Interesting article on BBH Labs that presents a few views from an event at Social media week in NYC, that for me is summed up by this idea. “As creative businesses continue to experiment with new models of creative collaboration, and explore different approaches to maintaining a creative arsenal comprising the highest quality individuals and partners, it is inevitable that which was once almost wholly contained within an agency will become, to some extent, located outside the formal confines of that business.”
Given this idea, the article goes on to pose 2 questions
“1. CULTURE: If the culture of an organization is one of the key elements of differentiation between one agency and another, when does the definition of an agency blur to the point of intangibility?
2. INCENTIVES: What kinds of models are right for incentivizing the crowd? If the model of the future is going to involve fluid boundaries between ‘working for’ and ‘working with’, what does that mean for how people are incentivized?”
Obviously, I’m believer in the main idea. In fact Andy and I believed it so strongly we set up WEIR+WONG to provide access to a pool of the best digital talent. My main interest is to work with the best and most tried and trusted people, regardless of the communication medium, technology, or platform. The pace of change – especially with digital technology – has reached such a fast pace that not even the largest and most high-tech digital agencies can truly keep up with skills to offer the most value to their clients. They simply can’t hire fast enough to stay ahead of the curve. Freelancers and specialists are the way ahead, or at least one of the paths. A few agencies have realised this and have staffed up their creative teams with great technologists who can add to the creative process through rapid and light prototyping and the provision of a wide range of technology solutions early on. They then leave the heavy lifting of implementation to the right production company.
In answer to the first question about loss of cultural identity, I don’t believe that agencies have a monopoly on culture or ever have. Cultures change as people come and go. Agency life is a transient, sometimes nomadic way of making a living for many agency folk. I believe there is another culture that underpins all agencies, and this is driven by a few great people who exemplify this culture through a combination of original thinking, subtle repurposing of old ideas, proactive collaboration, professionalism, a passion for learning and a genuine joy of creating great work regardless of their skillset.
In answer to the second question, to be in the presence of someone who embodies all these cultural traits is what will incentivise those seeking to work in this model regardless of who they work for. Agencies have shown me what this cultural DNA can look like at its very best, but they don’t own this, they simply seek to replicate what can be found in those fleeting moments of greatness. More permeable cultures can only improve the frequency of those fleeting moments, which is good for everyone!
Digital Production – Ready to get serious?
Digital is still young. If the media we know and love was a family, what would it look like?
What about the new generation? Digital, and it’s younger sibling Mobile?
Well they’re not even out of school yet. Digital is just about in secondary school, and Mobile? Well Mobile is still in shorts. They’re both trying to find their way, to sound more official and grown-up, but the grown-ups simply aren’t taking enough notice. Well some are, but most aren’t taking them seriously still, because they don’t know the lingo.
What if there was some way these young upstarts could somehow get recognised? What if they could become more mature?
I’ve been speaking to a lot of people in agencyland in the last 4 weeks, and something they all say is that there’s a real shortage of digital production talent, at all levels. Another problem is that Seniority is not comparable. Some producers claim to be senior after a very short period of time, which may be possible, but not with so little experience in terms of projects, technologies, platform, and people.
Agencies rely on being able to produce great work reliably to retain their clients, and they’ve been doing so because their output is being managed by a very experienced group of TV, Radio and Print producers who’ve been doing it for years in a tried and trusted way. Everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, there’s an unspoken code of conduct generally, and there’s even a spoken one in the form of accredited courses, for example the one run by the IPA and various higher education establishments. But there’s few equivalents within Digital.
The IAB run a course, but it only skims the surface, 2 days hardly qualifies you as anything other than a beginner (but it doesn’t profess to be more than this). The IPA currently offer nothing, but are showing an interest. Higher education establishments are trying, most notably places like Hyperisland, but few in the UK seem to be doing the right thing. Places like Plymouth have built up a good track record, with what was formally their MediaLab arts course, now called Digital Arts & Technology, but this doesn’t give enough focus to managing the digital arts. London College of Communications has produced some good people recently as well.
What I’m interested in is an industry-driven accreditation though. I’ll be speaking to some Heads of digital production over the coming weeks and putting together a plan for an official course for those who do want to hone their craft and be recognised for it. Any course worthwhile won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick, but it will be useful, and it’ll help this industry evolve into what it needs to be so that Digital and Mobile can stand side-by-side with all the other members of the media family.
What will a course look like? Well I see 3 levels, much like the scrum alliance format.
I’d be keen to hear your points of view on this. What do you think? Would you invest some time to make this happen? Maybe take a quick survey on what’s important for digital producers?