The twenty-somethings are here; get out of the way
“So you have a college class visiting you today?” The comment came from one of the 10 small agency CEOs visiting Mullen last week as part of a 4As tour. He watched as 20 or so twenty-somethings filed past to take over the conference room where we’d just met.
“What are you talking about?” I replied. It never dawned on me that he was referring to a team of social media strategists, creatives, media planners and developers who were gathering to get briefed on a new client initiative.
He pointed to the team that had just gathered.
“Oh them. No, they work here.”
His look suggested surprise that we could actually have that many young people in one place at one time working on an actual project.
Yesterday, I encountered a similar reaction when the founder of a big New York rep company was visiting to show off his clients’ work.
“So, how do you manage to stay fresh in this business after all these years?” he wanted to know.
“I get out of the way,” was the honest answer, explaining that the wisest thing anyone my age could do was to hire smart young people, load them up with responsibility, point them in the right direction and hover in the background until someone needs you.
He, too, was stunned, assuming that no one would do that out of a need for control, or a fear of becoming irrelevant, or a concern that everyone else would get the credit.
To me, these reactions reflect some of the vestiges of the old days in advertising. They’re left over from a time when the industry made people pay their dues instead of rewarding raw talent, an age when people spent way too much energy protecting their turf or their rung on the ladder, the days when agency staffers were more obsessed with crediting people instead of the idea.
I find that the smartest, most inspiring people I work with tend to be the youngest. They move seamlessly from one medium to another. They have the courage to try new things. They’re so familiar with technology and its potential that nothing seems impossible.
In the last week I witnessed a team on which no one was more than a year or two out of college conceive and launch the Good Belly Project. They came up with the idea, took it to local restaurants, sold it internally, got it online and into the press. No one cared about personal credit; they just wanted to make it.
It was the same kind of initiative and determination that led to TNGG signing a deal with boston.com. Three 24-year olds had the idea, did the work, initiated the dialog and have been delivering the goods.
Take a look at the companies that are thriving, inventing, creating new stuff. Big companies like Google. Small companies such as Hubspot. New companies like Kickstarter or SCVNGR or Livefyre. They’re filled with 20 year olds making products, reinventing service, and leveraging new technologies.
Want to stay young, relevant, and deserved of some control? Want to attract the kind of talent you actually need to prosper long term? Focus on the bigger stuff: culture, vision, standards, organization and casting. Then let go and out of the way.
Thoughts?
Video: Young minds from Zeitgeist 2011. Eric Derdinis, 20-year-old U Penn student, talks about his prototype belt to aid the blind.
Answers from your friends in advertising and digital
A month ago I crowdsourced questions here and on Twitter for the instructors at BDW’s Making Digital Work workshop.
We settled on five.
How do we get clients to embrace more innovative work?
What can we learn from software startups?
Do agencies have a role in social media?
How do we stop the talent drain?
What kind of people should we hire?
Here are the answers from my good friends and teachers Matt Howell, Gareth Kay, Kim Laama, Tim Malbon, Sheena Matheiken, Scott Prindle and John Winsor.I weigh in, too.
Some of my favorite soundbites:
Matt Howell on innovation: If we’re serious about selling more progressive work we have to get serious about investing in prototyping, showing how something works and how you’d interact with it.
Gareth Kay on social media: One of the biggest problems with social media is that people are too focused on the media part of social media instead of on the social part.
Sheena Matheiken on software inspiration: Developers in general, especially the creatively inclined ones, are such doers. They just create stuff. They don’t sit around and noodle. They make and prototype.
Tim Malbon on software inspiration: Try not to treat what you’re trying to make like a piece of traditional media. It doesn’t need to be designed massively up front. It can be cruder; it can be quicker.
John Winsor on retaining talent: Traditionally agencies are siloed. The creative department stands on a pedestal. The account people are there to serve them. Strategy is somewhere in between. But great ideas come from everywhere so you need to set up a system that accepts that great ideas come from everywhere.
Scott Prindle on hiring: The core quality is an entrepreneurial spirit. Someone who is passionate about the digital space, maybe someone who thought about being in start-up. They have to come into the into the agency and quickly generate ideas and move things forward.
One thing about all of these folks is that they’re willing to share. Ideas, advice, insights. Take a look and connect with them on Twitter. It will be worth it. Thanks for stopping by.
Appearing at Colorado University, Radian 6 User Conference and the Mirren New Business Conference
The next two weeks are pretty insane. In addition to my day job — supporting clients, participating on new business, executive committee duties — I’ve signed up for three gigs where I hope to share some of the stuff I’ve learned and gather additional inspiration to bring back to the agency. In this constantly-changing world in which we operate, it’s important not to work in a vacuum or get too insular.
