Running Media

This month marks my 10th anniversary as a runner. In March of 2001 while walking around a mall in New York with my family I wandered into a running store. On a whim I bought a pair of running shoes. At the time I played tennis regularly and was reasonably active. I had bad knees from basketball though and had never thought they would hold up to distance running. For some reason I decided I'd like to give running a try. That first day I laced up my shoes and took off for a jog around our neighborhood. I ran for a total of 20 minutes. 10 minutes out, a brief rest and 10 minutes back. I measured the distance later with my car and I had covered 1.2 miles. Since then I've run over 7,950 miles. Yes, I've counted them. First in running journals and then via digital watches and running logs. I've tracked a few other stats along the way too:

• I've run in 7 countries
• 15 states
• Through 27 pairs of running shoes, 6 running watches and countless t-shirts and shorts
• Run in 36, 5K races (3.1 miles)
• The best 5k time I've run is 23:23 (never said I was fast!)

I've run in 20', snowy weather and 100' desert heat. I've run through hills in Northern England and trails in the middle of Oregon. I've run on a treadmill in a hotel in Mumbai, India and along the beaches of Maui, Hawaii. I've run in a park in Dublin, Ireland and around an artificial river in Las Vegas, Nevada. 3 years ago on my birthday I ran 5 miles in Beijing, China in the morning, flew to Los Angeles crossing the dateline and ran another 5 miles on the same day. Then slept for 18 hours!

So right about now you're wondering what running has to do with Media, right? Well in taking time to reflect on 10 years of running I realized that I do a fair amount of thinking about media while running. At some level, I've thought about most every significant media trend, strategy, decision, creative idea, competitive step, presentation, speech or organizational move I've made in the last 10 years while running. It also hit me that this 10 year period happened to be one of the most transformative periods in the history of the media industry. Running media indeed.

Today on a 4 mile run along the coast on a beautiful day in Los Angeles, I couldn't help but reflect on the changes in media over the last 10 years. While the Internet is still a disruptive force, many media companies have harnessed it's power and built sizable web based businesses. New advances in social, mobile, location based technology and information design are opening up new avenues for media as well. And we are seeing a natural integration of media as audiences combine on and off line information and interests. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years will bring. See you on the road.,