Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 381

Is Twitter Killing You?

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is becoming wildly successful...

Many people fail to realize the time, energy and effort it takes to be successful in Social Media. It's true that you can definitely reap the rewards of that success, but it's also true that sometimes being too successful can become overbearing and unmanageable. The truth is that you would much rather get to the point of being wildly successful and figuring out how to manage it all than having the Social Media equivalent of crickets when you try to connect online.

The personal brand and the corporate brand are heading towards a head-on collision.

Todd Defren over at PR Squared had a great Blog titled, Our Corporate Brand Is Cramping My Personal Brand, in which he states: "...star employees will carefully evaluate the reputation and socialstreams of their would-be employers, to determine whether they want to associate their personal brand with that of the corporation." And, while it's hard to imagine that a young person just out of University might turn down a decent wage because of what it might do to their personal brand, there's another interesting twist to that scenario...

Brands may not hire individuals with significant digital footprints.

Sure, many corporations would kill to have a mini-Chris Brogan or a micro-Gary Vaynerchuk on staff, but who amongst us is not constantly in awe of their content output? Whether it's Blogging, Podcasting, tweeting, checking-in, status updates and beyond, more often than not, the first question I am asked by those in the corporate world is, "when do these people find the time?" (the real answer to that question is: this stuff is - for the most part - a huge chunk of their job). Will a company really want to hire someone after they evaluate this person's online presence and can see (minute-by-minute) how much time and effort it takes? At the end of the day, there is a job to do. I'm reminded of the many corporate Social Media policies and guidelines I've seen that have the line: "remember: work first, Social Media after."

Most companies are looking for a team player... not someone out for their own glory.

The other component is that the perception (right or wrong) of a strong online presence could also lead the company to think that this individual is not a team player. That it's all about their personal brand and their own positioning instead of putting the corporate needs first. That they are a one-person army. Whether or not that makes us cringe, it's a fair corporate statement to make. Most individuals with significant digital footprints can be perceived that way. Personally, I've heard this about myself in the Marketing industry (if people only knew how much of my day and night is spent working on growing the business of our clients at Twist Image).

Too much of a good thing.

In the end, I'm not sure that an individual would refuse to take a position with a company because they're not active/smart in Social Media. I'm also not sold that a company would not hire an individual who has a significant digital footprint because they may be worried that the individual will spend too much time working on their personal brand instead of the business at hand. But, it's interesting to think about a world where individuals do have a personal brand that has as much (or equal) to significance as those of corporate brands and how that plays out in the corporate world and the Social Web... because we are at that unique moment in time.

Do you think Twitter can kill a great job opportunity? What's your take?

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blog

brand

branding

chris brogan

content

digital footprint

gary vaynerchuk

marketing industry

online presence

online reputation

personal brand

podcast

pr squared

publishing

social media

social media guideline

social media monitoring

social media policy

social web

status update

success

todd defren

tweet

twist image

twitter

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

The problem is no longer quality or quantity. The problem is now choice.

In the old world, before the Social Web and before the big Internet portals, if you wanted to advertise or market your products and services, all you really had to do was make a few choices. There were limited media channels and within those media channels, the choices were fairly limited too. Along with that, there really was only a few reasons to advertise: reach, direct response and if you were really advanced, you were looking to build a database of people to regularly mail (an old school term for "connecting").

Then the world changed.

The idea of "57 channels and nothing on" seems almost as ludicrous as listening to six songs on a turntable, getting up off the couch, flipping the vinyl over and listening to six more songs. It seems barbaric in the iPod world. If you want content, there are - literally - thousands of choices in any one vertical. That content is available in text, images, audio and video. There's short-form, there's long-form, there's stuff available as it happens, daily, weekly, monthly, on-demand, and on any platform fathomable.

What's a Marketer to do?

The easy answer is: go where the audience is. That's what Facebook has recently been telling advertisers in a bid to win over more brands and crank up the advertising dollars. They are comparing their 500+ million users to some of the biggest broadcasting platforms and hit TV shows, to let brands know that reach is reach and that the Internet is a mass media play.

The Internet can be a mass media play, but that's not what makes it interesting.

While Facebook has 500+ million users, they're also quick to point out in their stats page that the average user has about 130 connections. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Facebook is not big. Facebook is a big bunch of very small things... and there's nothing wrong with that, but, to get to that same traditional mass media reach of audience you not only have to work really hard to make tangible connections, you have to be there when they are (not everybody is online and in their feeds all day) and - the hardest part - you have to be able to make the creative work for you.

