Where will the new generation of digital talent choose to work?
An original art post card available at postcardsfromawesome.com, a new company created by BDW students
I just came back from a board of directors meeting at Boulder Digital Works. Established a couple of years ago, in part with some seed money from MDC and partners, BDW has a lot of support from the advertising and digital community in hopes that over time the school will train the kind of talent we all need to prosper in the age of digital everything.
While there are folks on the board from companies that include Apple, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, the board also includes people from a number of advertising agencies, among them: AKQA, CP&B; Goodby Silverstein & Partners; Mullen; Modernista; and until recently BBH and TBWA, whose two representatives on the board went to work at Google and Apple respectively. (That’s another post for another time.)
In the next few months, BDW will graduate its first of three current classes enrolled in a 60-week certificate program (currently under review to become a masters degree-granting program). As part of the board meeting, we had the pleasure of sitting through presentations from class number two, which shared with us five startup ideas for companies they had conceived and begun to build. I’m not supposed to share too much here so as to protect the “startups” that haven’t completed copyright registration or finalized URLs. However, I will say that a roomful of some pretty senior digital and ad agency folks were blown away.
As Chuck Porter said in summing up the board’s reaction, “Holy shit!” And holy shit it was. The teams presented clear, succinct ideas in no more than five minutes each (let that be a lesson to your new business presentation team). They defined the market, the idea, how it worked and answered questions with the confidence of entrepreneurs on their second or third start-up. More impressively, the work they showed us had been conceived, developed and made ready for show time in three weeks. In fact much of it had already been presented to Tech Stars a week earlier. Three weeks? Are you kidding me? I remember when it was three weeks to copy and layout for a print campaign.
Robert Reich, serial entrepreneur who teaches the startup class at BDW
But here’s the rub. When they were done, we asked the group of 20 how many wanted to go into advertising or work in an agency when they finished their stint at BDW. Answer? Not many. Virtually every one of them wanted to start their own company so that they could build something and reap the rewards. Repeat. They want to build something and reap the financial rewards.
This is what’s coming. A new generation of talent, ambition and digital chops. They’re the kind of people we all need in our agencies and marketing departments.
We have two choices. We can offer them opportunity to build things –products, platforms, services – with us, or watch them take their newly learned skills and passion somewhere else.
What is your company going to do?
Comments
You raise a lot of questions in my head; you wrote an excellent post, but this post is also mind provoking, and I will have to think about it a bit more; I will return soon.
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Wow. This is really true for me since I quit my job at a great ad agency to do my own startup. I would be considered the new generation of talent since that was my first job out of college and they wooed me with a high salary. But what turned me off from it in the end was how restrictive my role was. I didn't want to be just responsible for visual design. I also enjoy coding and am deeply passionate about UX and strategy. I wanted to be able to put the rest of my skills and passion to use.
Now, at my startup, I get to do everything I'm passionate about and am in control of its creative direction instead of having it shut down by higher ups and the client. It's more personal, exciting, and hands-on and I've been learning so much through it.
I wasn't aware this shifting mentality was taking place elsewhere though, since all my other creative peers are still vying for jobs at ad agencies. Thanks for the great insight.
Brilliant article and I will soon be putting the info to good use. Thanxs. Digital Marketing
It sounds like the industry may be moving toward a movie cast/crew model, where an organization is recruited under contract for the duration of a specific project. Specific teams will be found to do the work a specific client needs. As wiith the movies, stars can make big money, and specialized professionals can be paid a professional sum. Other team members may be retained on short-term contracts to do work for more predictable activities, like the professional sports model. Either way, the casting director .will be a key player in the agency.
