kluwer runs the portal for the American Heart Association, one of its clients.

Content branding was very much at the center of this CEO discussion, but there were few easy answers offered. Major publishers, media companies and technology companies alike are wrestling with how to define marketable content value in an era in which the perception of its value is increasingly fleeting in the minds of its consumers. "Know who your clients are," suggested Nancy McKinstry, but that's easier said then done when content's value oftentimes comes from those users taking delivered content and providing it to others in new contexts. The content world in general knows that users are in charge of things and working hard to provide them with meaningful services, but they're hard pressed to say what this means to being a content brand. From our perspective a content brand means good sources and services regardless of their origin. That agnosticism and egalitarianism poses challenges that content companies are struggling to address in full. Perhaps Sir Martin had best enjoy the slopes of Davos while he can.