When there’s been such a positive response from one of my previous blog posts it’s hard following it up, especially when I know I’m now going into far more uncharted waters for the traditional agencies. I apologise in advance for the length of this article, it seems too long for a blog post, and too short to cover everything, maybe i’ll have to get that book done. I’m going to talk about things that a traditional agency doesn’t do -  R & D (I could almost sense an intake of breath there). But before that, let’s ease things in a bit, by looking at the roles that are utterly essential in larger integrated agencies but get overlooked as they’re a little bit ‘out there’.

First off, let’s talk “Information Architect”.  Yes, it’s a fancy title for what is potentially one of the most stressful roles in a modern agency. In smaller agencies this job is normally taken on by the project manager, but if that project manager has come from the traditional side problems are inevitable – let’s review this. The IA role is to translate what the client wants from a web site into a design structure that can be understood and used by both the creative and programming teams. They have to draw up site diagrams and relay changes to the the respective teams so the creatives know which sections they’re designing for, and so the programmers know what they’re building at the earliest opportunity. They also have to ensure that the client (or other agency member) knows the full implications of re-designing a site structure and the knock-on effects to deadlines and budgets to reflect those structural changes. The IA is a real ‘meat in the sandwich’ role. They’ll get pressure from clients or internal staff from the management side to meet deadlines and get work delivered, but they’ll also bear the full brunt of the backlash from programming or creative teams should large structural changes be needed without proper consideration. But aside from the politics, they’re a special breed of individual – they’ll understand design, good navigation and structure. They’ll also understand the target market of the site, the client’s goals and how to get the most out of navigation. They’ll be working closely with the creative team, but understanding how the actual site mechanics will affect the experience. This role relieves massive amounts of pressure from the programming and creative teams.

You’ve probably already guessed where the sticky point is for the traditional agency – the fact is that often a normal agency project manager gets moved into that role, or the role gets completely missed out and the project manager is simply trying to do everything. The pressure of site structure either stays with the project manager (which then causes them insane amounts of stress) or gets moved towards the creative or programming teams who aren’t really suited to it. To put it bluntly a good IA is a very rare thing, especially one with an agency background. They can be home-grown, it’s perfectly do-able, but if you’re going to evolve a normal agency project manager without burning them out then they need a hell of a lot of support, as well as a willingness of the agency to respect the added skill-set needed for proper IA. Of course there are also other roles that can adapt to IA; the main thing is a good eye for design with a willingness to get stuck in technically, as well as being comfortable with talking to clients, and being able to provide the correct information when presented with a change that could have a catastrophic effect on budgets and deadlines.

Now grab a cup of coffee – it helps you get into the mood  – the minute a digital agency gets big enough to start building websites (and I don’t mean simple three-page sites; I’m speaking A1 clients here) – you’re going to need a Sys Admin. Smaller agencies don’t have one – they’ll typically use a programmer to advise them on where the website goes. However, any agency big enough to be thinking about integration is going to be larger than 30 people if they’ve gone past the outsource phase. You could think of the Sys Admin as the janitor of the digital world: they keep the systems tidy, they’ll make sure the locks are working, and if everything’s working well the majority of agency staff wouldn’t even notice they’re there. A Sys Admin for an agency is different from your average IT dept Sys Admin. They’ll speak to the project managers, creative and programming teams. They’ll understand the target audience of a website, and ensure that traffic is managed in the correct way. When you’re dealing with campaign websites, traffic will often come in bursts, and if there’s an integrated media or press campaign the Sys Admin will understand how the timings of those campaigns will affect performance and prepare accordingly. A Sys Admin for a tech company is typically seen as the person in the dark room with the closed blinds only coming out at night, and working some kind of voodoo magic. It’s a role that needs to be far more accommodating within an agency environment.