This Fast Company article seems highly relevant: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/151/mayhem-on-madison-avenue.html
The very idea of agencies is under threat. This is why they need young smart people to help reinvent themselves, before those same young, smart people invent their replacements.
jjeffryes Great read JJeffryes , but the article missed a key point in my view, and itu00e2u0080u0099s a question of scope. The current reporting of our industryu00e2u0080u0099s effort to get in-step with the digital revolution, or this new Creative Age, is limited to just thinking about advertising. All of marketing, including the very foundation of client's themselves will be swept up in the changes to come. Many of the comments seem to be in line with ours here: http://sandersconsulting.com/newbusinesshawk/bid/55141/The-Future-of-Ad-Agencies-Digital-Flood
Bob Sanders Sanders Consulting Group
JMattHicks The age of independent employee may be upon us. Look what Google just did to avoid more mass exodus to Facebook. Perhaps companies need to find new ways to inspire innovation and ideas that offer mutual benefit: to company, to employee.
Without being over egotastical, I would say I fall into this "future digital talent" bracket and I see where these guys are coming from.
From my brief experience in working in advertising, I'm more and more becoming inclined to creating something that is going to make me money and be cool at the same time. The big rub is that many clients don't want to do things that most digital talent see as aspirational or see as pushing the limits of creativity.
For every old spice man, there are 1000 "I just want display ads." Until clients are educated and embrace digital, more and more digital talent will join and leave. So, it's all a mixture of what we can do at an agency, what we get excited about and how far clients will go. There are only so many times people's good ideas get shot down before they just jump ship and think about how their digital skills can benefit them as opposed to multi-national organisations who just don't get it or don't want to get it.
(Apologise if this is a bit ranty!)
Shib Not at all. We all know that most (not all) clients are behind the forward thinking agencies and that causes much frustration. Clients have silos (in a converged world), too many centers of power (when it should all be integrated) and a tendency (not always) to default to their comfort zone. Think of all the retailers who still spend millions on FSIs and inserts when their customers are online or on mobile. Granted they can't always get the numbers to work, but they have to try. (the innovator's dilemma). All you can do is try, be great, and if you meet resistance, move on. Thanks for the comment.
Shib In my experience it is not the clients that hold things back, but the agencies. They are there, after all, to advise the clients, but as you say, very often forward-thinking digital ideas can get blocked internally before they ever get to the client.
I now work in a startup team.
stephband Hey, I agree with your sentiment towards agencies too. Often the ideas are seen as to be too risky to run - especially social ones. But that's always the nature of the beast - you never know what will work so you have to test the water.
I guess we can both agree that often the issue is that agencies internally aswell as clients aren't seeing the emerging picture, education is needed in both areas.
Good luck with your startup, dude :)
This new talent, the technologically dominant, will play an increasingly important role in businesses of all types. Google's recent raises and bonuses prove that the talent pool is limited and competition is high. It will become more necessary for companies to provide an enticing environment for these new superstars.
I'm going to be the one who asks "how different is this from any other MBA program" in which groups of students come together, conceive a business plan, create the elements and present to their advisors.And the second question is "how many MBAs eventually end up at the companies they shunned originally when their 'next big thing' didn't work out.
The difference here is the BDW students are in a 'creative' program, vs. a more traditional MBA program where a entrepreneurial spirit is the norm. The fact that digital is tracking towards apps/functional tools to drive brand awareness also seems to play into this trend. Why build a tool for a single client(via an agency) when you can build a business that many can use, thereby casting a larger net.
kylelocke All true. But again, post started with the idea that BDW was in part seeded by an ad agency. Not arguing with student aspirations, simply suggesting that ad agencies and even digital agencies need to continue to change to attrace this future employee.
edwardboches fair enough. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Really good post. Realllly good. My only question is: What happens when ever one builds produts ? Could that be simliar to a superbowl game with rosters of only quarter back? My concern just as yours is in the post is how will these companies get the likes of my generation and keep them at these companies? Any thoughts?
pbj I actually think it takes a lot of different people to build a product: concept, development, tech, IA, design, etc. Not to mention the other roles that support it. Even people who want to make stuff aren't all the same (strategist, producer, etc.) So ideally it all works out.
edwardboches pbj What happens when everyone builds products? Great question as we're definitely seeing the barriers to entry break down when it comes to developing your own product. I think an interesting area to keep an eye on is the idea not of creating new products, but figuring out how all these new products can work together. And then, there's the whole challenge of how do these products and services make money. As we're seeing right now, there are a lot of great products out there with mass, but challenged to monetize. A major hurdle to overcome is helping advertisers (or agencies as it seems) understand how their brands can integrate into these new digital products. I see a future where the people who play matchmaker between advertisers and products will be king ... or queen. Who are these people, that's a whole other post :o)
sarahdoody edwardboches pbj This is an important question. There are only so many products that can fit in each mass market space.
