Alexis, you did great. Cool, calm, collected, and sharp. You did a great job advocating what most of us here understand and champion.

But here is the problem I see with this whole SOPA debate...

I didn't see anything that would help my Uncle Art understand what this is all about in his language and why he should care.

This is what he sees:

  - There is a bill in congress.
  - It's to stop people from stealing other peoples' stuff.
  - There are strong opinions on both sides.
  - The old companies I love (movies, etc.) support it.
  - The Chamber of Commerce (mother, apple pie) supports it.
  - This young guy was very articulate; I like him.
  - I don't understand the Constitutional argument.
  - He says this new stuff wouldn't have happened. So what?
  - What is reddit?
  - I thought Facebook was for kids.
  - Who is Louie CK? I really don't understand what he did.
  - Why is the internet so afraid of ethical behavior?

There is another comment in this thread by squeee which is the first one I read that my Uncle Art would understand, something like, "If someone shoplifts in your store, this bill allows the government to shut down your store." I could just picture my uncle raising holy hell if that ever happened.

I read the comments in this thread before I watched the video (like I usually do), so I was waiting for Alexis to say something like squeee said. Something that would get the great mass of those who don't understand the argument to take notice and take action.

Alexis, keep up the good fight. And find a way to get our aunts, uncles, and grandparents to "get it". I believe that will be the turning point of the battle.

I have no idea what this graph is trying to tell me. Less Javascript, more actual information, please.

I've worked at studios and networks for a large part of my career. They have hired plenty of people over the years with "skill at managing disruption." They've poached talent from the Microsofts, Googles, Facebooks, hot startups, etc., of the world plenty of times over.

The problem is that they tend to place these folks -- or any of their people ostensibly charged with "innovation" -- in isolated silos. Typically they'll hire a handful of "innovation" people, most of them ex-McKinsey consultants, but a lot of them tech people, and put them in a sort of internal consulting group. This group will have no P&L of its own, and no real authority to change or mandate change. And it will be tasked with influencing the rest of the company to change. As you can imagine, it's a recipe for failure.

And even this is a symptom of a bigger problem: silos, silos, silos. Every department might as well be competing with the next -- because nobody talks to one another, people are constantly politicking against one another, and nobody wants to fund a win that shows up on somebody else's P&L. The whole thing is very reminiscent of "Game of Thrones," actually. Each studio is host to a bevy of competing fiefdoms, and the heads of the fiefdoms are constantly plotting each others' downfalls.

And even the studios are, themselves, fiefdoms within much larger media conglomerates. The head of the Disney movie studio, for instance, still answers to the head of The Walt Disney Corporation, and competes for his favor with the heads of ABC, ESPN, Theme Parks, Licensing, etc. And the head of The Walt Disney Corporation is beholden to Wall Street and quarterly reports. (Big risks and disruptive strategies are extremely hard to implement when you've got quarterlies to answer for).

If you ask me, these companies have grown too big and unwieldy to innovate properly. I'm not saying that in an antitrust-activist sense, but rather, in the sense that it's extremely hard to get everyone within a giant conglomerate on the same agenda when the goal, business, and job description of each P&L leader is so wildly different from the next.

None of this is meant to be an apology for the entertainment conglomerates, but rather, an observation. It's an observation born out of intense personal frustration, of course, at having seen the same patterns over and over again. At the end of the day, "innovation" is a very easy word to preach, but a much more difficult word to implement.

At the same time, I get the sense that a tipping point is very close at hand. Producers, writers, actors, directors, and other talent are themselves getting very tired of the same old studio game. And many of them are seeking out innovative deals with tech firms, brands, and other direct-to-consumer channels. All it takes is a handful of breakout hits -- shows, movies, or what have you -- that occur outside of the established Hollywood distribution system. The second you've got a legitimate hit series only on Netflix, or a direct-to-Amazon smash hit, or a Facebook series drawing in more viewers per week than a network show (very feasible), Hollywood will take notice, and it'll start getting serious about rethinking its approach. It may be too little and too late by then, but that's how these things go.

[Sorry for the tl;dr text wall!]