And now…McEditing
by Nancy Vonk

A few weeks ago as we finished a job at a favorite editing house, I noticed business was
surprisingly slow. Our editor chalked it up to a trend: editing moving in-house at agencies.
At first glance it sounds smart: in the wake of agencies losing huge amounts of revenue,
particularly post- 9/11 (marketing budgets slashed; services shifted to lesser, cheaper
vendors; cost consultants proliferating; compensation dwindling), new sources of income
are the order of the day. With equipment costs plunging and technology making it possible
for anyone to take a lunge at it, why not offer editing – certainly for the day-to-day jobs.
Can you say cha-ching?

Here’s why every art director, writer and CD should link arms against this model: the top
editors we all prefer won’t exist anymore. Their employers will be out of business. All those bread and butter jobs are crucial to the financial viability of a School, Rooster, Panic & Bob et al.

We won’t see great editors join the agency alternative. As Griff Henderson, editor at
Toronto’s School puts it, “You can’t grow or be happy on a limited diet of accounts and
creatives, however great they may be. And the honeymoon will be over when the creatives tire of working with one flavor.”

Our favorite editors learned from the best. Tomorrow’s talent is potentially looking at a
model of learning from good but not great, in an environment lacking the diversity of an
editing house. And they’ll probably be working on equipment likely to be chronically out of
date. Editing houses typically invest huge amounts of capital in state of the art equipment
every three years. The agency is unlikely to have that agenda. Nor would they prioritize
being on top of every development in the editing world.

Producers under pressure to get the best for a price as low as in-house say, “I’ve got
$12,000, take it or leave it.” The $35,000 job of 10 years ago is $22,000 today at School.
Cost consultants preach that good is good enough to clients that aren’t sensitized to the
value of the best. And lately one leading CD is encouraging his staff to use in-house for
even some of the best jobs.

Burke Moody, executive director of the Association of Independent Creative Editors, reports markets like New York, Detroit, San Francisco and Toronto are feeling the pain and are filled with alarm.

Our best editors can migrate to features, docs, television and other opportunities. It’s the
agency’s product that stands to dim as we head down the slippery slope. As our stories are told with less actual skill, the kind built on years of experience working on countless brands with countless creative partners and using the best facilities, we can expect the agency’s value to continue to erode.

Agencies should have many areas of excellence under the roof and offer clients expertise
and innovation that’s being lost to others. But editing isn’t a craft that’s wisely moved
wholesale under the agency banner. The cost of McEditing will be too great. To quote
ex-Roosterite, Mary Beth Odell: “Use it or lose it.”

Over to you, Scott.

At the start of every year, it’s fun to think about what’s next. However, for the creative professional community, considering the future is not just a casual exercise. It’s a necessity. The creative industries are rapidly changing, as is the way we manage our own creative careers.
Do you rely on the web for inspiration, feedback, or any other part of your creative process? Do you rely on online networks or websites as a source of new customers, clients, or collaborations? Are you involved in the worlds of advertising, design, fine art, or any other industry that ultimately relies on matching the right creative talent with the best opportunities?

If you answered yes, get ready.

Thoughts on the Road Ahead for Creative Professionals

In recent years, I believe that technology has been a little reckless with creative professionals. In many ways, technology has (shockingly) been obstructing productive creative careers. Crowdsourcing spec contests, the lack of proper attribution for most creative talent displayed online, and inefficient services for career management – just to name a few.

We believe that technology and the latest shifts in creative industries will ultimately empower creative professionals.

Here are some of our predictions (and hopes) for the creative professional community in the near future [and full disclaimer: our inherent bias is that we think about this full-time and are developing Behance with these thoughts in mind!]:

The Era of “Distributed Creative Production” Is Upon Us
The advertising agency of the future will consist of account managers, administrative staff, and a tiny leadership team that provides creative direction. The creative production itself will be distributed to individuals and small teams around the globe who are at the top of their game. The same applies to corporate marketing departments and other creative firms.

In the past, resources for finding and managing top talent were extremely limited. Now, the rise of online networks, as well as project management and collaboration tools is empowering creative professionals and ushering in a new era of independence.
In the past, resources for finding and managing top talent were extremely limited.

Recently, I sat on a panel for NY Advertising Week called “The Shortage of Digital Talent.” My fellow panelists – all senior folks from large agencies – sought to explain what they saw as a “shortage of creative talent” in the digital space. I was the only one with the opposite perspective. There is remarkable talent emerging from all corners of the globe. But, I explained, “the only problem is that this talent doesn’t need to work for you anymore.”

