• by January 28, 2005

KNOW-HOW, NOT CONTENT, IS KING - Here's a demographic statistic that should give pause to any media planner with truly global aspirations: "Ninety-six percent of the world's population is outside the U.S.," while that stat in itself may not speak specifically to the field of media planning, its speaker - Pat McGovern, founder of tech publisher International Data Group - meant it that way. And in case you don't get the connection, McGovern points out that "the publications market is growing more rapidly overseas than in this country."

It makes sense that McGovern would make those remarks upon accepting the Magazine Publishers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award Thursday night in New York, and it's not just because his company's titles - techie pubs like Computerworld, PC World, Macworld and CIO - have just as much necessity outside the U.S. as within. Maybe it's because he just cut a lucrative joint-venture deal with Netherlands-based VNU to combine each company's publishing assets in France.

McGovern advised other U.S. publishers to think global and export their publications, and not simply their content, but their "know-how."

"Editors and publishing executives from around the world regularly exchange best practices and learn from each other," said McGovern, "and it's this exchange that leads to the most innovation."

He's right, of course, but he's also willing to put his money where his mouth is. A $10,000 honorarium he received as part of the Henry Johnson Fischer award has been donated to the Free Library of Philadelphia. And of course, he and his wife Lore Harp McGovern, are known for their philanthropy, which most notably includes a $350 million donation to MIT for the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

"With a better understanding of the mind and how people interact, the media will be better able to provide information in ways that promote knowledge and understanding among people everywhere," he explained.

PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES - Over the course of a century in which almost anything that could be construed as media, ultimately was, Philip Johnson mastered one of our most visible forms. Yeah, Johnson, who died Tuesday at the age of 98, was an architect, but he also was a media visionary. Johnson may have preferred glass, steel and stone to TV, radio and print, but the most important ingredient in his mix was one most media planners could use more of: imagination.

Over the course of his career, Johnson garnered plenty of print and electronic media attention, often for his controversial political points of view as his architectural ones, and his palate didn't include 30-second spots or the printed page. It was the sky.

One of a group of influential, modernistic iconoclasts like Mies van der Rohe, Johnson helped reshaped not just skylines, but the way we think, and even if it's not apparent, we're pretty sure his work has had an affect on people who plan media. And we don't just mean Universal McCann's communication's architecture group. And while his buildings have helped brand cities, and corporations alike, he is perhaps best known for the Glass House he built for himself in New Canaan, Conn., were he resided until his death.