At the start of June, The Federation of the Finnish Media Industry published a strategy offering models for success to traditional communications companies. The strategy is the work of  Idean  together with companies and organizations in the industry.

Idean's Chief Evangelist Mikko-Pekka Hanski is convinced consumers will pay for good content in the future, too. The crucial factor is what consumers consider good content, and in what context.

"Amid the torrent of information, if the communications sector could build on the concept of reliability, that would give it an advantage," Hanski says. For example, CNN publishes news items written by the public on its ireport.com  website, and indicates which of them it has vetted.

The authors of the strategy would leave communications houses to manage the arc of the drama, combining their own news and talking points with those gathered from other sources to make a story. The story would then follow the consumer from morning to night, from newspaper to the digital realm.

"Multichannel communications is very familiar in Finland. But the content has to be brought to life in people's everyday existences," Hanski stresses that even minor extras, such as links to other media, can decide a service's popularity.

For Hanski, an essential prerequisite for success is listening to the consumer. He believes communications companies will increasingly employ community managers, who will stir up interest in Web discussions and monitor responses to services.

Grocery stores, armed with loyalty cards, have masses of consumer information with which to compete for advertising. In contrast, the communications sector relies on reaching consumers in the right situation.

The authors of the strategy predict a steep rise in targeted marketing - and the challenges of small target groups. They suggest that companies cooperate in things like measuring multichannel advertising, or at least in standardizing it.

"Advertisers do comparisons anyway," Hanski points out.

The strategy says the communications companies that will thrive are those that rapidly develop service concepts with their partners.

"Most of the work will then involve handling failure. The challenge for management is how to make this a strength," Hanski says.

As a whole, the strategy offers the sector common models for success. So what will we compete over?

"Over content. That has to be either free or fantastic."