Let's face it, the creative is not great.

The ads are thumbnail size at best, some are just text and most are surrounded by other competing messages. It's not just Facebook, it's most online advertising. The majority of online display advertising is cluttering up the user's space from what they really want to do: consume content or create content.

There's got to be a better way.

I'm not just talking about figuring out how to CTRL-ALT-DEL your business and Marketing. I am talking about making better decisions, because that's something you finally can do. Yes, within these many, many channels you can actually make better decisions, more targeted decisions. You can find the handful of websites, Blogs and people on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube who actually care what you have to say. You don't even have to advertise to them (but, you can if you would like to). You can use that opportunity to publish content, to become active in their community and/or help them make better decisions. It's up to you.

All of the channels now exist for you to reach your customers. Now, it's up to you to make the better/right decisions.

Tags:

advertising

audience

blog

broadcasting

content

ctrl alt del

decisions

display advertising

facebook

internet portal

ipod

marketer

marketing

mass media

media channel

online advertising

online community

publishing

social web

twitter

youtube

The Little Big Things

How often do you really stop to think about the little stuff.

It's all the little stuff... and how it adds up that counts most. When best-selling business book author, Tom Peters, announced that his book was going to be called, The Little Big Things, I smiled. Not because it's a clever turn of phrase, but because Peters was able to verbalize - in a couple of words - everything that really makes Marketing (and the potential to do great Marketing) so exciting in this decade.

The big idea is not one thing/the only thing.

A ways back, I published a Blog post about "the big idea" (you can read it here: Maybe It Is Time For Marketing To Move Away From "The Big Idea"). The premise of the post was that Marketing, technology and Social Media is changing advertising, and that the spirit of the big idea is now shifting to a world where the more successful brands are leveraging a brand eco-system that engenders many little big ideas, that cumulatively create something truly unique and special. When you add in the fact that consumers can also take part in both small acts (like sharing and rating content) to bigger acts (like creating their own Blog posts or mash-ups), you begin to see and understand the value in not only acting small, but also in embracing a world where a lot of little things become a lot of very big things.

It's not just an idea... It's a way of being.

I love Instapaper (you can read more about why I love it, right here: Instapaper Is A Must). Today, Fast Company had a fascinating article titled, Instapaper Founder Marco Arment's Journey From Bagel Jockey to Publishing Pioneer, about Instapaper's creator, Marco Arment, who left his job as the co-founder of the micro-blogging service Tumblr to work alone on a very small idea. When prodded for his life-lesson, this is what he said...

"I've done everything from stocking shelves at a natural food co-op, to baking bagels at Brueggers and bussing tables. Then I realized that jobs suck, but if you could get up at 6 a.m. and bake your own breakfast, that is very satisfying. I learned the value of giving people little delights [while working at the bagel shop]. Those small details and experiences are the reason why people like luxury cars. They are full of those little delights. You can do the same thing with any business. With a Web and iPhone app, I try to find new and tiny ways to delight my customers. They may not notice, but it helps drive goodwill and makes your product remarkable."

It's true... Even for the big brands.

As a Marketer, our job is straight-forward: get people to buy our products and services. Get people to talk about our products and services. Get people excited about doing those things by surprising and delighting them. Too many Marketers spend too much time not making that last part happen: the surprise and delight. Blogging is like this too. You're not just suddenly publishing to a significant audience. It takes time. Little pieces of valuable content each day, slowly build up over time and when you look back you have a mountain of content and a mountain of followers/community members. Little by little.

And, while I don't expect anybody to think this is some sort of original thought or groundbreaking new idea, sometimes a quote like Arment's reminds us of what is right and what is good about Marketing, Communications, Advertising, Social Media and the Internet. The little things.

Tags:

advertising

blog

brand eco-system

branding

brueggers

business book

communications

content

fast company

instapaper

marco arment

marketer

marketing

mash-up

micro-blog

publishing

social media

technology

the big idea

the little big things

tom peters

tumblr

Turning Branded Contests Into Branded Content

More brands should be doing more branded contests.