There will be a few big winners, everyone else will need to either build niche products or create content for the products of others. Etsy, DeviantArt, iStockPhoto, Lulu, creating content is the most obvious future for most of the people currently in the agency world.
sarahdoody edwardboches pbj This is an important question. There are only so many products that can fit in each mass market space.
There will be a few big winners, everyone else will need to either build niche products or create content for the products of others. Etsy, DeviantArt, iStockPhoto, Lulu, creating content is the most obvious future for most of the people currently in the agency world.
Hi, I am one of the original founders at BDW. I think this post is timely, but what I'd like to discuss is - "now, what are we going to do about it?". What programs support entrepreneurs in agencies, what agencies support new types of thinking, learning, and doing? How are they doing this? How are agencies collaborating without the support of a post graduate program? I find that we often talk about things - what about doing things? BDW is a great start, how about another example of agency/industry reinvention to directly support skill building, knowledge sharing, and employees as entrepreneurs (at the agency)? Anyone have examples to share? At GS&P, we are way on our way - but I"d love to meet others who are out there "doing".
Allison Agree that talk is easy. At Mullen, we've done the following. Hire tech people -- developers, UX, IA, production -- embedded them in the creative department, changed the creative team makeup, and begun making more things: utility for clients, apps, programs, augmented reality demonstrations, social/mobile utility. Nothing as great as we aspire to, yet, but a good start. R/GA, Crispin, Modernista, BBH and many others trying to do the same. Interestingly GS&P from what I know has less tech internally and goes outside for more of its production (yes? you know better as you are there). Another challenge, of course, is that not all clients are as ready as the forward thinking agencies. Nor do they necessarily see agencies as the place to go for this kind of service or product. So all of this has to evolve at the same time. Change, I'm afraid, first begins with admitting you have a problem. Or at least a need.
edwardboches Allison That's great to hear Edward. BDW is very lucky to have you and others involved. Would love to have a conversation with you about how Mullen is addressing current employees (and clients) new skills/education vs. hiring new talent. Thanks for the post, keep up the BDW energy!
Allison edwardboches Edward you bring up a very interesting point . At Mullen, you mentioned that you're hiring technical people and embedding them in the creative department. How has this worked out? For so long, I think creative has driven the product. But today, I wonder if there is a shift to technology driving product as so many developers are creating their own products. At Mullen, how involved is technology in the concepting phase? In product development, the greatest breakdowns often happen between those conceiving the product (creative, user experience, design) and those who build it (tech, engineering). So I'm curious about how Mullen overcomes this. And also would love to hear from anyone at GS&P on what they are doing to overcome this as they have less tech internally.
sarahdoody Allison edwardboches As long as the UX side calls itself "creatives" and acts as though writing code is just production, and not an equal part of the creative process, agencies will fail in the interactive world.
Products are developed by a team of UX and Dev, not by just one or the other. You only have breakdowns between then when you use a broken and obsolete process.
sarahdoody Allison edwardboches As long as the UX side calls itself "creatives" and acts as though writing code is just production, and not an equal part of the creative process, agencies will fail in the interactive world.
Products are developed by a team of UX and Dev, not by just one or the other. You only have breakdowns between then when you use a broken and obsolete process.
jjeffryes I could not agree more. I think this is the single most important shift that needs to take place, where "user experience" isn't aligned with just the creatives or marketers, but changes to incorpoate much more of a technical perspective. Creative and marketing influence the "what" of the product or platform ... but user experience encompasses both the "what" and "how" and because of that "how", a stronger alignment with technical teams is critical.
sarahdoody jjeffryes The discussion about UX, IXD, creative, dev, process, is all very interested - but where to professionals/agencies go to learn the right approach or skills? How do organizations ACT on new ways of thinking, integrating technology, inspiring the right entrepreneurial talent among its ranks? What I think is missing in most of the conversation is - What are we doing about it? What action is taking place to support new ways of working? Where/how do we learn? It's not enough to hire the talent - or define process - a big change needs to take place in how we are reinventing and educating our industry.