The other upside-down thing about the Sys Admin role is that in a tech company the sys admin is the role equivalent of GOD – the ultimate embodiment of knowledge is power. Nothing happens without their involvement – if you think a programmer can get a bit uppity, just wait till you experience an upset Sys Admin who thinks you don’t understand them. In an agency they’ll be working side-by side with both the programming and creative teams to ensure that sites are delivered working, and on time. They’ll make sure that content doesn’t go live without proper testing, and be responsible for hitting the ‘go’ button to make sites live.  If they spot a security fault before the site goes live then it WON’T go live.  What’s worse? – missing a deadline, or long-term brand damage due to major defacement of a client’s website? Of course the answer is obvious, but often security isn’t thought of until something like that occurs.  A Sys Admin’s day job is part compliancy and part system security; they’ll be keeping themselves and your external-facing systems up to date with the latest security patches, continuously keeping abreast of industry changes and technical requirements. They’ll be making sure that the project managers have full statistics to site traffic reports, and they’ll be making sure those domain names and email addresses are behaving as they should.  It’s an incredibly wide and varied role that tends to change depending on the size of the company, but a good hosting provider can take pressure off the Sys Admin by providing security updates and system patches. I know I’m only scratching the surface for that role – but I have covered the main touch points.

OK, back to R&D. Think of this as a bit of creative think-time, that comes at a higher price. Why on earth would a traditional agency do R&D? You’re selling ideas not cars! But what if those ideas and all that creative energy could be empowered and turned into money-making loveliness that helped drive new client offerings? There are literally thousands of innovations that are having an effect on our industry – you can’t stick to print ads forever. Print ad revenue for papers was down 15% in 2008, and that’s just the beginning. Regional daily newspapers are on their way out, as well as eventually a decline in regionals – how are you as a company going to be leveraging the digital switchover of television? How are you adapting to changing consumer habits, or increasing mobile internet connectivity? How does this affect your clients; how are their brands going to evolve and adapt? Do you get it yet? The R&D that you do can directly benefit your client brands, your offerings to the client, and the future capability of your agency as a whole. Within a digital agency, innovation is an adrenaline that can inspire new ideas and creativity.

It’s seeing something and thinking, “WOW! We can bring that to our client’s brand”.  It’s being brave, able to stand up and say, “People are doing this now.. but imagine if we added THIS!”.  But how do you get that idea across to the account managers, people at the cusp of client relationships?  Easy: you get stuff in and you educate staff.  They don’t have to be into it; they just have to understand how it could be relevant to their client.  Whether it’s multi-touch, mobile, a new way of branding, or the world’s most amazing audience engagement tool, the most important thing is for the account manager to feel confident and understand how it could be used. It sounds obvious, but all too often it gets skipped because people just don’t talk or because there isn’t an internal forum to talk about this and make time. Even harder is gaining funding for an internal thing that may or may not benefit a client – where does that budget come from? Your IT dept doesn’t want it – they don’t understand client-facing roles, or brand innovation.  R&D is not buying an upgraded server, or keeping software up to date. Does the cost sit with what used to be your digital dept? No – that department’s integrated now, besides aren’t you just sticking it there because it sounds a bit digital? Be brave and accept it as an internal cost that benefits everyone.

Who gets to choose the technology? Well, I’d like to think you had a person in charge of innovation, who really understood marketing, pr, and digital (both technical and creative) – they could tell you what was coming next and how best to leverage it.  Such a person should have varied industry connections, be empowered to disseminate the knowledge, and have contacts within the organisation. Ok – so there’s actually only a few people who can do that properly, and have that much experience, but it IS the responsibility of any creative individual working within your agency to know what’s out there.

A Traditional Agency In 2015

This is possibly the most pressing issue of any traditional agency today. It’s something i’ve been through with companies I’ve worked for as well as companies I’ve owned.

Let’s start with a summary of typical changes, and generalisations that you can probably relate to.

Traditional Agencies in particular are fearful of change; they know they need a digital offering but tend to skirt around the subject. They usually start by outsourcing – then as they realise more and more work needs to be outsourced they hire in dedicated people. Larger agencies then buy up digital companies and bring them on-site. To pay its way the digital team has its own specific clients – as those clients demand more and more, there is less time allocated to work from the traditional parts of the agency. Resource is at a premium, so the decision gets made to fully integrate the entire agency with digital capability. That’s when things go wrong, the agency bogs down, and work grinds to a halt.