In the new era of “distributed creative production,” top talent will be able to work on their own terms. The companies (and clients) that welcome this future will benefit from better creative output.

The opportunity to tap the power of the crowd has spawned a whole regime of companies that promise to break down barriers and unlock the potential of the masses. But beneath this recent trend lie major fundamental flaws.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not another whining diatribe against the perils of crowdsourcing. But without new business models and core principles that leverage these forces in a way that empowers its participants, the opportunity is likely to implode. Those involved need to innovate and start harnessing the crowd in more mutually beneficial (and thus sustainable) ways.

The Problem With The Crowd
Crowdsourcing is driven by powerful online communities and an increased willingness from companies to engage talent from beyond the confines of their own offices. For creative talent in remote regions of the world, the prospect of a flat world full of opportunities is invigorating. Simply by joining an online community, it is easy to be found and engaged in projects. For the large companies that to date employed vast departments of highly paid, talented experts, the option to reduce overhead and still engage top talent wherever it may be can improve output and the bottom line.

So what’s the problem?

The forces that enable crowdsourcing are being used to get thousands of people to do work for free, with a chance of getting paid only if their work is selected for use. This is fine for hobbyists or friendly competitions offering a token prize. But in a business context, it doesn’t pay for either party.

In our research at Behance, we’ve found that many creative professionals avoid these types of contests because they’re too busy with commissioned work. When they do engage, they feel unfulfilled (if not exploited) afterwards—and they seldom participate again. Likewise, companies have also reported mixed sentiments. Inundated with options—mostly unprofessional in quality —they were ultimately left unsure of the worth of the exercise.

Build A Better Way
The crowd should be used in more controlled and informed ways. I firmly believe that the forces powering this phenomenon will revolutionize many industries, and I see a day when creative agencies and Fortune 500 marketing departments extend their entire creative production and idea generation to the crowd. But they need to do so in a way that empowers the participants and yields a satisfactory outcome for all.

In the future, Crowdsourcing (As We Know It) Will Be Rendered Obsolete
The good news is that people are starting to catch on. Top talent now avoids these crowdsourcing programs. New, more sustainable models are beginning to take hold. Quirky has revolutionized crowdsourced product design by ensuring that every contributor gets paid. Our team at Behance is also experimenting with new models for “sourcing” groups of top talent and guaranteeing payment for contributions. Regardless of what new models emerge, the old and destructive form of crowdsourcing will become obsolete as we have more options and develop better judgment.

The “Credible Mass” Will Determine Quality
The future of “distributed creative production” starts with finding great talent wherever it may be. Relying on personal networks and headhunters won’t cut it. We will need a way for the best talent to rise to the top based on merit.
The future of ‘distributed creative production’ starts with finding great talent wherever it may be.

The greatest challenge we will face is how to measure the quality of talent. The solution will be community curation. Aided by tools like Digg, Facebook’s “Like” button, and the “Appreciate” feature on Behance.net, communities are starting to curate themselves. Anything from articles to pieces of art can now be sorted based on consensus.

But the insights of the critical mass aren’t enough. For example, when evaluating the quality of a photograph, the opinions of 1,000 photographers should matter more than that of 1,000,000 random people. This is the difference between a “critical mass” and a “credible mass.” The “credible mass” will enable creative professionals around the globe to get new opportunities based on the quality of their work.

A New Genre of Advertising Will Educate Us
With brands in the hands of the people, a new genre of advertising will arise that is more authentic and borderline educational. Companies will tap their expertise as a way to win over the “credible mass.” For example, GE knows a lot about the future of energy and jet engines, Pepsi knows a lot about marketing and beverages, the New York Times knows a lot about journalism.

While you would likely skip over any commercials from these brands, you might be interested in their perspectives in areas where your interests intersect. Maybe you want to learn about GE’s smart grid from the scientists behind it? Perhaps you would enjoy a behind-the-scenes perspective on how a newspaper is assembled every single day from the New York Times? Great things happen when companies leverage their expertise for public interest. It also makes for powerful advertising.

The corporate marketing departments are not going to make the leap, but the creative minds in advertising agencies – and more likely the production companies that actually do the work – will start to experiment with a new form of advertising that will serve its viewer in profound ways. With the rise of online video and the role your friends play in curating the content you consume, advertising needs to step it up a notch.

The Static Portfolio Will Be Replaced by the Connected Portfolio
Not too long ago, creative professionals across industries relied solely on their “book” – a physical portfolio that was sent around to headhunters and prospective clients whenever an opportunity presented itself. These books were expensive, heavy, and instantly outdated from the moment they were sent. They also accumulated a lot of dust.