Here’s what I have going on. Hope to see you at one of these events.
University of Colorado, Tuesday, April 5
The University of Colorado at Boulder is hosting me as this year’s “innovator.” On Tuesday evening, author and journalist Warren Berger will interview me at the ATLAS Black Box Theater in Boulder. Should be fun. Previous participants have been Alex Bogusky, Lee Clow and Bruce Mau, so I have some big shoes to fill. But I’ll do my best.
Radian 6 Social 2011 User Conference, Thursday, April 7
On Thursday I’ll join Radian 6′s Social 2011 User Conference in Boston on a panel titled The Wizards of API. I’ll join Alex Brasil of Google, Sean Greenlaw of Lashpoint, and Tony MacDonell of Teknision to talk about BrandBowl and Tweetsgiving and how we can all make sense of mass amounts of data to keep the public informed of real-time results. We’ll share how we visualize data for different campaigns and discuss how your organization can do this too.
Mirren New Business Conference, Tuesday, April 12
Finally, on Tuesday the 12th I’ll be at the Mirren New Business Conference participating on the Innovator’s Panel. We’ll discuss how to design the next generation agency. Joining me will be Crispin Porter + Bogusky Partner Winston Binch, HUGE CEO Aaron Shapiro, and Taylor CEO Tony Signore. TBWA’s Chief Marketing Officer Laurie Coots will moderate. We’ll cover a host of topics from new strategic consulting services, to strategy-only business models, mobile commerce, analytics, launching new brands, and adapting an agency to better profit from project-oriented work.
I’m tired just thinking about it. But it’s good to do these things in part because we’re all responsible to give something back to the community and industry that supports us. Plus I usually get as much as I give. Hope to see you there.
The joke was on me
I was the last one to know. By the time I discovered my by-lined post (ghost-written by someone funnier than I) nearly all of my co-workers had seen it. Having gone most of the day without time for Twitter, I’d missed the fact that my doppelganger had, in a matter of hours, amassed 1250 followers and even caught the attention of Digiday editor Brian Morrissey.
The prank was brilliantly conceived and executed by some of the TNGGers at Mullen: twenty-somethings brimming with irreverence, fearlessness and no sense of corporate protocol whatsoever. Good thing they work in advertising.
Thirty-plus years ago when I was starting in the business I worked for an entrepreneurial computer company, Data General. As the company reporter and photographer I covered an employee celebration of DG’s 10th anniversary. One of the founders cut the cake and jokingly I suggested he feed it to the CEO for a little photo-op. The request was met with stunned silence. And three months later my boss actually brought it up as the reason why my performance review wasn’t perfect. That’s when I realized I needed to get out.
I like the fact that the new generation feels less intimidated than previous generations. And, I guess, I’m flattered that they think I can take it. Even in a forum as public as the world wide web.
A conversation with David Haan of the Creative Circus
A couple of months ago David Haan, Executive Director of the Creative Circus, stopped by Mullen to talk about The Creative Circus, new programs offered there, and the changes to both agency recruitment needs and student training. However, I never got around to posting it. It still seems relevant so here it is.
As is evident in the increasing popularity of programs like Boulder Digital Works, Hyper Island and any of the dozens of annual digital conferences, this is a pretty good time to be in the business of teaching people new skills.
According to David, digital has hit harder and faster than anyone expected. Agencies are in great need of new talent. And students themselves demand the education they know will make them employable in an industry that’s starting to have more in common with the Silicon Valley of Mark Zuckerberg than the Madison Avenue of Don Draper. And Creative Circus graduates, who’ve been out for five or 10 years, realize they need refresher courses and additional training if they’re to stay relevant. All of which keeps institutions like the Circus on their toes.
If you’re among those who are looking to jump start your own digital experience, there’s no shortage of options. You can attend executive workshops at BDW, dish out even bigger bucks and try a Hyper Island session, or get your employer to bring in one of those organizations to put on a custom session for you and your colleagues.
If you’re a Circus grad, you can get in touch with your alma mater and take advantage of new programs they might have underway. And, of course, you can take matters into your own hands by friending your own company’s creative technology people, partnering with UX types rather than art directors and copywriters, and by playing with all the new tools, app makers, and social platforms that have become easier and easier for the lay person to master.
The pace of change and the importance of technology to marketing, advertising, service and customer engagement is only going to accelerate. So all of us need a way to catch up and stay up. If you figure out the trick, let me know.