Okay, take a step back – I’ll explain why.
Where are the common resource holes that need to be filled within digital?

Creative, Account management, Site Architecture, Programming, Project management.

What skills can the traditional agency provide?
Account management, Creative, Project Management.

- if you thought about it for 30 seconds, that’s what you would think, right? – WRONG! You’ve just massively overestimated the crossover skill-set that’s available.

Creative.
A creative who has done nothing but print ads for the past 20 years is a world away from the creative you need. Designing in a digital world is as different from traditional design as being a tank driver is from being a chef.
Traditional agency creatives know nothing of pixel-based design, slicing, site maps, css, font limitations – they live in a DPI (Dots Per Inch) world. To take a creative out of that mindset takes months of training and hand-holding; it’s exactly like breaking a horse in all over again. Traditional creatives rest on their base skill set, tend not to re-skill, do not keep up to date with online developments – all things which are absolutely essential in a creative geared for online. Even worse, creatives in a digital agency also have to understand file size limits, the impact of their design on bandwidth, user experience, and navigation. File formats, anti-aliasing, compression – words and techniques which traditional creatives think of as technical, but a digital creative uses every day.

The closest that the majority of traditional creatives have come to digital is when emailing a PDF. A typical sign of integration that’s been too rapid is a big increase in static flash-based content.

Programming

Traditional agencies are fearful of programmers. It’s a concept so alien to them they ignore it and hope it goes away: just put them in a little room by themselves.

Programmers then tend to adopt a bunker mentality; they class themselves as misunderstood, and then egos and prima-donna tendencies start to arise. This is partly since in any other type of business a programmer is seen as being at the top rung of the ladder, thinking of themselves as the surgeons of the digital world. In a fully digital agency programming teams and creatives are inseparable. Working closely with the creative throughout the entire length of the project – creatives also work with the programmers to seek a compromise on design should the programmer require it in order for full site functionality. Traditional creatives aren’t used to having their work messed around with.

The link between programmer and creative is a bond that is one of the most important parts of any digital team. A creative cannot simply dump a design on a programmer, and run away – they’re involved throughout the whole project. There’s another important factor at play on the programming front – while standardisation occurs in many agencies, each programmer can also have their own style of working. It can be extremely difficult for a programmer to chop and change between projects (e.g. if they get asked to continue work on another large project, and then swap to another one a few hours later). If the site is large, uses a database, or runs on a different system, then the programmer has to do mental somersaults to get their mindset in place for what they’ve just been asked to do.

Account Management
Hosting, Bandwidth, Email, Load Balancing, Database, Privacy Policies, Proofing Sites, Backups, Milestones, Testing – terms that traditional account management has never heard of. Traditional agencies aren’t used to this layer of information gathering at the start of a project, but it is crucial for what happens next.

A digital account manager must have a basic understanding of the impact that client changes make on the design, and development of a digital project – they will liaise closely with the programming and creative teams in order to relay the correct information back to their client. Testing and security – something totally unheard of in traditional agencies – is the most important part of a digital project. If you don’t believe me, wait for your client website to get hacked, defaced and taken over by Turkish hackers. Security and testing tend to be the most common things that get overlooked as deadlines creep up.

Project Management.
Digital projects are ongoing – they do not end – for as long as your client’s digital project is still looked after by your agency – whether it’s a hosted website, static installation, or mobile content. Unlike print, posters, or TV ads you cannot fire and forget. Every single project has a practically invisible maintenance footprint, whether it is ongoing stats analysis, user feedback, hosting costs, or forum maintenance. Project managers in traditional agencies rarely have to work closely with so many people.