Social Media does many cool and interesting things when it comes to content, but it's also an incredible driver for contests. This often forgotten medium is in desperate need of rejuvenation, and all of the moving parts are now available through both online and mobile channels to make it happen. Branded contests never made it to primetime before the Social Web because brands could not defer attention from the main reason to be marketing in the first place: getting people to buy their products. But things have changed. Brands can now do many fun things to keep consumers engaged, and they don't have to break the bank to do it.

Chevy hits a speed bump. Doritos cashes in its chips.

Us Marketers may have become a little gun-shy since 2006 when Chevy teamed up with the hit reality television series, The Apprentice, to launch its Chevy Tahoe SUV. Part of the campaign involved an online contest where consumers could create their own Chevy Tahoe SUV commercials online. Contestants could choose their own terrain, soundtrack and stock video clips and write their own text to accompany the video. The disaster that ensued included environmentalists and Iraq War opponents hijacking the contest and creating a slew of anti-SUV and anti-Chevy "commercials." Chevy eventually changed the campaign, censored the ads and then killed the website. But the damage was already done as several of those videos were captured and posted on online video sharing sites like YouTube, where they are still easily viewed today.

A few years later, Doritos launched a similar online video campaign, encouraging consumers to create their own Doritos spots. The winner of the Crash the Superbowl contest would get their videos shown during the Big Game. This branded contest has been running for several years and has been a huge success. Doritos is now super-active in multiple branded contests throughout the year, and has created its own Social Media platform for deploying branded contests through digital and mobile channels. So, why did Doritos score on the same field where Chevy struck out?

For a few reasons:

Doritos' brand and product are relatively innocuous - it's hard to get worked up over a neon orange chip!

Doritos learned from the mistakes of others, including Chevy.

Doritos stayed focused on the fact that it was a contest (with a valuable prize), whereas Chevy wanted some good, free commercials as testimonials.

Mind the Gap .

Prior to its rebranding snafu a few weeks back, Gap made the headlines in a positive way for its Casting Call contest. This year's edition was predominantly driven by the Casting Call iPhone app, which made it easy for parents to upload photos of their kids in hopes that they would be named the new face of babyGap and GapKids. Along with a microsite and the branded mobile app, the real spin of momentum behind the contest was in encouraging parents to leverage Facebook and Twitter to get the votes out for their kids. Gap is expecting over one million entries. Contrast this with Gap's aborted campaign to "crowdsource" its new logo design, which some saw as a cynical attempt to save face and score some free design work.

Contests tell stories.

What makes Social Media "social" is not necessarily how engaged a brand is with its consumers in terms of conversation. Social Media are, fundamentally, about the ability to share media (text, images, audio and video) in an easy and fun way. Layering mobility on top of this ability to share makes branded contests even more accessible to the masses. Branded contest aren't small. Social Media and the mobile platform are powerful broadcasting channels (like television and newspapers) when they want to be. The big idea here is that if your brand is compelling enough - and if the prize is worthy enough - customers are not only willing to create compelling (and branded) content, but they're also willing to tell and share their stories with anybody and everybody they're connected to.

Telling stories. Isn't that what Marketing is all about?

The above posting is an article from Sparksheet . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

Turning Branded Contests into Branded Content .

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babygap

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branded content

branded contest

branded mobile app

broadcasting

casting call contest

chevy

chevy tahoe

commercial

consumer generated content

content

contest

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crowdsource

doritos

facebook

gap

gapkids

iphone app

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marketing

microsite

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newspaper

online channel

online contest

online video

online video sharing

rebrand

share media

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social media platform

social web

spafax

sparksheet

storytelling

television

the apprentice

twitter

youtube

Creating Amazing Digital Marketing Experiences With Jared Spool

Episode #226 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

I last connected with Jared Spool on episode #77 of this Podcast (it has been a while and the world has changed a lot). If you're interested in the Digital Marketing spaces and curious about what makes customers click (literally), there is probably no one better in the world to help you understand how to make that happen than Jared. His company, User Interface Engineering, is known globally as the place to learn about user interface design and beyond. He also happens to be a very funny and enjoyable person to follow on Twitter. Happy Halloween! Here are some real digital treats for you. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes ): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #226 .

