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I recently received feedback about various lean media concepts from faculty at the Media Ventures program at the Boston University College of Communication. Jodi Luber, who teaches media entrepreneurship at BU, had a great idea: A one-page template for producers/creators/entrepreneurs based on lean media concepts. Her class already uses the lean canvas one-pager to develop business modelsRead more

I recently received an interesting piece of Lean Media feedback from a friend. He is an engineer and former MIT Media Lab staffer who earlier in his career was a part of creative teams that made music, websites, and even an opera. He has also done a fair amount of reading and examination that relate to production issues, showingRead more

There is a newly released TED talk on ted.com titled “How to use data to make a hit TV show.” The speaker is Sebastian Wernicke, a data scientist (and former animator) who makes an interesting comparison about the rival political dramas House of Cards (Netflix) and Alpha House (Amazon). The video, which was shot lastRead more

Over New Year’s I shared some lean media concepts with a few old friends. One of them, who has worked in the music industry since the 1990s, immediately got it, and wanted to give some feedback and insights. He related a tale that went something like this: “About ten years ago I was friends with two people who livedRead more

(Here is another draft chapter from Lean Media 1.0. Please leave comments below) Lean media techniques are flexible enough to be used by everyone from one-man bands and startups to well-funded production teams at big studios. While there are lessons for folks who are working in the trenches, managers and corporate media executives will comeRead more

Let me illustrate the “fat launch” mindset with an example. In the mid-1990s, a Taiwanese broadcaster hired me to help produce a daily English-language television newscast. Why have an English TV show in a market that had more than 20 million Mandarin and Taiwanese speakers, but only a small population of foreigners residing in theRead more

Earlier we looked at a lean media example of a rock supergroup, Led Zeppelin. Today we will examine The Simpsons, the long-running Fox animated series. For a primer on lean media, check out the intro, the lean media framework, and its fat media counterpart. Production team: In the late 1980s, writer/director James L. Brooks wasRead more

I’ve described the lean media framework, and compared it with its fat media predecessor. Now, let’s look at an example: Led Zeppelin I, the first album by the British hard rock quartet. Production team: The band included guitarist Jimmy Page (who was the producer of the album), singer Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones, andRead more

The lean media playbook emphasizes the following elements: Small teams. Individual producers or small teams with complementary skills drive the project forward. Keeping the team small lets members move more quickly. Restricted budgets Eliminating waste. Producers work with the tools at hand, and avoid complex or time-wasting processes. Creating a satisfying media experience for early audiencesRead more

If you have ever been involved in the creation and launch of a media product—whether it be a new recording or a website or a book or a newspaper column—you’ve probably dealt with a scenario that looks something like this: This simple outline glosses over a lot of small steps, but the basic structure canRead more