Allison sarahdoody jjeffryes That's the billion dollar question.
Some of the changes are deeply structural, and they can't be made by agencies that aren't willing to drastically restructure, and to fire anyone that isn't on board. They require a complete rethinking of priorities, of the role of an agency, of how a project is run. They require working like a software shop or a film studio, not an agency. For some people, that level of change is too big.
If you want to make the change, there are places you can learn from. A few suggestions:
1. Read up on UX. Not just the theory, the practice. Start on Amazon and great blogs like Boxes and Arrows. Next learn about Agile Development. Then learn about the Lean Startup movement. Apply what you learn.
2. Get involved in your local startup culture, if you have one. Cities like Des Moines are having Startup Weekends now, your city probably has more startups than you know. And if you don't know what a Startup Weekend, or an Ignite, or a Hack Fest is, start Googling now.
3. Go to major startup events, like SXSW, Startup Lessons Learned, or TechCrunch Disrupt.
4. Hire a startup person to spend a day teaching you. Or a week.
You can transform your business and come out of the changes shaking our industry as a winner, not a causalty. But you have to take serious action, and take it now, while you still have time.
Allison sarahdoody BTW, a great place to get questions like these answered is http://www.quora.com/. That's where the real thought leaders are, and where you'll get real answers from people making the future.
Respectfully, nonsense.
Many will dream of becoming the next Zuckerberg; one or two will make it.
Many will start their own businesses, but most will fail to grow beyond one and two-person freelance outfits.
Let's not confuse youthful idealism with business paradigm change.
Agencies will continue to offer clients and employees what they always have done. For clients, the confidence that their projects will be delivered, their invoices dealt with professionally, and the ability to tell their stakeholders that their digital communications are in safe hands. For employees, access to big brands and large budgets.
There's never been a period in advertising when the 'old guard' haven't been exhorted to accommodate the ideas, energy and work style of the 'young Turks'. The established players in every industry must always keep on their toes. In marketing, the brand of the agency has always needed to reconcile 'trust' with 'innovation'. And businesses which have chosen either over the other have prospered, but at a cost. I've worked for a successful network that only accountants would appoint; I've also worked for a boutique shop that never got to touch the big money accounts, despite its creativity.
I don't see the story here.
PlannerRick Not sure we're talking Zuckerberg here. Simply suggesting that people who want to build things and make stuff aren't necessarily thinking of advertising agencies as their first choice. Yet we want them. Two, if you know anything about the Gen Y mindset, at least in US, there is diminished loyalty to employers and a greater belief that they should have some ownership in what they make. So point is simple: if you want the next generation of creative people inside your company, instead of at Google, or Ideo or some new startup, you need to attract them, value them, give them opportunity commensurate with their aspirations. That shouldn't be so hard to understand. Oh, and the story here isn't even the post. It's the reaction it seems to be getting from an awful lot of other people who's opinions generate attention.
edwardboches There's diminished loyalty to all employers, and not just in the US. This isn't merely a GenY phenomenon. For the last 20 years each cohort entering the workplace has demonstrated a lower expectation of reciprocal loyalty toward their employers than the last. So if we agree that attempting to recruit 'lifers' from a GenY pool is likely to be pointless, why worry about attracting them at all during their early careers?
Agencies have the luxuries of time and money on their sides. They can wait for young people with ideas to go-it-alone and fail, then hire them. They can watch them achieve moderate success, then acquire them.
One shouldn't be too worried about creative people joining companies and industries that aren't advertising. "Building things and making [digital] stuff" is core business in an advertising agency. Other industries build and make very different stuff, or only offer the opportunity to work on a narrow range of projects.
