National Geographic COO Digital Strategy, Edward Prince Jr. is interviewed by Rafat Ali from PaidContent.org during the Abu Dhabi Media Summit last week.  Check out the video interview here.

I’m a huge fan of Nat Geo the brand, the magazine, the cable channel, the photography and pretty much everything they have done since I can remember digging through my father’s extensive collection that dated back to the late 60′s when I was a kid.  There is something special about the experience you feel turning from page to page and the remarkable job they have done to curate, archive and share some of the most compelling cultural works of art+science known to mankind.

National Geographic, I anticipate, will also be one of the thought leaders spearheading the way in which content & media companies migrate from old traditional media to new emerging digital mediums and business models.

Edward speaks about the company’s digital strategy and discusses how Nat Geo utilizes its two key pillars; their cable channel and magazine to draw a % of revenue and re-invest into the digital space (Web, Content Syndication, Gaming, Mobile and ePublishing).  While many media companies rely mainly on an advertising revenue model, Nat Geo is developing apps and going into gaming.  Their website is ad supported but they are banking heavily on the fact that consumers will pay for mobility and see mobility as a great value.  I don’t know about you but I’m willing to compare how that full page print photo compares to the on screen version on the iPad.

Big ups to Dave Brown & Holiday Matinee for the release of their first book, I Swear to Good You Are God at This.

HM: “Our goal is to give people the push to invest in themselves, do what they love and inspire as many awesome people as possible.”

You can still get your hands on the limited-edition run  here.  If you are not convinced, the good guys over at HM will let you peak a little if you tell them something awesome.

“Outlier” is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience.

Malcom Gladwell

In his third book, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell explores a new approach to analyzing success.  The book reveals that individual greatness is not enough to be #1 and we should pay attention to the experiences, culture and environment that also shape the “outlier.”  Gladwell explains, “We’ve been looking at tall trees, and I think we should have been looking at the forest.”  The book depicts success stories in history and pop culture, applying theories like the 10,000 hour rule to the careers of Steve Jobs and the Beatles, using different scenarios such as the rice cultivation ritual in China and the ethnic theory of plane crashes to illustrate and get his point across.  The book is a quick and worth read and you can get more on his views in this interview.