Evan Shapiro is the official, unofficial cartographer of the Media Universe since Deadline published Shapiro’s first Media Universe Map. Shapiro charts Media’s future through his essays on the Media War & Peace Newsletter, and with his change agency, ESHAP. Shapiro is an Emmy and Peabody Award winning producer of TV, films and podcasts. He is a professor at NYU and Fordham schools of business, as Board Chair for non-profit educational enterprise One Diverse Industry.
Who is my digital hero?
Ryan Kaji.
What has he done to win hero status in your eyes?
He started as a YouTuber at 4 years old. With his family, he’s built a hugely successful creator led studio and channel from the ground up.
He produced and self distributed his own feature film without major studio backing.
How has his heroism helped drive digital?
The Kani family has broken important ground for creators everywhere and set the standard for creator led companies.
What the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
The universal user experience sucks.
Personalisation and content discovery suck. This is entirely fixable IF we collaborate around data and take down the walls around our gardens.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
I think sharing my personal journey about my cancer online, as a way to talk about how we as a community can overcome big challenges IF we choose to admit what’s wrong and see what can be right.