Information Architecture

It’s a concept so alien to a traditional agency: thinking in multiple layers about interactive content and liaising with account management, programming, and creative teams. Some agencies let the Account manager do the site architecture; larger ones tend to have dedicated personnel if they’re lucky. These people tend to be the meat in the sandwich, with client-facing skills and basic knowledge of database connectivity and layout. They’re pulled from different directions all at the same time but setting the structure of a digital project is essential to the creative and programmer – it’s ideally set before any work begins. Radically changing a site structure halfway through a project has massive implications to deadlines due to the knock-on effects on programming time needed. A dedicated information architect helps take pressure off account management, creative, and programming.

So what’s the effect of suddenly splitting up a digital team, and integrating the lot into an agency? – Frustration, misunderstanding, chaos, and an overall downturn of production. Why? The programmers have a complete fit that they’re now working with creatives who totally don’t understand the medium they’re designing for; the traditional creatives cannot adjust fast enough – they don’t understand font and design limitations and cannot understand how layouts affect site architecture or programming. Account managers miss out all the requirements involved in a digital project. Architecture goes out the window, as having too many consecutive projects all of a sudden leads to a lack of control. Programmers go into meltdown, as content starts arriving from inexperienced creatives – the programmers have to get more involved in graphical layouts – efficiency slows down as skills are chopped and changed.

Softly Softly..

The brutal truth is that there are traditional creatives and managers who simply cannot up-skill, who do not keep up to date with current technology as they’ve never needed to – and refuse to start now. There is no place for them in an agency that needs to adapt and change with the environment – they’re ultimately dead weight if they keep their heads in the sand. Once that simple fact is accepted, it’s time to talk integration.

Successful integration is based around one very simple concept: don’t think of integrating digital into traditional. Think about it as integrating traditional into digital.

Start with the creatives; they’re the backbone of your agency.

1. Cherry-pick traditional creatives who want to learn. Creatives from an image-retouching background with good typographic skills tend to cross to digital best, as they should better understand typographic limitations and image compression.

Move a traditional creative next to your best digital creative – let them ease into their new role. Do not underestimate the different skill sets required; it WILL have an impact on your production schedules. Give them at least a month to make sure they understand the production stages involved in creation of digital content. Remember traditional creatives don’t need to understand how a printer works, but a digital one must understand how their layout will work from a programming and usability point of view. Keep doing this, remembering not to bog down the existing digital team. I’ll repeat for emphasis – do not underestimate the different skill-set required.

2. Start getting more account managers involved in digital projects – sit them with the existing digital team, make sure they’re enthusiastic and WANT to learn. Once they understand the stages of development of a digital project they’ll understand why, and what information is needed from the client at the start of a project, and how delays in that process can affect the entire production. They’ll also be regularly performing traffic analysis and feeding that information back to the client which in turn facilitates more work. It’s a slow process, but it needn’t be difficult.

Keep repeating the mantra… it’s NOT print, it’s NOT fire and forget. Account managers can easily get bogged down with site structure, and design and programming liaison – here is where an information architect can help ease the load.

3. Programming Teams – at the traditional end a creative sees programming as some sort of Voodoo magic, but it needn’t be like that at all – here’s how to stop it.

It’s difficult to split a programming team, and it should really be avoided at all costs – programmers, just like creatives, learn off each other, but more so: they develop and share code together; work that one does often has a direct impact on work that another does within a separate project. How do you deal with this, and increase output? Easy: increase the dialogue between the holy trinity of Account Manager, Creative, Programmer – generally programmers love ordered information, and hate surprises; they suddenly become a whole lot more flexible if they have information on what they’re doing upfront – once they feel they’re included more, the benefits feed back the other way, and they’ll take ownership of the project.

4. Research and Development – Digital never sits still and it never will – everything changes. Time and money needs to be invested to adapt, prepare and accommodate changes in technology and in customer needs. Most of all, investment in staff is crucial. The pace of change is increasing; it will continue to increase as we see subsequent advances in internet, computer, digital paper and broadcast technology.

5.  Account manager, creative, programmer (never forget the trinity)

This is just the tip of the iceberg: I haven’t gone into specialist areas, but crucial roles such as Information Architecture, Networking Specialists and System Admin could all easily have their own articles. If individuals are enthusiastic about learning new skills, and can learn on their own, you’re already halfway there.

