RISHAD TOBACCOWALA - THE SMARTEST GUY IN THE WORLD

*** This is the last of my four NATPE updates. I hope they've been helpful or at least somewhat informative. Next week we'll get back to the usual bitchin' about hockey, Canadian TV and those rare moments from my own life that are just so damn interesting.***

The highlight of NATPE for me was getting to spend half an hour with Rishad Tobaccowala, the smartest guy in the world (at least my world). CEO of Denuo, a Chicago based media strategist and consultancy whose clients allocate more than $45 Billion a year in media spending, Tobaccowala was recently named one of the world's "Five Marketing innovators" by TIME magazine.

While the rest of us struggle to get a handle on how the Internet is changing the way we make television, Tobaccowala has gone a step further, examining how it has changed our audience, believing that it's only by knowing what they have become that we can realize what we must now be.

If you are seeking a media Guru, this is your guy.

And like all Gurus, Tobaccowala's wisdom and insight comes at a dizzying rate, intended to be of meaning to the accolyte who has evolved enough to understand it and pass over the heads of those who have not.

So, I'm just going to list many of the quotes from that half hour, in the hope they will have as much meaning to you as they did for me.

"People keep trying to align the future with the past. But the future will not fit into the containers of the past."

"Success is 10% intelligence and 90% knowing the direction of the current."

"Because of the access granted by the media, people are watching, reading and listening more than at any other time in history. And interaction surges as they seek new ways to increase engagement."

"The most watched content on Youtube is professionally produced because people can tell the difference between real stuff and crap."

"Obscurity is the new poverty."

"The audience has become God-like, no longer constrained by time, place or even by body."

"We are becoming hybrids. For while the world is becoming digital we remain analog."

"We live in a world that is culturally, legally and linguistically diverse. But we each belong to global tribes based on our interests. The people who gather annually in Davos have more in common with each other than the peoples or countries they come from."

"You can facilitate but you can't control."

"Distribution used to be a choke hold. But because of a combination of broadband and wireless and the Internet, the advantages of distribution have fallen. Now you can get audiences without distribution."

For me, all of this epitomizes the central message of NATPE 2008 -- "From here on -- just as before -- it's about the Audience."