Lawrence Wilkinson

Executive, Advisor, and Commentator on the Future of Media and the Consumer

BIG IDEAS

• Brand: New Futures
  Brands are much more than tag lines and logos. Brands are about relationships. They are the bridges that connect companies and customers, bridges that transport trust, meaning, identity, and experience. In the future, brands will matter even more than they do now. Lawrence Wilkinson paints a picture of a world where brands must endure and grow in the face of bewildering consumer choice, shortened product life cycles, virtual online life, and ambivalence to globalization, among other features. He lays out some scenarios for branding and implications for brand life, channel choices, customer brand co-creation, and other key implements of choice in the brave new world of Brand Futures.
• The Future of Money
  For millennia, money has functioned as a store of value, a medium of transaction, and a unit of account. In our times, money is increasingly the application of information for commercial purposes, such as in logistics and supply chains. And it has changed consumer behavior, as it opened up more choice and control over purchase decisions and outcomes. Lawrence explores how money will possibly evolve in the future, as he looks at its impact on brands, the retail commerce experience, and embedded information in new forms of commercial exchange.

SNAPSHOT BIO

Lawrence Wilkinson provides strategic counsel and venture design services through the firm Heminge & Condell, based in San Francisco. He has been an active entrepreneur and advisor in the media and related businesses for more than 30 years. He helped create such diverse companies as Oxygen Media, Global Business Network (GBN), Ealing Studios, and Design Within Reach. Today, Lawrence continues to serve as Vice Chairman of Oxygen Media, Inc., which he co-founded with partners Geraldine Laybourne, Oprah Winfrey, Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, and Disney. Oxygen currently provides a cable television service reaching more than 40 million households in the U.S. (contracted to grow to a minimum of 60 million by the end of 2008) and award-winning web services. Lawrence continues to keep his hand in the film production world, serving as a director and advisor to Ealing Studios, Ltd.

A Closer Look at Lawrence

FOCUS AREAS
What's on Lawrence's current research agenda?

• Future of risk and risk management
• Future of money and financial services
• Future of marketing
• Future of entertainment
• Future of retailing
• Future of “network industries” such as telecom, transportation, and logistics
• Future of design

ENGAGEMENTS
How have other organizations utilized Lawrence's expertise, and what's ahead on his schedule?

In addition to ongoing work and board roles with the companies and not-for-profit organizations that Lawrence has helped create, Heminge & Condell and its founders have provided strategic counsel and venture design help to some of the world's most recognizable organizations including Charles Schwab, the Federal Communications Commission, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, NBC Entertainment/Universal, Nissan, Proctor & Gamble, the United Nations, UPS, The Walt Disney Company, and The World Bank.

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
Who shapes Lawrence's thinking and inspires his work?

Peter Drucker
Kevin Kelly
Preston Sturges
Sandy Close
Richard Rodriguez
Joe Chamie
Joel Garreau
Jaron Lanier
Stewart Brand
Bob Johnasen
Paul Saffo
Peter Schwartz
Napier Collyns
Jay Ogilvy
Art Kleiner
Gwynne Dyer

RECOMMENDED READING
What's on Lawrence's must-read list?

The Baroque Trilogy, Neal Stephenson

Against the Gods, Peter Bernstein

Every Man a Speculator, Steve Fraser

Genghis Khan, Jack Weatherford

Millennium, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Voltaire’s Bastards, John Ralston Saul

Brown, Richard Rodriguez

Managing in the Next Society, Peter Drucker

Sullivan’s Travels, Preston Sturges

MIND FUEL
Which blogs, web sites, and industry events does Lawrence tap into to feed his mind and fuel his creativity?

• World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org/)
• Microsoft CEO Summit
• Institute for the Future (www.iftf.org) 
• Global Business Network (www.gbn.com)
• Kevin Kelly web site (www.kk.org) 
• Slashdot (slashdot.org) 
• Ad Age (www.adage.com)
• The Economist (www.economist.com)
• Wilson Quarterly (www.wilsoncenter.org)
• The Atlantic (www.theatlantic.com)
• The New Yorker (www.newyorker.com)
• The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)
• Financial Times (www.ft.com)