Tags:

advertising

bite size edits

blog

blogging

blue sky factory

book oven

cast of dads

cc chapman

chris brogan

christopher s penn

david usher

digital dads

digital marketing

escape velocity

facebook

facebook group

hugh mcguire

human business works

iambik

in over your head

itunes

jared spool

julien smith

librivox

man on the go

managing the gray

marie mai

marketing

marketing over coffee

media hacks

new marketing labs

online social network

podcast

podcasting

six pixels of separation

slideshare

social media 101

social media marketing

strategy

third tribe marketing

trust agents

twist image

twitter

user interface engineering

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #19

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Rednod, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for each other (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

A guide to the misguided criticism of the Stewart/Colbert rally - TBD . "I'm going to provide a couple of political links this week, because of the extraordinary rally that began as a post on Reddit and made its way to Washington, D.C. This piece by Ryan Kearney is an interesting look at what happens when the pundits are satirical, and the satirists tell too much truth. With both sides of the U.S. political divide calling for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to cancel their rally , it's clear too-serious pundits don't know what to make of the event. A furore over centrism? Shock and awe over common sense? It's a great read, with lines like 'just who does Jon Stewart think he is?' and 'is this the best the liberals can do?' (Alistair for Mitch).

Noam Chomsky Has 'Never Seen Anything Like This' - Orwell's Dream . "Now for the flip side. Noam Chomsky has a bleak take on the state of affairs in the U.S. He doesn't take sides, and he doesn't let anyone off easily: 'I don't bother writing about Fox News ,' he says. 'It is too easy. What I talk about are the liberal intellectuals, the ones who portray themselves and perceive themselves as challenging power, as courageous, as standing up for truth and justice.' Ouch. Reading these two links, back to back, and thinking about the rally that's happening in D.C., is an interesting exercise in modern politics." (Alistair for Hugh).

Chinese May Have Fastest Supercomputer, Nvidia Says - Bloomberg . "China's emergence as a global financial superpower has been extraordinary in the past decade, and will continue to shape our lives in ways we don't expect in the coming decades. But to date China hasn't been known - at least in the West - for cutting edge innovation (this may be perception more than a reality, I don't know). But this is one of the first major technology stories I've seen that suggests that China is about to start flexing its innovation muscles. They've built, apparently, a supercomputer that set a 'performance record of 2.507 petaflops, or more than 2 quadrillion calculations per second.' That's a lot more petaflops than I'm used to seeing. We live in interesting times." (Hugh for Alistair).

The Universal Mind of Bill Evans - The Office of Frank Chimero . "Designer Frank Chimero posts some great old interviews with jazz pianist Bill Evans , talking about craft and creativity. Style, substance, simplicity, and truth. 'It's better to do something simple if it's real.'" (Hugh for Mitch).

Macrowikinomics Murmuration - YouTube . "I'm falling madly and deeply in love with the latest book from Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams titled, Macrowikinomics . While it's the follow-up to their best-selling book, Wikinomics , I like how Macrowikinomics looks at institutions beyond business to identify the changes that technology and Social Media are causing in our world. If they made this video as a book trailer, it certainly did catch my attention. It really is beautiful to watch." (Mitch for Alistair).

Flowchart: Understanding the Web, for Fans of Charles Dickens - Fast Company . "I'll be honest here: I didn't event look at this article (let alone read it). I saw the headline and thought to myself, 'if this was not written for Hugh McGuire, I don't know what was!' You've got classic literature, the Internet and an infographic. How could it not be perfect for Hugh McGuire? All that's missing is a rugby reference!" (Mitch for Hugh).

Now, it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags:

alistair croll

anthony d williams

bill evans

bitcurrent

bite-sized edits

bloomberg

book trailer

business book

charles dickens

china

complete web monitoring

creativity

don tapscott

fast company

fox news

frank chimero

gigaom

great links

hugh mcguire

human 20

innovation

jon stewart

librivox

link

linkbait

macrowikinomics

managing bandwidth

media hacks

noam chomsky

nvidia

orwells dream

petaflops

poilitics

reddit

rednod

ryan kearney

social media

stephen colbert

supercomputer

superpower

tbd

technology

the book oven

wikinomics

youtube

Game Changers

I hate the saying, "Game Changer". I really do.

You might as well throw jargon like "best of breed" or "end to end solution" on top of it. To me, it's all gobbledygook (now, that is a saying I can get behind). Pushing beyond my own need to rid the world of sayings like that, I am going to use this space to recommend that you stop reading this Blog post, and start watching any of the four free and available episodes of a new documentary series called, Game Changers, from Bloomberg TV.