Over the last decade, most creative professionals transformed their portfolio book into a website. These static websites could be updated at any time and seemed much more efficient than the book approach. Personal portfolio websites proved effective, but only for those that visit them. Like the old-school portfolio books, you still need to invite people to view your site – whether by email or a link on your business card. Now, with the rise of social networks and professional networks, it is easier to spread the links to your portfolio and hope that the right person clicks.
Not too long ago, creative professionals across industries relied solely on their ‘book.’

I believe that the next step in this evolution will be the “connected portfolio,” a set of projects that live not only within your own personal portfolio site but also on other galleries and networks around the web. Your “connected portfolio” will act as both a personal portfolio website as well as a powerful dissemination tool that showcases your work wherever you want it – always keeping your work properly attributed and under your control. Such a system would boost efficiency and transform the portfolio from a static website into a tool for self-promotion and new leads.

Some of these predictions are more lofty than others. Some focus on smaller, technical details, while others contemplate broader, industry-wide changes. Regardless, they are all in our hands. We make ideas materialize on our screens and with our hands, and then we are the first adopters. As creative professionals, we are extremely fortunate to have such a direct influence over our own future.

Wishing you an imaginative and productive 2011.

–
What Do You Think?

What key changes – big or small – do you see on the horizon for creative professionals?

Razorfish Disses the Big Idea, Pushes Iterative Model
Zachary Rodgers

Razorfish has created a new design practice with the premise that marketing execs should give up on big ideas that produce mostly one-off campaigns. Instead, it’s asking clients to embrace an iterative test-and-learn mindset that gradually refines a website or marketing effort over time. And that goes not only for direct marketers, but big brands as well.
Called Agile, the program is geared mainly toward online projects that require complex application development. It brings together 50 creatives and technologists who engage clients first in a training process before moving into a design phase. Razorfish has practiced the approach since at least last year, but it hasn’t been formalized till now.
The Agile design approach generates repeated rough drafts of a campaign, website, or application, breaking long product cycles into smaller increments. Each of those increments results in working software. Thus a nine-month site development process might see four or more successive versions – each complete, yet in varying stages of refinement.

“Creative people were always willing to let the direct response end of the business be subject to optimization,” said Joe Crump, Razorfish’s group VP of strategy and planning. “That process is moving farther up the food chain, not necessarily in the same way that it operates for direct response advertisers.”

Crump added, “Marketers are getting smarter and more demanding about the effectiveness of the work.”

It’s hard to argue with that. The most recent big campaign to spark a heated debate about ad effectiveness is Old Spice’s “I’m on a Horse” TV and online effort starring Isaiah Mustafa. Time, BNET, Ad Age, and other publications have tried to scrutinize its sales impact, despite the fact that the brand’s celebrated social media blitz happened mere weeks ago.

Razorfish is hoping to capitalize on the new ROI fetish by talking a new generation of CMOs into, in Crump’s words, “not launching a big behemoth of a site, or even a behemoth of a campaign, at the beginning. We try to encourage marketers and our sister agencies to put the consumer at the center of the equation rather than a television spot.”
Among clients to put the Agile principles to work is Bundle.com, a personal finance site that launched early this year. The Bundle and Razorfish teams worked together late last year to quickly develop a beta version in time for a January 2010 launch.
“Without question agile was an important reason why Bundle.com is now flourishing and innovating,” said Jaidev Shergill. “And we continue to take customer feedback in order to constantly improve Bundle.com.”

Selling the approach hasn’t been easy. Some clients have balked at the process, insisting that their contracts specify delivery dates for specific capabilities – for instance, the ability to let users post to Twitter straight from a website.

That fixed approach goes against the whole Agile outlook, said Crump.
“To take an iterative approach you have to believe that list of things that go along with your big idea or your campaign, much of that is wrong and it’s going to change,” he said. “The reality still is there’s a lot of inertia.”

BDW NY Making Digital Work NYC: Day One
3 DECEMBER, 2010 | WRITTEN BY EDWARD BOCHES

A look at the Twitter stream tells you it was a day of awesomeness. Great presentations, lots of dialogue, hands-on workshops, and an end of the day session where the 70-plus participants actually invented new products or services, designed prototype websites for quick online testing, bought their keywords and prepared to put their content online — thanks to some Modernista digital elves willing to work through part of the night to make it happen.

Coming just a week after Fast Company suggested that there will be carnage if the advertising industry doesn’t adapt quickly enough, followed by an alternative view from Bloomberg Businessweek suggesting that’s a bunch of BS, Making Digital Work offered a little bit of reality.