An ad agency's biggest advantage is its offer to the restless. Sure, you can work somewhere developing an iTunes killer, or join an in-house digital team. But it's one-dimensional. You'll spend 6-18 months working on the same stuff and building the same couple of things. An agency lets you work on many clients and many projects, collaborating with a wide range of partners and disciplines.
It's not enough to be young, creative and hungry to succeed. A low boredom threshold is the hallmark of many of the best creative mind advertising has ever nurtured. And of course, that low boredom threshold creates retention issues.
What should agencies do? Embrace the revolving door. If someone with great digital ideas stays for a year, be happy. Wave them goodbye as you greet the next one.
PlannerRick "Building things and making [digital] stuff" is core business in an advertising agency." Should be true everywhere but isn't. "An ad agency's biggest advantage is its offer to the restless." Great summation of what agency does offer. Will use that line sometime. Thanks for reply.
PlannerRick edwardboches The *revolving door* is part of the problem. Cultivate, respect and cherish top people. Doing whatever it takes to recruit and retain the best minds makes a great business. Something, i feel like, the ad industry has failed at miserably.
mranauro I'm afraid I disagree.
Successful agencies need to align their core strength to a talent resourcing strategy which allows them to play to that strength most effectively. An ad agency's brand is a gateway (and gatekeeper) to a wide variety or high value communications projects for prestigious organisations. Agencies should be curating the talent that gets to work on these challenges - and that means cultivating a pool of people who can engage and work with an agency for days, months and years as required - in a mutually beneficial way.
Too often, a focus on retention and progression for fear of losing talented people results in people being paid too much to do the things they're not so good at, in the wrong place. I've met plenty of art directors (for instance) who were given creative directorships to retain them, who can't manage, don't enjoy management and now don't spend much time bringing beauty to big ideas.
Ad agencies have tended to panic-purchase talent and neglect building recruitment pipelines. The price of this has been irrational retention strategies and a misalignment of reward.
Agencies have become more agile - they must become more so. Cultivating, respecting and cherishing top people no longer need mean permanent employment and career pathing. Personally, I'd question the credibility of any senior communications professional who hadn't spent a few years in ad agencies, just as I'd be suspicious of a travel writer who'd only visited France.
PlannerRick mranauro Being more agile with talent is great for an agency, but what's the benefit to the talent? If you know the agency sees you as disposable and temporary, you'll only work for a paycheck and save your best efforts for your own projects. And once those projects succeed, you won't need the agency any more. This is part of what's draining the talent away from agencies and leading to stagnation.
jjeffryes PlannerRick Being *agile* with talent is no doubt a plus, but doing so in an old system is almost impossible to sustain. You burn out FTE's and work your way down the ladder of talent through recruiting (expensive). You need to be agile and access talent from anywhere while giving them options and work they're passionate for while still cultivating and being thankful they're with you. That doesn't exist in the agency world... you work on what you're told to, get churned through the system and then spit out, in many cases. Need a better way to work, access great talent from any discipline and give those talented folks great work that they care to work on.
mranauro jjeffryes "You'll only work for a paycheck and save your best efforts for your own projects..." Small-time projects for small-time clients, for all but the most fortunate. Good luck with that. Good luck - also - in making a dime out of clients who prefer to crowdsource their ideas. Exactly how much digital talent do we think can be sustained on an Idea Bounty model? The work that pays the rent always comes with strings attached - such as working for someone with different ideas and standards to you, working to restrictive brief, working on 'backward' clients, ad nauseum.
And how, precisely, is being thought of as "disposable and temporary" by an agency any different to selling your talent to clients direct? Good agency staffers don't rest on their laurels any more than good freelances do.
The challenge for agencies is not from start-ups (it was ever thus), but from other established businesses in industries which now overlap thanks to digital technology. 20 years ago, Coca-Cola would never have competed with a tech firm for marketing talent; now people leave it to join Apple, because iPhones aren't a billion miles from FMCGs. Again: what do agencies offer compared to pureplay digital builders, tech consultancies, integrators and the likes of Facebook? The same thing they always have, when competing with in-house communication functions: variety, agility, pace, focus and access to the best projects.
mranauro PlannerRick mranauro you're right, there needs to be a better way. More and more I'm seeing smart, talented people banding together outside of agencies to compete against them, and those people are winning projects. Without the bloat and overhead of an agency they can charge less, work faster, and make more money.
