C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today - Hardcover

A bold, pioneering book that shows how businesses can survive and thrive in the digital media revolution

Not so long ago, the business landscape was easier to chart. The routes connecting customers, companies, products, and services were predictable, reliable, and understood. Today, that landscape has been upended, and in its place a "C-Scape" has emerged—a world where consumers, not producers and marketers, make the choices; where content, not distribution, is king; where curation becomes a primary currency of value; and where convergence continues to revolutionize every part of every business. In C-Scape, Larry Kramer leads the reader through this new, evolving world where the challenges are daunting—but the opportunities are huge.

A seasoned journalist turned superstar digital entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Kramer learned early on to survive and overcome the forces that are remaking the business landscape: the digital media revolution. Why media? Every aspect of every business is increasingly carried out through the media. From advertising and marketing to sales and customer service, from product design to manufacturing, everything that happens anywhere in business is ever more likely to happen on a screen or handheld device. That means any business could fall to the same threats facing the newspaper business and the music industry—unless that business learns to navigate the four Cs. Kramer's explanation of this new landscape is a revelation; his visionary advice is both crucial and urgent. No leader, whether at the helm of a small business or a conglomerate, will read this book without seeing the business world anew and finding practical ways to put this book's four powerful precepts immediately to work.

Larry Kramer, the founder and former chairman and CEO of MarketWatch, Inc., is currently an adjunct professor of media management at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Over the course of his career, he has been a senior adviser at Polaris Venture Partners, a venture capital firm, and served as the first president of CBS Digital Media. He currently serves on the board of directors of sev-eral media and technology companies, including Discovery, American Media, and Answers.com, and is an advisor to tech and digital startups such as JibJab, Newser, Crossborders.tv, and others. Kramer also spent more than twenty years as a reporter and editor at the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington Post, and the Trenton Times. He divides his time between Tiburon, California, and New York City.