The facts are this. Change is coming fast and furious, even accelerating beyond what we’ve seen so far. It’s not just about making digital experiences it’s also about understanding consumers’ new relationships to media, technology and community. It’s about mastering UX and engagement instead of the age-old art and copy definition of creativity. It’s about changing every organization to learn new ways of collaboration.

Perhaps most importantly it’s about being far more agile and lean when it comes to inventing work, prototyping it, getting it to market, and as Tim Malbon of Made by Many tells us “Learning fast.” Challenging the fail fast mantra of recent years, Tim instead argues we need to speed up the learning process. Nail it and scale it as he says.

So what does it take? If you were here at BDW’s NY workshop yesterday you may have concluded the following.

1. The consumer is at the center of everything
And the most important thing to remember is that he is a participant, a doer, a sharer, a creator. How do you create an experience that engages and motivates participation and action? Awareness and attitude do not lead to changed behavior. Action and behavior lead to changed attitude.

2. New teams and process are essential
You can’t make experiences with the same people and processes you used to make ads. Not everyone has to write code, but if they don’t enthusiastically embrace all that’s new bid them adieu.

3. Put aside your fears and anxieties and make something
You need to just jump in and do it. Get over thinking that ideas and creativity are the exclusive domain of one department. Get your ideas on paper. Build a prototype, get it in front of people (you can easily hide things on the web so you get enough feedback without going big time public), learn and proceed.

More to come as we begin to post the decks and presentations. So keep your eyes open.

Read more: http://edwardboches.com/bdw-ny-making-digital-work-nyc-day-one#ixzz175xwGwXe

Why is this a great quote?
There are far too many clients out there who want advertising and digital interaction that is safe, familiar and predictable. What they are missing is the big picture: the impact it will have on their overall brand. The best argument for creativity lies in it’s ability to get noticed and attract attention. You don’t get hundreds or thousands of Social Media “shares” for boring content. And you don’t motivate consumers to make the effort to buy your product if they don’t remember you. Once a consumer makes a positive or negative decision about what your brand stands for, undoing that opinion can be darned next to impossible … and you’ll find yourself hiring a creative agency known for it’s breakthrough work to save your failing brand anyway.

This morning, I found an article at MediaWeek.com. The article is a discussion on Google’s predictions under a headline that states “Google Sees “Smart and Sexy” Future for Banner Ads.”

That’s great. Those “You’re The Millionth Visitor Click Now To Win” embarrassments to advertising are long overdue for an overhaul. But in reading the MediaWeek article, I realized that people are still making the mistake of believing that technology is the device that will save the Online Display Ad industry.

Nuts to that. I’m sure the Google Execs were speaking only about the delivery device for the creative concept, but creative ideas are needed to make for a smart and sexy future for banner ads, not technology alone. (Cigarettes are a delivery device for tobacco – get it?) Technology will support those great ideas – but technology devoid of an advertising concept is still a lame-ass “Click Now To Win” banner ad. I know the point of what they were saying at IAB was that rich media with the ability to hold more content and imagery – more like a website will make static banners (thank god) a thing of the past. But without a great concept, those same display ad players will still be there with their bad ideas … only now they will be animated and will contain video (the horror).

Great ideas don’t rely on money, production values or file sizes to be great. At least not all the time. One of Canada’s most highly-awarded Creative Directors once told me that one test of a great TV ad concept was to mentally execute it for 25 grand. If the idea held up, then it was a great concept. I get what he was saying. Obviously “Star Wars” needed those special effects to be a great movie. But the story at the heart of the film had a classic damaged father-son relationship, good vs evil structure that might have worked in a parallel universe with cowboys and indians for example. Maybe.

I think display advertising has been populated by zero creativity marketers – and it’s my hope that the new hopped-up banners will provide agency creatives with paradigm-shifting opportunities … or at least the chance to show up the current users of display marketing. Simply put, it’s a category that will be ripe for the taking come creative award show time.

Writing in such a skinny format is hard. It takes work. But it’s not much different from other writing formats – like poetry, copywriting, headline writing … or even greeting card writing.

I’m an awful writer – a fact that I blame on my grade 9 English teacher. A child of the 60′s, she destained creative writing and grammar lessons in favour of spending an extra few months of the class reading William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” But maybe she was way ahead of her time. If you google some Willy Shakespeare quotes from that play, you realize that if he were alive today, Wills would have had more followers than Ashton Kutcher. His brilliance and spare use of language are simply incredible. In one scene 2 characters (Quince and Flute) are discussing casting for a play. Flute is asked is asked to play Thisby, a female. Shakespeare could have written, “No yee lads, ’tis not a good idea for me to play a woman. Being a man of dark hair my 5 o’clock shadow will show and there’s no way I’ll be able to pull that off.” Instead he wrote, “Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.” That’s 58 characters of tight prose … with plenty of space left over for ReTweeting.

