Media & Entertainment: Strategy Consulting Projects
Update: 6.30.16
Course number: NEW: B8685 (formerly B8213) section 1
Schedule: Tuesday and Thursday, 2:45 -4:45
Room: Uris 307
Adjunct Associate Professor Ava Seave
Phone: 212 222 0025 (off campus office)
Office: Uris 315 (Greenwald’s office)
Office hours: By appointment
Email: as2486@columbia.edu
General Course Description
Highly encouraged: One media course and/or one strategy course and/or professional experience at a
media company.
In “Media & Entertainment: Strategy Consulting Projects,” the concepts and theories introduced in
previous media and strategy courses will be applied in a practical way to problems brought to the class as
projects from real companies and their managers.
The ultimate goal of this class is for students to have team experience in helping companies recognize
and solve strategic media problems.
Among the techniques the students will work on
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Industry mapping
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SCP: Structure/Conduct/Performance analysis

Market sizing
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Defining the goals of a project
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Defining and understanding scope

Value propositions and Value curves


Mapping Business Systems
Introduction to Business Canvas and Minimal viable product
The five- week course will introduce techniques to perform strategy consulting for media companies and
teach students how to apply these techniques to real projects from real companies. In the seventh week,
the teams will present their findings to the sponsoring companies.
To master these skills, each week students will be given specific tools to work through each concept and
will to apply these concepts in several ways:

to case histories of well-known companies and industries


to a case about an evolving media SaaS company
to the company project they have been assigned to
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The class is limited to 24 students. There will be four teams of six members each. Team work, and active
participation in each and every class will be required. Check in meetings (physical or by phone) with
sponsor companies are required each week. Collaboration is expected and encouraged throughout the
course.
The class may be assigned some readings throughout the class which will be applicable to certain
problems we will be discussing. There will be some reading that required before the class starts. Optional
textbook for this class is: Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with the World’s Leading Media
Companies (Knee, Greenwald, Seave; Penguin 2009.)
Which companies?
The four companies supplying projects are:
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

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Inside Climate News
DeSilva + Phillips
CAM: Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
Gust
The specific projects are listed below.
Before the class begins
 Pre class reading: Introduction and Chapters 1, 2 and 3 of The Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong
with the World’s Leading Media Companies (Knee, Greenwald, Seave; Penguin 2009.)
 Read the case Contently: Evolution of a Media Start-up
Classroom expectations
 Attendance at the first two classes is mandatory, with companies visiting the classroom on Class 2
 Attendance to all classes is strongly encouraged, and is expected
 Except for the first two classes, each class will consist of presentation to the professor (and one other
team) of the week’s assignment, team work time and lecture/discussion of the next week’s
assignment.
Class Project Assignments
 Students will be assigned projects by the professor based as much as possible on student
preferences.
 Project assignment mechanics:
o Before class begins, I will send a detailed description of the class projects, students can
prioritize your preferences, and I will try to honor them as much as possible.
o Once assigned to a team, if a student would like to try to switch to another team, he/she
has 24 hours to convince someone on the desired team to switch. However, no one is
required to switch.
o Only contact me after the switch is made to let me know. Do not involve me in any kind
of discussion or negotiation.
 The presentation to the company will consist of a presentation deck plus any back up analysis and
research that is appropriate
Grades
Grades will be based on the quality of the work for the client, class participation during the full class,
collaboration during other groups’ weekly presentations, weekly completion of assignments that will be
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presented to the class, revision of these assignments if requested and the final presentation (group, type
A) to your company’s executives in the sixth/exam week. That deliverable for the presentation will consist
of a presentation deck plus any back up analysis and research that is appropriate. You will also be given
a short quiz at the end of the semester (multiple choice) to test your retention of major principles
discussed.
Class Dates
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Class 7
Class 8
Class 9
Class 10
Presentations
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Tue Jul 05
Thu Jul 07
Tue Jul 12
Thu Jul 14
Tue Jul 19
Thu Jul 21
Tue Jul 26
Thu Jul 28
Tue Aug 02
Thu Aug 04
Week of August 8
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
2:45 to 4:45
InsideClimate News
http://insideclimatenews.org/
Should ICN make a distribution deal with one or several content syndicators?
About InsideClimateNews
InsideClimate News is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan news organization that
covers clean energy, carbon energy, nuclear energy and environmental science—plus
the territory in between where law, policy and public opinion are shaped.
They are staffed by professional journalists, many of whom bring decades of experience
from leading media organizations. They have earned national recognition for their work
and many of the most prestigious awards in journalism, including the Pulitzer Prize for
National Reporting.
Founded in 2007, InsideClimate News based in New York and is a 501 C3 tax exempt
organization operating with IRS approval as a public charity.
The Project
InsideClimate News has been approached numerous times by companies who want to
re-sell the organization’s content through syndication or licensing arrangements. The
usual proposal involves non exclusive rights to offer ICN’s content, and when used, ICN
will get a royalty.
ICN has never made any of these deals in the past, but is interested in understanding
how these syndication deals work, what the opportunities and challenges will be if they
let their content be licensed, and how much money might be earned and if they do
make a deal. Ultimately, the students will recommend a course of action.
For this project, students will present the following:






Explain the business model of content syndication from the point of view of the
syndicators (such as Lexis Nexis) and from the point of view of the content
owners, such as ICN.
Identify which companies are the leading licensing or content vendors
Interview other companies that license content through some of these vendors to
determine if they are happy with the outcome
Interview clients of these content syndicators to find out if they are happy, what
deal they negotiated, and what they would do differently.
Recommend how ICN should pursue syndicating its content, on what terms, and
with which vendor(s)
Roughly estimate a range of income ICN can expect
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DaSilva + Phillips
desilvaphillips.com
What are the M&A opportunities for the “Customer Intelligence & Experience
(CIeX)” vertical?
About DeSilva + Phillips
DeSilva+Phillips is a leading M&A advisor to the media, marketing, education and
information services industries, advising on more than 260 transactions valued at
over $9 billion.
About the project
The Internet and digital technology are disrupting how we gather and create insights
about customers, markets, partners and other corporate stakeholders. Thanks to
innovative platform software, the largely manual process of capturing and creating
insights is increasingly automated and easily scaled up to larger sample sizes. At the
same time, ad hoc insights can be quickly distilled from the customers’ social-media
conversations. Aside from the cost savings brought about by this automation, a huge
speed advantage can be gained when insights are rapidly captured and created, and
then immediately acted on.
This new reality is transforming the market-research industry. With startups
introducing state-of-the-art platforms for gathering and generating insights, market
incumbents are being forced to meet this challenge by either building competing
systems or seeking to acquire disruptive startups. At the same time, as in many
markets being upended by new technology and investment, too many new players
are fighting for too little oxygen. In this situation the opportunity exists for some to
take a lead and grow by acquiring competitors and complementary businesses
platforms. This situation is playing out in the market-research services market
creating opportunities for both smart, adaptive incumbents and creative new
entrants.
This is a critical time for the market research services industry as it adjusts to a new
norm built on the Internet and new digital innovations for learning about customers'
experiences and for capturing and creating customer insights.
We expect the pace and size of M&A activity to accelerate over the next several
years.
Students will work in two areas to help D&P:
(1) Help us define the boundaries and sub segments of companies operating in
the "Customer Intelligence & Experience" areas of business services.
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And (2) in relation to M&A, take WPP/TNS (US/UK) -- which is not growing
organically -- and plot strategies for reinvigorating them with exciting new
acquisitions in CIeX.
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Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
http://camstl.org/
What should be the digital strategy for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
as they overhaul their web site?
About CAM from CAM
“The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) presents, supports, and celebrates the
art of our time. It is the premier museum in St. Louis dedicated to contemporary art.
Focused on a dynamic array of changing exhibitions, CAM provides a thoughtprovoking program that reflects and contributes to the global cultural landscape.
Through the diverse perspectives offered in its exhibitions, public programs, and
educational initiatives, CAM actively engages a range of audiences to challenge their
perceptions. It is a site for discovery, a gathering place in which to experience and enjoy
contemporary visual culture.”
About the project
Art museum web sites have found that their web and mobile presences go way beyond
the brochure ware of 5 years ago that consisted mostly of hours of operation and where
to park. CAM has found that although they have 30,000 visitors per year, they have
more than 150,000 unique visitors via the web – many of whom will never be visitors to
the museum.
As CAM prepares to overhaul their digital presence, they want to create something that
will increase their influence and impact – but how? This project will help CAM clarify
how it thinks about its virtual “influence” and “impact,” how these can be tracked and
how can they be increased. The student team should also be able to describe the
relationship between the physical museum and its virtual presence and what will
happen when virtual influence and impact are increased.
The students will look at inside and outside data for this project, including describing the
virtual/physical strategy of 3 or 4 other comparable cultural institutions through
observation and in depth interviews, results from a just finished multi-museum survey
about audiences and the web and other rich data CAM has been collecting in
preparation for this work.
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Gust
https://gust.com/
Gust recently acquired a business model and validation tracking tool called
LeanMonitor. To determine the next strategic steps, Gust needs to understand
where LeanMonitor stands in the competitive landscape against competitors.
About Gust
Gust is the world's largest global platform for the sourcing and management of earlystage investments, enabling skilled entrepreneurs to collaborate with the smartest
investors by supporting all aspects of the investment relationship, from initial pitch to
successful exit. From the website:
“The #1 Platform in Startup Funding: Gust's SaaS funding platform provides all the tools
entrepreneurs need to manage their startup funding process, from pitch to exit. Upload
your pitch video, describe your team, connect with investors, and manage your postinvestment relationships. Investors have already funded 1,800+ startups in the last
twelve months!”
“Gust is endorsed by the world's leading business angel and venture capital
associations, and powers over 1,000 investment organizations in 65 countries.”
The project:
Gust recently acquired a business model and validation tracking tool called
LeanMonitor. Gust wants the student team to dig into the details of exactly what to do
with this product and its strategic importance for the future.
To determine the next strategic steps, Gust needs to understand where LeanMonitor
stands in the competitive landscape against competitors
including Strategyzer, Leanstack, and Launchpad Central. This includes a thorough
understanding of pricing, features, and UX design.
Additionally, Gust is exploring which LeanMonitor enterprise target market poses the
largest and most accessible opportunity: Universities/Colleges, Accelerators/Incubators,
or Corporations. What are the best sources for Gust to acquire customers within the
target market chosen from what you can tell about the economics and the number of
potential customers?
The team will work closely with Gust’s Marketing Director. The final presentation will be
to Gust’s management team.
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