Some very fine viewing.

I recently Blogged about the Steve Jobs Game Changers documentary, here: Incompatible. They've also done episodes with Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and TV news parody king, Jon Stewart. Currently, Bloomberg TV does not allow anyone to embed the videos, but here are the links to all of the episodes:

Episode One - Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook.

Episode Two - Steve Jobs - Apple.

Episode Three - Jon Stewart - The Daily Show.

Episode Four - Sergey Brin - Larry Page - Google.

Each episode is about thirty-minutes long. It is well-worth your time.

Tags:

apple

bloomberg tv

documentary

facebook

game changers

google

incompatible

jargon

jon stewart

larry page

mark zuckerberg

online video

sergey brin

steve jobs

Experience Has Nothing To Do With Your Social Media Status

Being great at getting people to follow you on Twitter or read your Blog does not make you an experienced Marketer.

It's easy to create a title for yourself. It's easy to be provocative. It's (fairly) easy to get people to follow you on Twitter. It's (fairly) easy to create a Blog full of linkbait. All of that will create attention for you. All of that will give you status within the Social Media sphere. All of that is fine and dandy, but none of that can give you any real experience. Doing the hard work - over a long period of time, with real clients and real teams - is where experience comes from - nothing more... nothing less.

We can't really quantify professional experience in Social Media.

I've head of people blacking out their windows while spending months on Twitter developing a significant following. I've also seen Marketing veterans with some of the sharpest insights struggle to get people to connect to and follow them. Those folks in the basement get 50,000 followers after a couple of months, and then everyone who discovers them after that point makes the assumption that they must be experienced/smart if they have so many followers - including book publishers. With just a bit of scratching beneath the surface, it's actually quite easy to separate the real professionals from those who are either just starting out or those who are trying to jump the cue.

But, there's a problem with that...

It takes an experienced professional to know that someone else isn't an experienced professional. Because of that, we're seeing a lot of self-proclaimed gurus and experts dishing out their own perspectives as if they were seasoned and experienced Marketers espousing experienced fact. I often shrug my shoulders in amazement/disappointment at some of the content I read (and the ensuing comments and retweets). In a perfect world, you would hope that the brands looking to hire people to help them out with their Digital Marketing will do enough due diligence to see through the pale text, but then you realize that this will likely not happen.

Then how do we define experience?

It's probably a combination of time, energy, effort and results. While some newcomers to the industry have some pretty amazing ideas and some of those folks with thousands of followers say things that seem to make sense, senior experience can't be faked.

But don't let that stop you.

I'm not saying that everyone shouldn't have right to publish their thoughts (especially those that are not as experienced). In fact, it's the total opposite. I love seeing new, fresh and exciting faces (and this includes students) leverage these many online publishing platforms to share what they're thinking. The truth is that most people have some semblance of experience (at a basic level, you gain experience after every day of work), and the last thing anybody wants to is to see voices and ideas stifled. Just remember that a lot of followers and Blog comments doesn't equal experience.

The trick is in not thinking that someone with many followers or lots of Blog posts with comments is a seasoned professional. They may not be.

Tags:

blog

business book

digital marketing

experience

linkbait

marketing professional

online publishing

social media

twitter

The Agency Of The Future

The Marketing Agency world continues to change and evolve.

Just the other week, news broke that ZenithOptimedia UK will be going through a restructuring. There are rumors that Starcom MediaVest Group may also look to change things up in the UK. With every passing week, we hear more stories about Marketing professionals coming and going, departments being shifted, removed or created, and consolidation is a common practice when big brands meet big business.

What's it going to take a for an agency to make it? What's it going to take for a brand to find the right agency for the job?

Last week, MediaBizBloggers, had a post titled, The Agency of the Future is Now the Agency of the Past, by Uwe Hook. As the Marketing industry continues to mature, and as new channels and platforms enter the fray (mostly due to technology), it's important to think long and hard about what a real Marketing agency  is going to look like. Instead of hacking together a quick Blog post to respond/elaborate on Hook's perspective, I took the week to think, take notes and push some of the ideas to an edgier edge.

This is what the agency of the future might look like... 

It won't be small. It won't be big. Many pundits thought that the big agencies with multiple disciplines would rule them all, while others thought that it would be the boutique shops that can pay more attention and care to the brand that would win. It's probably going to be somewhere in the middle. The more likely solution will be an agency with a solid core group that can accommodate both the size of the brand and the scope of the work. One that can scale as needed and detract when the needs are less imminent.

