Following the success of Brilliant Minds, ReThink brings you shows highlighting the best ideas from other industries, academics and big thinkers, which you can immediately apply to your organisation or community. This is particularly useful at a time when people are having to rethink many aspects of their work or lives.

The philosophy behind our programming for ReThink is that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Nowadays it is more about adapting multiple innovations from the wider scientific, business and academic worlds as they emerge – along with lessons from people such as elite sportspeople, military strategists, disruptive innovators, entrepreneurs and more. You can be like a chef, taking various ingredients to concoct a new recipe.  ReThink brings ideas, innovations and new perspectives direct from academics, market leaders and industry challengers for you to apply to your own business or deploy within your industry or community.

Who is featured on this channel?

ReThink features experts from a wide range of industries and disciplines, talking about their areas of expertise.  In particular, we feature people who are leaping ahead of their peers, forging new pathways for the industry they are in, or even for all industries. Academics, systems thinkers, commentators and scientists. The idea is to offer this thinking to you which inspires you, gives you perspective or even encourages you to deploy in a different way within your industry. 

What formats do the shows take, and where will they be broadcast?

The shows will take a combination of video and audio (podcast-like) shows, and will be streamed online on our various yBC websites, channel sites and YouTube channels.  We use high-impact channel embeds for videos, like the Netflix player we’re all familiar with. Over time, editorial and/or distribution partners may well also share these out via their platforms. These might include membership associations, news platforms or live events.

Can I see the media pack?

It looks like you are a PR or comms person – see the last question below in this FAQ list, as it’s a more detailed answer.

What’s the catch?  Do I need to pay for this?

There’s no catch: this is editorial and you will not be asked to contribute financially if you are invited to be interviewed, or if you want to watch the content. This is about spreading great ideas in the spirit of collaboration and innovation.

What is involved if I am featured on the channel, and who controls the narrative?

If you are invited to be interviewed, there are two paths this can take, depending on how frequently you have given interviews to date.

First option, is the way most interviews proceed. If you are accustomed to doing live news interviews, we’ll just arrange the interview with you. We’ll always turn up having done our research, and we’ve done hundreds of interviews like this before. This usually generates the most engaging, lively interview. We do our own research prior to interviewing you.

If you are less accustomed to live interviews, we offer the approach whereby we have a brief pre-interview conversation with you, to discuss the broad topics you could cover, and also to understand the background to your story.  We may need to do further research, and this may include asking for some additional background information about your story.

Who decides the interview angle?

It’s important to note that yBC maintains full editorial control of ReThink.tv.  The channel is owned by yBC, and copyright is ours. The editorial scope and direction of the channel is driven by us, and our editorial point of view is one of understanding, investigating and communicating about groundbreaking ideas, methodologies and innovations in multiple industries. 

This also means that your interview will appear (in parts – see next question) in various playlists/shows over time. More specifically:

• We make all editorial decisions, we devise our own questions, we approach people for interviews and arrange the shoots, online recordings or audio recordings.
• Generally, we do not have (your) PR people in the room when interviews are being conducted, and the interviewees are completely responsible for their own answers.
• Answers are not rehearsed.  You do not get a list of questions in advance.  We do not accept scripted corporate material, nor do we plan our programming before we’ve undertaken the interviews. This is genuine, authentic editorial.
• Our methodology is to ask respected experts, commentators, public figures, academics and business people to share their perspectives, ideas and stories.  The tone is authentic, professional and relaxed.
• Our aim is to make this all interesting and informative for people who will largely view this material online.
• All social media/digital platforms representing the channel are controlled and operated by us, and we do not give access to third parties outside of our team, so you can be assured that we’ll always know where you are being featured.

Does my interview appear in whole?

No, we tend to publish individual answers to questions (or a series of related questions), rather than the interview as a whole. We do this because:

• People have short attention spans, and over many hundreds of thousands of viewing hours, we have found that shorter formats work well
• We often playlist your views/ideas alongside other thinkers/innovators for contrast, or to dig deep into one topic.
• It gives people the ability to pick and choose.
• This approach enables us to share more of your thinking out to more people over time (as you feature in multiple playlists, rather than just appearing at one time and that’s it)
• It also means we can utilise one section of the interview in multiple ways (if it makes sense to do so)

Do I get to “sign off” my shows?

Yes and no.  Yes, in that at the time of recording you can flag something you’ve just said as not to be published.  But from that point forward, editorial control is ours, as with any other editorial opportunity. This is much the same as doing a pre-recorded interview with any other news media.

Who are the interviewers?

We have three or four interviewers on our team who routinely conduct interviews with our channel experts (like you).  Some of them have worked as journalists or in an editorial capacity, and all of them are experienced at interviewing people for our channels.  You’ll get to know them better during the course of the interview. We constantly get feedback from interviewees that “that was easier than I thought it would be.”  We’ve even worked with people who have previously not wished to appear on camera.

Can I use my ReThink shows for own purposes?

