Mr.
Matt
Spangler

In Response To: A Bunch Of People Are Getting Together!

I have to disagree with you here Jake.  If anything, the barrage of glowing rectangles has made my personal relationships, the times I spend talking face to face, listening to a band live, shooting a basketball, the pleasure of a spontaneous contagious laugh or a hug…more valuable, more rewarding and more important.

via jakelodwick:

A reason for socializing is to exchange information so each brain can be refueled with the latest environmental data.

But now we get so much of that same information from the feeds on our rectangles.

Therefore, ‘hanging out with a bunch of people’ is more likely to be a waste of time.

In your world, has ‘hanging out with a bunch of people’ changed in the past few years?

Thoughts on “A New Business Model for Digital Agencies”

Through Mansi Trivedi’s Tumblr, I came upon Mike Arauz’s post.  Not surprised Mike works at Undercurrent.  Josh and Aaron hire sharp cats.

I’ve told a couple of people recently that their strategy driven shop is a business model to emulate and I plan to build a consulting practice using some similar methodologies.  No need for massive production, you can get the ideas MADE anywhere.  We’ll give you the strategic thinking, the ideas, the plan to execute it, the access to resources and the oversight…thank you very much.

I have read Mike’s post on the new business model and I think it brings up great valid points and also has some folly.  I’ll get all whiteboard on this one…

1. The work CAN be done cheaply and quickly - so get used to that and start updating the model around that (pricing, production, what you sell etc).  Clients won’t be stupid for long.  You can build a great site with a CMS on Wordpress in 2-4 weeks with a talented team of 2-3 people

2. The future is outsourced production by agencies.  I’ve seen the work of too many great, cheap, off-shore production facilities recently to think otherwise. Digital agencies paying top dollar for in-house developers in America is a dying model.  You have no R&D or training baked into your process and you can’t possibly compete in the long run. 

Ajax, PHP, all the old code bases, iPhone apps, Android apps, Facebook aps, new widget platforms (AIR etc), Twitter aps, Aps for sites you haven’t even heard of yet.  You think your Flash developer is studying this stuff? Think about it.

3.  Embrace the tools that help get it done. Yes, yes!  Smart strategists, planners and creatives are gonna require a great grasp of the tools available to help develop the right ideas.

4.  Totally agree with sell ideas, not things…but to me the folly is - we’ll execute the idea as well.  Why not sell the 100 ideas, give feedback as they get made and then sell the ability to evangelize those ideas after they are ready to hit the market?

I think that’s basicallllllly what Mike means, Undercurrent won’t actually be excuting, but they will provide the oversight to do so. To me the question is just whether or not that is transparent and how you price it and sell it.

A big miss (even though a bit off topic…)

1. No mention of one of the biggest folly’s out there with digital agencies: The “build it and they will come” mentality.  Everyone loves creating the next cool thing, but few shops plan or spend the proper time promoting, marketing and getting behind the work they create for an extended period of time.  

Its launched, and its on to the next idea.  Making it useful and visible by the people that should (and might) care is rarely considered.

Obviously tons more to say but its great that Mike kicked off a conversation that is bound to continue.

Manufacturing Participation Pressure

Was looking at the reblog discussion related to dpstyles thoughts on the Feltronification of Tumblr. Zach offered his perspective as well…

zachklein:

“It’s not the infographics on the page that interest me, rather it’s the trend of emphasizing a user’s popularity on the network. Lamentably, I think this metric will come to define the experience for the next generation of social networks. I fear that the internet’s utility for many people will equate to constant awareness of one’s value, and the play of meaningless games to increase the sum. This in turn will render many networks impersonal and irrelevant. Like a candidate’s bid speech for high school class presidency, I fear my Tumblr dashboard will become padded with ‘popular stuff’ sure to garner votes rather than the intimate, vulnerable and quirky bits that I’ve enjoyed, and define Tumblr’s personality.

I’m disappointed by Tumblarity, and Ashton’s follower count for the same reasons. I liked the Internet better when it was nebulous, and now I’m depressed that it shaping up to be a social pyramid.”

I fall more on the side of Zach on this debate.  While I see the appeal of ranking, rating and competing (and there is certainly a lust for it in our culutre)…I can’t help but get the sinking feeling when I see these rolled out that they are just another tool for the platform to drive usage through through what I refer to as “manufactured participation pressure”.   Who has the most posts, followers, likes, loves, reblogs etc etc etc.

Personal branding will only continue to be more powerful, but wasn’t the true beauty of these online communities that it facilitated easier connecting to loved ones and more meaningful connections with interesting new people?  This new “social pyramid” that Zach refers to screams of high school cliques and prom queen voting and I don’t have a secret desire to head back to that time in my life.

Now, let me be clear, I’m a fan of come good ole friendly competition.  Through LVHRD we utilized it to amplify the experience of physical interactions.  It was a way to increase the options for conversations with someone next to you and facilitate the rush of natural endorphins among the competitors. But once the competition ended and people hugged and congratulated each other, they made plans to meet up later or collaborate on a new project.  They didn’t linger in the darkness ranking and comparing themselves to everyone else at the event.

This kind of online, personal brand engineering seems a bit trite.  Its just another form of peer pressure, a phenomenon our culture has railed against for years, to manufacture product engagement.   Are we heading to place where this will actually become a form of personality filtering?  Where people who agree with Zach’s opinion will gravitate away from the over competitive connectivity and spend more time searching for and investing in moments that are private, vulnerable and intimate.

This doesn’t mean I won’t look at the figure occasionally and continue to play with these tools on a daily basis, but at the end of the day if my Tumblarity is off the charts, has it given me anything besides a feeling of guilt*?

*Looking at the others who share my current Tumblarity score…thats what I’m currently feeling.