I’ve been working on a small side project http://www.falloutfarmers.com It’s a tongue in cheek guide to disaster preparedness, suppliers, products and other paranoia.

It’s very much a work in progress, but there’s some fun stuff in there already like where to get your basic shelter, radiation suit and methods of  transport. There’s also articles about newer products that are out on the market which might just one-day save your life.
Enjoy

Because sometimes you need a change.

As you can see I’ve changed my theme around a bit, It’s always good to do one in a while anyway. But I was looking at a few WordPress themes, Googling, and hunting around – I came across this free one, I really fell in love with the ‘not just another blog’ style of it – It’s Aeros designed by Joe Fischler at thebuckmaker.com.  He’s got some great themes that stand out, I particularly like the Fire and ice theme too, but you’ll can go to his website to check them out – He also offers custom design on request.

I’m going to change the background from the default one to a rural one that’s a little more local to where I live when I get a nice sunny day. It’s been an endless summer of rain, and clouds so I haven’t had much luck in getting good pictures recently.

I’m seriously thinking of swapping to the generic scan, comment and post method of blogging. A blog with few posts gathers nothng but spam comments, and the odd random view – so from the end of this week i’m going to be doing far more frequent, but shorter posts. They’ll cover the normal marketing, technology, and other random stuff floating around the ether.

Enjoy.

So before WWDC rumors abounded that a front facing camera would allow ichatAV interaction with desktop and mobile users, it would have been a massive coup, with no other provider able to offer that kind of integration between the live mobile app and the millions of ichatAV users.

It was strangely absent from the Keynote speech given by Steve Jobs on Monday – but a front facing camera is only something that other mobile phone companies have been putting into their kit for years – so where is it? Is it because the US doesn’t yet get the mobile market? Is it because of other more serious infrastructure problems within the US mobile network?

Either way this points to another serious oversight by Apple, and an underestimation of the literacy of mobile users, and their networks in the rest of the world. Either way it’s no wonder we’re feeling insulted by being offered features that should have been included with the first iteration of the iPhone. What a let down.

The average age of a gamer in the UK is 33 – the highest out of the territories surveyed – and 42 per cent of UK game players have children.”

Some interesting stats from the report:-

In the UK, 37 % of the population aged between 16 and 49 describe themselves as active gamers defined as currently playing games on a console, handheld device or PC. The same is true for 28% of the population in Spain and Finland.

- 72% of European gamers use their games console as a multimedia device for broader media activities such as accessing the Internet, playing DVDs or listening to MP3’s.
- Video-games are not restricted to the ‘younger crowd’; 33% of those aged 30 to 49 in the UK classify themselves as active gamers, followed by 23% in Finland and 16% in Spain.
- Females represent a sizable proportion of the games market: 29% of women aged 16 to 49 in the UK, and 18% in Spain and Finland, describe themselves as active gamers.

This news is incredibly significant, meaning that console manufacturers, and developers will refocus more attention on Europe and Asia – these statistics may also give clues on the restricted supply of Wii into the US, as maybe stocks get diverted to key European and Asian markets first, especially seeing the strength of the US economy is so weak. Is this just another notch on the gradual decline of the US gaming market or a testament to the strength of Europe and Asia?

The original report is available from here.

No 3G
No GPS
You can’t picture message (MMS).
You can’t SMS more than one person at a time.
Bluetooth is nobbled. You can only use it for headsets.
The camera is average.
You can’t record video.
You can’t copy and paste.
Expensive contract & additional need to purchase the actual phone

That’s pretty big minus points. But lets be realistic from the list above only 1 (3G) is not doable – the rest is fixable through software updates, a slot-in card, reduced prices and contract changes.

But what makes the iphone so damn good?