De-centralized. While geography and understanding the "people on the street" will still be important in terms of cultural relevance, the agency of the future will be more de-centralized. That core unit (mentioned above) will be working with more freelancers that are both physically present and those that are anywhere and everywhere in the world. While great creative comes from great collaboration, the tools that enable us to collaborate are getting us to the point where the realities of leveraging a Digital Nomad workforce will become more prevalent and cost-effective.

Chief Marketing Technologist . Marketing and IT are going to have to come together in a much bigger way. I made the case for this, right here: The Time Is Ripe For A Chief Marketing Technologist. If technology (and living it) is not core to your Marketing agency, you'll never make it out alive. Start looking at how many full-time tech people you employ versus creative and client services, and get that ratio working better.

Content. Most brands don't see themselves as publishers and most agencies don't have a lot of people creating value-added content. This is going to change. Whether it's because of Social Media or the sudden growth of branded content, more and more agencies will have amped up content departments that will look, strikingly, like the creative departments of today and yesterday.

Community Management. While many brands are hiring community managers to deal with the many online conversations, they are are going to struggle with the scaling of this role, and it will be encumbent on the modern agency to act as the community manager for many of these brands. More and more consumers are starting their conversations with a brand online and a handful of people within an organization managing this back and forth won't be a viable long-term strategy.

Strategy lead will come from the Digital side. If more and more people are having their first brand interaction at a search box and more and more brands have the online channel as the primary point of contact for consumers (or the first place a consumer goes with a query), the current landscape of the traditional agency leading the communications program is going to have to change and shift. If the majority of consumers are starting with a brand online, that's where the strategy lead needs to take place as well.

Advertising shrinks. We tend to forget that advertising is a sub-set of Marketing. Marketing is going to become the primary driver and advertising - while still being a critical part of the marketing mix - will play a less significant role. The jewel in the crown of an entire Marketing campaign won't be the 30-second spot or the billboards. It's probably going to be many jewels from many different parts of that marketing mix (and the majority of them will be digital).

Non-integrated. Brands think that an integrated solution is best, more cost-effective and cohesive to messaging. This is going to be the biggest and most dramatic change. Integrated won't work. Multiple disciplines working together is where the gold is going to be. We're not just talking about your digital shop sitting at the table with your corporate communications and general advertising agency - it's going to be deeper than that. There will be micro-specialists (like search engine optimization, analytics, etc...) all brought in (as needed) to make things flow. Even the current slew of agencies that claim full-integration have silos so wide and deep that they may as well be non-integrated.

Mobile is Digital. As much as those micro-specialists will be critical to a brand's success, the digital aspect needs to think with one-line of connectivity. Having an online strategy and a mobile strategy is not going to work. Consumers are simply connected, and whether they are doing a search on their smartphone or at their desktop, they're not thinking of it as two very different or unique channels. The agency of the future shouldn't either.

Analytics. The beginning, middle and end of success will be the analytics and metrics. Real metrics. Real insights and real reactions. None of this will be possible without a heavy analytics department capable of not only slicing and dicing the data, but working with the creative and client services department to help their brands see what others cannot.

The new creative. Creative will not just be about "the big idea." Creative will be much more about many big ideas done in many different channels. This is going to force the hand of the current slew of creatives to re-think how they structure, present and produce great creative. It's not about shifting from 30-second spots to banner ads, and it's not about making a billboard work in an email. The core role of the creative department will extend and expand well-beyond it's current incantation.

Storytelling as a department. Storytelling may be part of how this creative department will evolve. Whether it's transmedia or the growing popularity in having a non-linear story being told by a brand, the core idea of making a brand a better story-teller (through content, analytics, social media and various other media channels) is going to change the org chart in a major way.

That's my side, what's yours? What does the agency of the future look like to you?

Tags:

advertising

advertising agency

agency of the future

boutique agency

brand

branded content

chief marketing technologist

collaboration

communications

community manager

connectivity

content

corporate communications

creative department

digital nomad

digital strategy

freelance

marketing agency

marketing industry

marketing mix

marketing professional

marketing strategy

media channel

mediabizbloggers

mobile

mobile strategy

one-line

online conversation

online strategy

publishing

search engine optimization

social media

starcom mediavest

storytelling

the big idea

transmedia

uwe hook

web analytics

zenithoptimedia uk

From The Industrial Age To The Networked Age

You must read Macrowikinomics.

