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MESA has been started up by three well known industry people, Marty Porter, Guy Finley and Devendra Mishra. While CDSA and Media-Tech have been refocusing to incorporate changes in business, MESA’s goal is to expand the borders further. Relationships with DEG and EMA may bring some new ideas. In a time when the whole country--even the whole world--is looking at the glass half empty with replication plants closing and laying off people, any chance at getting a shot in the arm seems like a good idea. So I approached my interview with Porter and Finley with an open mind. "Everybody was telling us that in our partnership with DEG we were doing a first-rate job with ESCA conferences the last three years but that we need to start having more ongoing conversations, ongoing solutions-based meetings, and research. It sounded like we needed a new community," said Porter. Rather than starting an association, an alliance seemed better. That’s when Media Entertainment Services Alliance was born. Although the Alliance won’t be officially launched until January, Porter expects the first group of people to be part of this alliance will be traditional service providers such as replicators, authoring houses and trucking people. Also, part of that first group should be other services providers such as IP, consultants, printers, and studios. "We want to also focus on the service providers who work for the home video groups, the home entertainment groups, music groups, and the interactive entertainment groups and we are going to be pushing into electronic publishing as well," says Porter. "With the digitizing of media, service providers can provide a broader range of services and for a broader number of verticals within the entertainment media sector." I spoke to a few replicators who were not so positive about shelling out membership dues for yet another organization. The smaller ones, in particular, say, "How can we afford it?" MESA is offering CES attendees the opportunity to come to their Supply Chain Academy for free in order to show off what they will be doing. Finley adds that if you attend ESCA events on a regular basis, MESA membership prices are value-added. "We’re providing passes and sponsorship packages," he says. "You’ll save money in the long run." Replicators are obviously important to MESA, but Porter says if they were just organizing on behalf of replicators, "I’d tell you point blank that there is no need for another group because there are more than enough replication groups. The supply chain is much bigger than replication, and replicators need to provide a much wider number of supply chain services than just stamping plastic." The term "service providers" is taken in a very broad sense well beyond just stamping a disc. "There is a real need for people to do things in a different way, meet new customers, and hang out with positive, creative people," he says. Aside from encouraging a unique sort of membership, MESA would like to build sophisticated online collaborative and meeting tools, an area in which Finley is well-versed. They expect those online services to roll out in 2009. "We will be taking a lot of the activities that we do face to face and breaking them down into special interest groups and utilizing online tools and giving members the ability to utilize those tools as well," said Porter. Another new event, Blu-con, was held earlier this month, obviously aimed at the Blu-ray industry. Members of the press were not invited to the event, but Porter and Finley said about 300 people, including representatives from the studios, attended the event. Despite the difficult world economy, they said attendees had exciting ideas for the future and were generally upbeat. New events will also roll out next year. Just announced is GameSupply--a Supply Chain Academy for the gaming industry--scheduled for February 11. Mishra is the chief strategist behind this event. I also asked them about their relationship with CDSA. There have been quotes in the press from both Media-Tech and CDSA suggesting that there is room for everyone to work together, and Porter said much the same thing. "Clearly, we have our own relationships with many of these same people. However, I wouldn’t want to create this new group if it was as simple as doing the same thing the other groups are doing. The keyword is alliance. There will be times when it makes a lot of sense to reach out to other groups and to build those bridges to work together." At this writing MESA has zero members since it is not officially launching until CES in January, but Porter says the organization has had "a lot of conversations with people who sponsor activities, and we wouldn’t be working on this if we didn’t feel that people were supporting and backing us." Debbie Galante Block (debgalante at aol.com) is a freelance writer based in Mahopac, N.Y.
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