Good writing can be long or short. But good writing is less about how you put it together, and more about the ideas contained within it. What do I mean? Most of this article is literal. I’m saying what needs to be said. But for this article to be well written, it needs to contain new concepts – new ideas – that are different ways of saying the same old things. That’s where the true brilliance lies. “I have a beard coming” is a clever concept. “I can’t pull it off because I’m a guy” is not. Rather than worry about numbers of characters, great writers worry about filling the blank “What’s Happening?” box with language that is not cliche, boring or devoid of concept or personality.

But once you have that creative nugget of genius it all comes back to good editing. And that’s the secret. Having a luxury of space to express yourself in is great. Make no mistake. But many will tell you the true skill lies in the edit. And editing takes a certain amount of detachment. And practice. You have to kill your baby over and over again until it can be born. I have been lucky to have worked with some really great copywriters in the ad industry. Great writers with equally great, surprising ideas and points of view. But one thing many of them shared was the inability to edit their own work. Brilliance is great, but if the headline is going to run to 4 lines and the art director is ready to kill because the layout wasn’t designed to hold it, then you have no choice but to stay up all night re-crafting and editing that headline. It has to fit and it has to be genius.

On Twitter, there are also standards to uphold. For example, Internet ebonics are to be avoided (gr8!) if you want to maintain your status as a serious writer. Contractions are okay (what’s up?) but your content and meaning is your first priority. Most writers will write for intent first, say going to 215 characters, and then start hacking, chopping off language here and there until they’re close to to 140 characters. From that point you contract, squeeze and generally go into labour to squeeze out your 140 characters of tight, well-written brilliance.

Adverbs are another sapling to thin out of your woody forest of words. The definition of an adverb is words and phrases that describe or limit the meaning of a verb, an adjective,or a whole sentence. In other words, The horse ran Swiftly. Most words ending in “ly” can be chopped for Tweets. For that matter, an adjective is a word that describes a noun. A “fluffy” cat is an adjective. Without it the word cat is generic.

I think Twitter’s Shrinking World is great for good writing. I find I use more nouns and verbs, instead of adjectives and adverbs. When every word matters in my 140 characters I really look at my intent and my construction. Twitter keeps me from getting lazy. It won’t turn me into a writer of great prose, but it keeps me thinking about my writing. Not a bad thing at all.

Ever since we announced our engagement, I’ve had a sad feeling in my heart. I’ve been thinking a lot about you and I lately. All the good times and laughs we used to share. When we first started out things were different. We were more open with each other. We used to stay up late, just talking and hanging out. Now things are different. You’re too busy for me. You’ve become successful and with that success you’ve become distant … cold. We don’t talk like we used to. We aren’t relating to each other anymore. You’ve changed.

You say The New Twitter is going change how we spend time together. You say it’s going to bring us closer together … it’s going to strengthen our relationship – increase our quality time. I sure hope so. Because it feels like this relationship has become pretty one-sided. We don’t talk, we don’t relate to each other. We just broadcast our thoughts, feelings and share information. Without discussion or engaging … or even a thank you for the RT.

I’m trying really hard to save our relationship. I follow the people you say I should. I respect your code of ethics and try to always have something meaningful to tweet – to put out into the world. But you’re so busy broadcasting your content you’ve forgotten about me. About my thoughts, opinions … and feelings. Hello #FAIL it’s Jill talking. If The New Twitter doesn’t change our relationship, I’m worried that we’re doomed to a life of information broadcasting, breaking news reports and YouTube links.

Maybe it’s me but this relationship isn’t going to work out unless you spend more time with me. Talking, engaging, and RTing like we used to. It’s not too late Twitter. There’s still time. We can save this thing if we both try a little harder. Forget therapy. You’ve been down that road. You’ve forgotten the vows that @aplusk and @mrskutcher took before one million followers became the norm for celebrity couples. I’m not rich. I’m not famous. But we’re in this thing together – for richer, and for poorer. Let’s save what we had … together.

xxxooo
Jill

Mrs. Honeycutt and Mrs. Nesbitt come to tea

I hope you like the new layout. I think it’s easier to read. I wish I was more adept at CSS … I’d love to make the type a bit bigger, to make the site easier to read. If anyone can tell me how to – I’d love to hear from you.

Happy Fall Everyone!