Systems in Practice

In the legacy broadcast world, compliance was a manual, frame-by-frame endeavor managed by massive "Standards and Practices" (S&P) departments, which were rooms full of people whose entire job was to watch every second of video to ensure it met legal, regulatory, and advertiser standards. In the high-volume streaming world of 2026, that model is an operational suicide mission. If you are a streaming distribution network today, your volume of content is way, way too high to ma

Executive Summary: From the outside, it looks like DEI rose fast and then died just as quickly, taken out by Trump‑era politics and corporate backpedaling. But when you zoom out, DEI is less a fad and more a running argument about who gets access to opportunity, who gets represented, and what companies are actually optimizing for. The real question is not whether Trump “killed” DEI, but whether he forced it to drop the branding and go back to what it has always been: a mix of

Executive Summary: Your transformation failed. Research from firms like McKinsey and BCG has consistently found that around 70% of digital transformations fail to meet their objectives. Here's what probably happened: You chased technology instead of solving business problems. You tried to do everything at once. Your team was already stretched thin, and you asked them to execute a revolution on top of their day jobs. Leadership promised commitment but disappeared when things g

Executive Summary: This is a hard downturn. People have lost jobs. Projects have stopped midstream. Capital has pulled back. It is the hardest operating period streaming has faced since the early digital transition, and it is showing who really understands their own systems. When the money slows, broken processes become more visble. The companies that fix them now will be the ones still standing when capital returns. Research from Harvard Business Review  shows that constrain

Executive Summary: Media operations live or die on deadlines. One misstep in ingest, one missed metadata check, one scheduling slip, and suddenly ad breaks vanish, launches stall, and millions of dollars leak out the door. This article explores the danger of the sandbagger : the person who thrives on optics over output. They underdeliver, create chaos, and then try to position themselves as indispensable. Media is particularly vulnerable to sandbaggers because of its fragile,

Executive Summary: The biggest revenue leaks in media companies don’t come from technology failures or metadata gaps. They come from misaligned goals, unfocused meetings, and communication habits that fragment attention. The good news? These are also the easiest leaks to fix, and they don’t cost a dime. By resetting meeting culture, aligning next-year goals, structuring communication, and auditing project ownership, CEOs can contain revenue leaks immediately. Why Zero-Cost Le

I built OpsPilot™ because I wanted to give structure to something I have watched drain value from media companies for nearly two decades. That same motivation is why I founded Integration Therapy : to help companies identify and contain the revenue they are already earning but not fully realizing. Over the years, I’ve had a uniquely broad vantage point. I’ve worked the entire supply chain of production, from early-stage development and writing, through technical operations,

Summary: Distribution operations and content processing facilities operate in a high-pressure, margin-tight business. Their role in the...

Summary: As traditional media companies continue to invest in streaming, many of them are bringing their broadcast-era infrastructure,...

Summary: One of the largest sources of revenue leakage in streaming organizations is strategic misalignment. From boardroom goals that...

Most media teams think their metadata is “good enough.” Assets are findable. Rights are mostly tracked. Delivery issues are...

Summary: Media management and content operations get tossed around like interchangeable buzzwords, but they do very different jobs, and...

Summary: This article explores how leaders can apply the well-established framework of moral development: pre-conventional,...

Prologue: Why I’m Telling You This I don’t use the word "trauma" lightly. 2025 marks eleven years that I’ve been learning how to...

Summary: This week marks one year since I launched Integration Therapy, a company I built after realizing I no longer wanted to prop up...

Summary: Even brilliant, seasoned execs can become barriers to digital transformation in streaming, TV, and film - not out of malice,...

Summary: AI can scale operational excellence, or it can weaponize dysfunction. To assess whether your media supply chain is AI-ready,...

Summary: Roku isn't building the future of streaming yet, but they're studying the blueprints. By focusing on metadata and positioning...

Summary: This article offers a reflection on what tends to go wrong when two culturally distinct organizations merge without intentional...

Summary: Media executives often ask, “How does Netflix do it?” as if there's a one-size-fits-all blueprint for scaling. But Netflix's...

Rebecca Avery Owner and Principal Strategy Partner, Integration Therapy Chair, Metadata Working Group, SVTA Executive Summary Content...

Summary: The media industry is in the middle of an AI revolution. But many organizations are experiencing friction, not progress. This...

There’s a quiet shift happening in the media industry. It’s not about the latest tech trend or a flashy new workflow tool. It’s something...