Jargogled Impressions.

“…roadmap of a product that never ends…”

The above is an extract from a recent article in The New Yorker about Marvel, and its strategies and approach with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). What struck me with this line and with the article overall was the framing for how some of the most commercially successful media intellectual properties (think Star Wars, everything Disney, MCU, Rowling’s Magical Creatures, various action-thriller franchisees) create an endless cycle (so called flywheel) of content that lets the IP holders capitalize on the ensuing fandom and set the path for formulaic iterations and factory-style content that feeds on to itself to enlarge the enigma and the complexity of the saga. From a small kernel of narrative insight, the possibilities become infinite for expanding each untouched character, no matter how fringe, into a side story of its own. As Rushdie says, we live in a sea of stories which is not too hard to mine if Matthew Dicks is to be believed.

There is a subtle and often unseen “power of content” that operates as the guiding principle. Backed also by high-quality execution and a subtle nod to the incipient needs’ we humans have for connecting the threads, of finding patterns, of feeling smarter about ourselves.

Even before these fictional universes exploded in our consciousness, I often used to wonder about the possibility of connecting the lives of so many fictional characters we meet in the movie world – what would happen if these characters we grew up loving had some connecting backstories? How fascinating would that be?

I guess that’s what fan fiction excels in – the ‘what ifs..’

And I suppose the possibility is something that series like Breaking Bad has already tapped into with breakout series for side/fringe characters and a possibility of interesting back story. Saul Goodman is one such example.

Gangs of Wasseypur dove head first into unearthing deeper stories for a greater number of characters in the movie. A sense of rich and deep understanding is possible, with tantalizing prospects of imaginative constructions that go beyond what is presented to the audience.

In this, the live media connects with the print media – after all, novels are excellent devices for diving deeper into side characters, as it offers plenty of space and patience for detours and interesting anecdotes.

The ability to connect likely originated with the serialized stories that authors like Dickens published when books were more of a rarity. The serialized stories were designed for long-form storytelling, much as the modern soap operas are. The TV series Lost, as the article highlights, indicated the audience appetite for winding, long-drawn, complex story lines that span years and even decades. In that regard, the whole “universe” concept is interesting in that it asks you to suspend judgement and enter this fictional world where you can cross paths with the characters you love, much as you’d be heroes in your real life.

Counter-intuitively, MCU makes the stories more grounded and relatable? Outside of the nerdy, heady excitement of sci-fi trivia and hidden nods, and Freudian tropes, the connected universe creates a surface area ripe for an endless stream of content and products. The only roadblocks are the constraints around ensuring pieces fit together, even if loosely. Artistic license can even take some of this away, as with soap operas and sci-fi stories where people rise from the dead often, or visit us from a parallel universe perhaps, or don a genetic make-do and confuse us of their mortality.

They usually say about Disney that “content is king” and the kind of back-library that Disney has makes it and will continue to make it a sizeable player in the entertainment world.

One of my proto-theories is that every complex system can learn from other complex systems that abound this world. For example, organizations are complex systems. And we, human beings, are complex systems and such have lots to learn from organizations. Disney’s content creates a moat for the century old company. Likewise, our portfolio of work can do the same for us provided it was visible fairly easily for our counter-parties. One way to do that is to take notes of your journey, of your experiences, of your perspectives, of your learnings, of your failures and share it with people. These notes can expand and contract depending on where you are in your professional journey but by sharing this to the public, you can, technically, kick-off a complex chain of events – completely out of your control – but aided by the compounding nature of content.

The power of content is profound as is evident by the rise of influencers and super-influencers in this social-media addict world we live in today. Social media, when I was growing up, was a rising star, a new shiny toy we all fell in love with and actively experimented with. After a decade or so of innovation in this space, as it matured, it has become a utility of sorts for most people. Further, as its scale has crossed billions, so has the amount of drivel and nonsense that has come up in these portals. Along came the influencers who could make some sense of the stream of noise coming through and make it more palatable. Along came influencers who recognized the challenges and problems that came along with this new technology and they rose to the occasion of being our saviors and our torchbearers.

The more content these influencers post, the higher their potential reach. This reach, beyond a critical mass, can even become self-feeding. There’s hard work, finesse, taste, diligence, and perseverance required to break the barrier, but when one does so, the ROI can be disproportionate. With scale, additional avenues open up for easy exploration. Podcasts, paid media, advertisement, community offerings, premium content, books, consulting gigs, job boards, and in some unlikeliest of cases solo-GPs to VCs even. Number of followers becomes a very powerful signal for reach, and for eyes and ears.

Can influencers learn from the virtuous cycle that Disney thrives in? I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing a scaled-up influencer effectively becomes a media institution. A truly digitally-native media institution that has been nurtured by the tides of social media attention cycle, and that prides itself on catering to attention deficit generation with not enough time to even read a tweet. The content they churn out, becomes fodder for the content of a new influencer in town. And through her, a different one. This, to me, looks more akin to a pyramid though, than a flywheel.