Yes, we offer you an embeddable player so that you can share shows you are featured in.  Of course, you can also help promote ReThink to your contact base, and if you are interested in doing this, we can help you with this significantly, as of course it is brilliant for us.

We’re up for collaboration which helps both you and us.

How else will ReThink be used?

Our aim is to get your thinking out there, so that people can discover you, and to broaden their thinking. How far and wide your story travels is down to a combination of time, the editorial decisions we make, and some of the potential distribution channels below.

Once edited, parts of your interview will appear on ReThink (and via our distribution partners over time) – so you can often get great exposure.  If your interview is great, it is likely that you will appear on other yBC channels we set up in the future. Our channels usually get shared widely once they gain momentum – not necessarily to an audience of millions, but rather to a very targeted audience of tens of thousands.

Some of our channel partners run events, and if we partner with a conference (for example as media partner) we may well send playlists out to delegates ahead of or after the conference. We usually do this in an episodic format, so that people get lots of exposure to you over time.

We are sometimes asked to speak at conferences and seminars, and when this happens we sometimes play small clips from our editorial shows and invite people to view a particular series on our channels. If you material is really on topic, play it during or between sessions. We always refer people back to our channels.

There are other possibilities such as using the shows as raw material for academic study in the future (as was done with our Brilliant Minds series), but we would seek your permission first, and explain this in detail, as this extends beyond editorial use.

How is ReThink funded?

ReThink is funded by yBC and we cover all our own costs.  Over time, we may seek sponsors or financial contributors, but at present it is self funded.  You give your time and expertise. You get free access (embeddable) to shows featuring you once they are produced.

Who owns ReThink?

yBC.  See www.ybc.tv.  We are a New Zealand based, privately owned business.

How experienced are you at doing this?

We’ve launched and operated many similar channels in the past.  These include Brilliant Minds TV which you can read more about here, and other channels in industries such as Energy, Mining, Hospitality, Consultancy and Finance.  Our content is produced to a very high standard by our edit team in Europe. There are examples of Brilliant Minds TV content over at our main website yBC.tv.

Since 2005, we’ve conducted hundreds of interviews and produced thousands of clips.  Our content comes from shoots and sound recordings across the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia.  Interviewees have included business leaders, highly specialised experts, academics, commentators, and politicians.  We’ve interviewed people representing well known brands (like Skype, Google, PwC, HSBC, Hilton, Deloitte, Microsoft, AirBNB, Schroders and TripAdvisor), and even business celebrities (like Sir Richard Branson, Martha Lane Fox, Lord Seb Coe, Martin Tindall and Lord Alan Sugar).  Our interview clips (across all channels) number in the thousands. We’ve had over 2.3 million views on YouTube alone.

[For the comms/PR people out there]

So what’s the “reach” and how are the shows “marketed”? Can I see the media pack? Who is the target audience? How do we know this is going to be worthwhile for us?

We are sometimes asked these questions – which often come from the PR department or comms team – so here’s a detailed answer.

You might not be surprised that an editorial series called “ReThink” doesn’t fit neatly within traditional publishing models. So we don’t have/own a set distribution/audience for each of the ReThink series we publish over time. This is something which evolves, and is less about us, and more about the network of people we involve.

Instead, as we build each series, distribution builds organically via people in the industry who want to share the content out to their networks (or clients, or social channels, or contact base, or their own target markets). This is not something people have to do, it’s something some of our interviewees and partners choose to do. We can’t always measure or track exactly who each episode goes out to.

Some of our series are very targeted and there’s a (relatively) small audience. For example, Brilliant Minds went out initially to an audience of 2,000 senior decision makers in the UK. Quite a small, narrow audience. But highly targeted (given the content), and it had a very significant impact with those people. By contrast, each episode of our investing/financial services content can reach many tens of thousands of decision makers, and at the peak of the Hospitality Channel, we were reaching all key people and brands in the hotel investment & franchising business – which is a lot of people.

Geographically, our ReThink content is usually focussed on North America, the UK and Europe. We have some content which is also focussed on Australasia, the Middle East and Asia. It depends on the series.

As for target audience: Most of our content is developed to be helpful to business decision makers (C-level, board level and VP/director level). ReThink Business (currently in production) will have a more general focus across multiple industries and sectors – it’s all about ReThinking the world of business, and there’s no reason why someone in aviation or healthcare can’t learn (or copy!) something from an interviewee in tech, consulting or FMCG! ReThink Digital will appeal to comms people and agencies. ReThink Investing is more for those who are looking at the world of investment with a sustainability lens on – that’s a fairly narrow, but very targeted audience. And so on.

All of our content is produced to be relevant, useful and where possible entertaining. We get great feedback about it from those who take part.

So is it “worth it”? We hear from our interviewees that it is. It costs you nothing. It requires no preparation. There’s usually a pre-interview (c.20 mins) and an interview (c.30-50 mins), and that’s it. There have been a lot of serendipitous connections along the way – for example as a result of us introducing interviewees to each other.

Ultimately, we’re a small organisation with a lean team and for ReThink, a leaner budget! We hope you join us all!!