There is a new best-selling business book, both physical and virtual, titled Macrowikinomics - Rebooting Business and the World (Portfolio). Written by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, the book (a follow-up to the massively successful 2008 book, Wikinomics - How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything) looks at the bigger picture of how this new digital age is not only affecting business but also culture, government and society.

It's a big assertion, but something that Tapscott has been pushing us to realize for a long time.

"My first book about the Internet was in 1981, but I'm convinced that this is really happening now," Tapscott laughs with dry sarcasm from his Toronto home before getting serious about our current state of affairs. "The industrial economy has finally run out of gas. That's what's really happening right now. This isn't just a recession or the aftermath of a financial meltdown. Many of the institutions of the industrial society have served us well for centuries, but they are unable to take us forward. They are stalled in various stages of atrophy and, at the same time, the Internet is a new communications medium that has finally come of age. Just like the printing press before it, the Internet is taking us from one period in history to another."

The Internet is changing everything.

While Tapscott may be best known as an author, consultant and speaker (he is chairman of business strategy at nGenera Insight), he is also an adjunct professor of management at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and leverages both the corporate and education worlds to not just postulate about the future, but to engage in deep research and in-depth studies to formulate his unique perspective. While Wikinomics looks at how the Internet is changing corporations, Macrowikinomics shifts gears to look at how the Internet continues to push on and change the world.

"It's from the corporation to every institution in society and the economy, as a whole," Tapscott continues. "Wikinomics was about how the Internet changed the deep structure and architecture of the corporation and the way that we orchestrate capabilities to innovate, create goods and services, and to compete. With Macrowikinomics, it turns out that the technology genie is not just revolutionizing the firm, but it's changing science, the media, newspapers, our entertainment systems and our approaches to health care. It's moving us from an Industrial Age model of government to something new, and it's changing democracy. It's changing our systems for global problem solving, and it's even affecting core infrastructure capabilities like our electricity and energy and transportation systems. This is now a pervasive communications revolution that is affecting everything. It's helping us achieve or build public value and to achieve social justice in society. This is a time of great change."

And with this great change does come a sense of "I told you so."

Tapscott has been writing about these changes since the eighties. In 1997, I read his book, Digital Economy - Promise and Peril In the Age of Networked Intelligence, which was one of the first books to look at how the Internet would change business and society. It made perfect sense back then. It makes the same perfect sense today. I asked Tapscott if he ever just shrugs his shoulders and says, "I told you so ... over a decade ago!"

"You have to restrain yourself, really. I do," he laughs. "Digital Economy was 15 years ago and it holds up very well. It basically describes what is happening today. When I was writing the chapters for Macrowikinomics, I went back to Digital Economy and I was pushing myself to write something that would be new. Sure, I have been talking about this for 30 years, and the big idea that we're moving beyond the Industrial Age to this new Networked Age is nothing new. It has been around. It's not just me. Guys like Alvin Toffler wrote about this in The Third Wave (1980). These are ideas in waiting. Their time had not come. They were waiting for the new Web and mobility. They were waiting for a new generation of digital natives - for whom all of this is like the air. They are the first generation to come of age in the digital age. They were waiting for the social revolution of online social networks like Facebook, Twitter and so on, and they were waiting for some big changes to the global economy that would set-up this kind of transformation. They were also waiting for a convulsive shock to the system - that's what's happening now. This crisis that we're in has created a burning platform within institutions that are starting to realize that they will not be going back to the way it was. This is a turning point, and tinkering isn't enough... there needs to be some fundamental changes to how we do things. This is big."

This is big. Bigger than we think.

It doesn't sound like we're going to need another decade to figure out just how big Tapscott thinks this is. By reading Macrowikinomics, it's abundantly clear that the change is now.

The question is more about how hard these institutions are going to suffer by refusing to adopt these changes vs. those that are currently reinventing their operating models to adjust to this tectonic shift?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

Montreal Gazette - The Internet is taking us from an industrial age to a new era .

Vancouver Sun - not yet published.

*You can also listen to my entire conversation with Don Tapscott, right here: SPOS #225 - The World Of Macrowikinomics With Don Tapscott .

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