The audio recording of last week’s Power To Change The World Summit is online and well worth a listen for anyone who cares about media as a force for change in the world.

You’ll find the Change Summit audio here.

The context was thinking about media for the next hundred years. You probably think in much shorter terms, and in terms of business models, technology, production or process innovation, or human behaviors and habits, or maybe even professional values and standards. Our over-arching theme last week was thinking about all of that in terms of outcomes - how media and technology, produced and distributed by anyone, can make the world better. That’s a lofty goal, and daunting - and also one that ought to be expressed and discussed more routinely by people and companies that make and sell media. How can our information, and all the human ingenuity and creativity it takes to produce and distribute it, be applied not simply to make more or better media - but to make the world itself better, for everyone?

Why don’t we expect this of our media? Maybe because our expectations have sunk so low. In the first conversation at the Change Summit, Fast Company founder (and iFOCOS board member) Alan Webber noted there’s a moral leadership gap in the United States. It includes media along with many other institutions and sectors.

Our research certainly bears this out, and so does common experience. Media’s “fall” in the United States, in terms of business declines and trust, is more severe than in many other countries. But the implications are global. If media of some form or another is indeed a force for change, and for making the world a better place, the moral leadership gap among today’s media institutions, and others, suggests opportunities for new leadership to fill the gap. That leadership could come from anywhere, and that’s an insight relevant to every sector of our culture.

Case closed, problem solved? Obviously not. We’re going to stick with these kinds of questions at iFOCOS, and in next year’s We Media Miami global forum and festival.

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