To PlannerRick, you're missing a big part of the picture. Those projects being done outside of agencies are not freelance agency type projects. That's the point of this article. Those projects are the next Twitter, the next Foursquare, disruptive technologies that upend the game the agencies think they're playing. If agencies want to survive, they need to be the ones innovating and building the new ways to reach consumers. Otherwise someone else is going to build marketing 2.0 and leave them behind.
Young technologist want to change the world, not work on another stale campaign for toothpaste.
jjeffryes You nailed it with "banding together outside of agencies." If those rogue groups have access to tools that make their lives/work easier, work that they would love to work on... all without having to deal with the stress and overhead of running their own business... it creates a ton of value for those people.
The workplace in general is in desperate need of evolution, not just agencies.
When I left the ad agency world in 2001, I had the same aspirations as this new crop of digital geniuses. I'd learned everything I could learn at an ad agency and my talent was being suppressed by dinosaurs who had always done things a certain way with predictable results. Plus, I was making about $30 an hour and being billed at close to $200. I was a junior copywriter, but a very good one that made the agency's clients very happy. It was total bullshit. And when I asked for a fair shake, I was given the 'you're too junior to negotiate anything' schtick.
These guys are digital. I was analog. But when I launched my virtual agency in 01, it was one of the first in the nation. Now I'm very happy being a small ad agency with a powerful network to do virtually anything. And I owe it all to the entrepreneurial spirit that lives in everyone who has the balls to see things for what they are.
I'm happy for these kids. Go forth and do what you need to do to be happy.
jmitchem You, my friend, have achieved the definition of happiness. I have done it once, here at Mullen. Working to do it again in the same place. Nothing more fun than building something. i say if you can't do it where you are, go someplace else or start your own thing. Great example.
jmitchem This is the two edged sword the article was really describing. Losing access to the best and brightest cuts the oxygen off for agencies, and at the same time it leads to faster, more agile competitors that steal the business away from those agencies as they're gasping for air.
Really interesting piece. Ironically I was invited to participae in this years ago, but partially because of how my job was set up (at an agency) where such extra curricular activities was hard to pull off. Lesson leanred though. Good for the talent if they can get their platforms off the ground. However, worth noting that only so many platforms can actually exist and go somewhere. But will be interesting to watch.
armano David, completely agree that there can only be so many platforms. A reason perhaps that many of these kinds of ideas belong within existing brand experiences and offerings as services and utility. Either way, we all know that we have to make something with more usefuleness to it than an app or an ad or it will surely disappear in the stream.
Great talent in any skill set will naturally gravitate to places where they can flourish and have control. Very few agencies can offer this up to developers because many of the larger assignments get farmed out due to budget/timing/talent level/etc. But one benefit an agency can have over some places is ownership of the brand and the ideas that go along with it. I would think a complaint any creative/developer would have is control and ownership. Instead of being told what the idea is and ask them to grind it out, they can be asked to help come up with the ideas. I'm sure this can be of value to some extent. Beyond that, the developers with big ideas will go to where the opportunity is.
JohnStapleton Good points, John. The big brands offer visibility and budgets. So that is good. Problem is not all have the foresight to do new stuff or take chances. It is therefore incumbent on us to create opportunities for both clients and ourselves if we really want to attract the next generation of talent. I suspect those who do join us will think this way anyway, and perhaps contribute to our transformation.
edwardboches
Excellent post… was just what I was looking for! Thanks again.
Why is there such a stunningly short supply of designers in Silicon Valley right now?…
Rick, great ideas, but I have to touch on point 6 and the idea of agencies having a less rigorous skill-set demand than start ups. I think this could be a challenge for agencies attracting talent in the future. here is a whole new breed of talent out t…
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