I’ve been around smart phones and internet connected mobile devices pretty much ever since they’ve been out. The manufacturers of smart phones have all tended to try and integrate the computer into the phone to a greater or lesser extent for me. They all suffer the single biggest fault, the web browser sucks. When you want to go online to surf the web and check email (and that’s generally why you buy a smart phone) they all offer a horrible cut down browsing experience that looks like someone has puked up internet explorer inside your mobile device, it’s the same with email – you get a horrible chopped down mail client that looks like someone’s just tried to squish Microsoft Outlook into the phone without any thought for how it’s actually going to work.

The iphone and ipod touch offer the single best browsing experience on a mobile device bar none. It’s Safari on the iphone, and it’s simply gorgeous, the screen rendering is incredibly crisp, and zooming into web pages which look exactly how they do on a desktop machine is a relief after the squished endless scrolling experience of windows mobile. Email on the iphone, is a similar experience, looking at attachments, receiving and deleting email is almost as slick as on a desktop.

The lack of 3G is interesting, contrary to popular belief the UK isn’t totally a 3G connected hotbed, there’s a lot of places where getting a fast connection is a bit sketchy. O2 aren’t renowned for their massive

So how’s this going to affect marketing?

The Ipod was a revolution that not only changed the way people listened to music, it changed the music industry itself. The Ipod touch, and iphone do to video, and video casts what the ipod did to music. It’s far superior to the previous ipod video experiences – because it’s no longer a passive device, you can go off and get your own music and video.

It utterly decimates the Symbian, and windows mobile browsing experience and activity, don’t take my word for it – usage figures back that up. The iphone is already accounting for 0.09% of the browser market – that’s bigger than Any other mobile device:- (source and image credit from Roughly Drafted – with stats from Canalys). In only 6 months the iphone has come from no-where to grab 27% of the US smartphone market. While we won’t see UK iphone purchasing on the same level as in the US the browser stats really are pretty amazing.

What’s interesting about the iphone deal is that the usage plan includes unlimited internet access both on mobile internet, and wifi services through the cloud – that’s one of the things that’s pushing up that browser usage. People are really using these things on the go, they’re using them anywhere there’s wireless access, Star bucks, McDonald’s, pubs. In the UK we have fantastic coverage with apple using The Cloud to provide free access for iphone users. But you can also use an iphone/ipod touch with any other wireless provider such as BT Openzone. Companies are already making custom pages designed for the iphone and ipod touch, the BBC has a really slick podcast page which enables fast access to podcasts of all of it’s major radio shows and it’s specifically designed with touch-screen in mind. The iphone and ipod touch bring the simplicity of the ipod user interface, and the familiarity of the itunes store to the mobile population.

Make no mistake, whether you like it or loath it, the iphone has been a fantastic catalyst for change within the mobile and mobile media industry. If anyone has the ability to see your online image as you intended it, and take a little piece of your company with them anywhere they go, and interact with you – how are you going to keep them interested? Are you just going to carry on pretending mobile browsing doesn’t exist?

Go and find someone who has an iphone, or ipod touch, and borrow it for a week (if they’ll let you) – use it, play with it, add your photo’s, music, and movies, watch you-tube and understand why mobile devices will never be the same again.

I can’t do justice to this in one post, so I’m going to have to do a follow up really soon – In February Apple are going to allow developers to write their own applications for the iphone and ipod touch. I haven’t talked about the interface, the ease of use compared to other devices – there’s plenty of other blogs doing that anyway.

I’m glad that the south west showed their support – about 15 minutes before the store opened the staff began to hype up the crowd running up and down like loonatics, shouting and whooping. All a bit to much for some of the more reserved people in the queue, the guy next to me threatened to pull a moonie if they didn’t shut up! The opening was done in a similar fashion – watch the youtube video I made below sorry it’s a bit jerky, I wanted to grab my T-Shirt. Finally getting into the store I could see the full extent of the queue, and to be honest it was pretty insane for a UK store. 30 minutes after going in, we came out and the queue was still horrendously long, with people being cheered as they went in. You certainly don’t see that kind of line waiting for any other store to open, it really brings home the successful marketing of the Apple Retail machine. The flickr set of the images is here