My friend and longtime colleague Bill Harvey has passed over. I am deeply saddened by his loss, yet I cannot think of Bill as simply gone. He believed that consciousness extends beyond the boundaries we ordinarily place around it, and that every human life is part of a larger spiritual universe. I believe Bill would want us to understand his passage in that light. His physical presence has left us, but the mind, spirit and love he shared remain active among us.
To the media and advertising community, Bill was one of our most original and respected thinkers. For decades, he helped the industry understand audiences, advertising effectiveness and return on investment with greater precision. He pioneered new approaches to media research, advanced the use of set-top-box data and earned an Emmy Award for his contributions. Since 2009, Bill has published more than 150 of his In Terms of ROI columns for MediaVillage, continually challenging accepted assumptions. He asked the industry to think more deeply, measure more intelligently and recognize that what is easiest to count is not always what counts most.
Others will share Bill’s unique life-lived and laud his many contributions to the research, media, and marketing community. It’s his larger body of work for which I believe he most deserves to be remembered.
Bill did not separate science from spirituality, analytics from imagination, or professional effectiveness from human consciousness. His work in media was one expression of a much larger inquiry: How do our minds work, what prevents us from seeing clearly, and how can we become more conscious, creative, compassionate and effective human beings?
Inspired and ahead of its time, Bill’s first book, Mind Magic: The Science of Microcosmology in 1976 was lauded by thousands whose lives were changed by it. It has been used by multiple universities and organizations. The book is now in its sixth edition, Mind Magic: Doorways into Higher Consciousness. It invites readers to discover who they are beneath the accumulated influences, habits and expectations of the world around them. Bill did not offer spirituality as an escape from reality. He presented it as a way of entering reality more fully. He believed we could learn to observe our own thinking, quiet the forces that distort it, reach the flow state and use our minds rather than allowing our minds to use us. The book’s continuing relevance, reflected in multiple editions and the admiration of thinkers including Ram Dass, Daniel Goleman and Norman Cousins, speaks to the enduring power of that vision. The Human Effectiveness Institute
The same consciousness was always present beneath Bill’s media analysis. When he wrote about fragmentation, artificial intelligence, political division, audience motivation or the future of television, he was never interested in data alone. He was interested in the people represented by the data. He understood that attention is human energy, that motivation arises from deep emotional and psychological needs, and that communication carries a responsibility to elevate rather than manipulate.
Even the title In Terms of ROI contained a larger question. What is the true return on the investment of a life? Is it only greater efficiency, more accurate measurement or stronger business results? Or is it also greater awareness, empathy, creativity, understanding and love?
Bill’s answer was expressed throughout his writing. He urged us to move beyond rigid either-or thinking, to release assumptions and allow information to reorganize itself into new understanding. He wrote about the discipline required to imagine ourselves inside another person’s experience. Empathy, for Bill, was not a slogan. It was a demanding exercise of consciousness and one of our responsibilities as human beings. His invitation was simple and profound: “Share warmth. Love to all.”
That is the Bill Harvey I hope we will continue to elevate.
Yes, he was a media futurist, research innovator, inventor and extraordinary industry leader. Those contributions are lasting and consequential. But Bill’s greater legacy reaches beyond an industry. Through Mind Magic, You Are the Universe, The Navigator, The Message, Pandemonium, The Great Being and his many other writings, he devoted himself to expanding our understanding of human potential and our place in a conscious universe.
Bill spent his life exploring doorways into higher consciousness. Now he has passed through a doorway none of us can fully comprehend. For those who knew his beliefs, it is comforting to imagine him not disappearing but entering the higher spiritual universe he spent so much of his life seeking to understand.
The best testimonial we can offer Bill is to keep his work alive. Read his books. Revisit his columns. Look beyond the numbers. Question your assumptions. Observe your own mind. Enter another person’s experience before judging them. Bring more imagination, warmth and consciousness into every decision.
Bill Harvey taught an industry how to measure what works. He taught those willing to follow him more deeply how to consider what life itself is for.
His body of work belongs not only to the history of media, but to the continuing evolution of humankind. I will miss my friend and colleague. I will remain grateful for the intelligence, generosity and spiritual light he shared with us. And I will think of him now as he would most want to be remembered: not at the end of his journey but continuing it at a higher level of consciousness.
Love to Bill and love to all.
I am very saddened by the passing of Bill. I met him in 1970 at Ouroborous and spent many years hanging with him at his Moonhaw road place. I was there at the developing of the Mind Magic - I still have a typewritten copy of the manuscript. I consider him to be one of my foremost mentors and teachers.
I owe a lot of who I am to his teachings. I will always remember him in the most cherished ways. I brilliant mind, a brilliant visionary. I will miss his blog and his writings, which I read in full every Friday.
May his teachings and his insight live on in those who he touched.
Not too late to get a copy of Mind Magic, for all those who have not been familiar with him and his work.
Bill was a giant. He combined compassion and understanding of others with a brilliant mind. He was the foremost media futurist of our time. He taught us a lot about how to measure. And created no small number of metrics himself. He invented the ADI/DMA concept for Arbitron in his early 20's. And never stopped creating. I remember in the 70's how he predicted the advent of VCR's, saying we would have that capability we saw on Monday Night Football replay in all of our homes to control ourselves within 10 years. A wild and crazy guy. We were friends for over 50 years. He was always available to talk about anything. And he could talk about anything. I miss him already.