Advertisers and Ad Agencies: It's time to expand your Social Network(ing)

The advertising industry is experiencing a crisis -- not only because of shrinking marketing budgets, not only because advertisers are looking for ways to bypass the ad agencies and going directly to other vendors and suppliers, but more because the consumer is taking control. Today's consumer do not want to be talked to. They want to participate and socialize. People are not glued to their TV sets anymore. Yes, they're could still be on their couches with the TV or radio on, but they're on their mobile phones and computers at the same time.

Being in the advertising industry, I've seen too many good people lose their market value because they've refused to change their ways. They've stopped learning and they're stuck with what they know. The few who continuously attempt to redefine themselves are the ones who get ahead and are prepared for the challenges of today and tomorrow.

Oh, yes, most of us are already on Friendster and Facebook. And most of us use Yahoo Messenger, search on Google and Yahoo, and have read at least a blog entry or two. But do we really understand why and how people use these digital tools? Do we really understand what it will take for our brands to participate in the online space?

What comes to mind when our clients tell us that we want to get into digital or the internet? How many times do we get creative initiatives that are mere banner-ad or rich-media executions? How many times have clients asked us to create a Facebook fan page or start spamming our personal social networks to get a campaign go "viral" -- and we go ahead and agree with them? Do we really understand online social networks as marketing professionals?

While Plurking and reading blogs, I stumbled upon this blog that was an invitation to the 2nd Social Networking & E-Business Conference 2009. It will be held very soon -- April 23 & 24 at the Hotel Intercontinental in Makati. 

Organizers Fiera de Manila Inc. and DigitalFilipino.com writes about the conference:

Express yourself, share your interest, post your photos, share your music, connect with friends, make new connections, and exchange insights --- this is now the growing trend of communications and engagement with your customers.

The phenomenon of online social networks has created real-life and business relationships amongst advertisers, users and consumers of today's digital marketplaces. The growth and popularity of social networks is changing the landscape of marketing and e-Business.

Gain insights on how to maximize the use of social networks. Learn from various case studies. Learn from various Experts sharing their unique perspectives on the phenomenon of social networks.

The Social Networking and e-Business Conference 2009 is an event geared towards companies and digital marketing/advertising professionals who are interested to use social networks for advertising/marketing their products and services. It is for dynamic companies, start-ups, and upcoming players who would like to leverage on current technologies to communicate and sell their products/services in the cyber world; and, gain knowledge as to how this industry is working and evolving.

I came across Ms Jannet Toral on Plurk and figured, if I found her online, then she probably knows much more about this space than most advertising gurus who don't even have a blog. Aside from her, Friendster, Asia Pay, Smart, Level Up!, ABS-CBN Interactive, and Yahoo! will be speaking. And there are even others from outfits I've never heard of but that probably means I should know who they are.

These are the people I need to be having conversations with. These people I want to be within my social network. These are the people who I can learn from about Social Network marketing.

I want to be ready for today's marketing challenges. I want to be prepared for what's next. I want to be part of the Social Networking and e-Business Conference 2009.

See you there? Click here for the conference's registration form.

From AdAge Digital: Bringing Back CREATIVE in Online Advertising

I've never been a fan of online banner ads, nor an avid fan of Apple products. I do look up to them though for their creativity and innovation. Maybe it's the pompousness and the eliteness of Apple that turns me off. And maybe it's the intrusiveness of banner advertising that I don't believe in. But I'm definitely a fan of sparks of creativity especially when recognition is due. 

Happy reading!

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Apple Ads Breathe New Life Into Online Creative

TBWA/Media Arts Lab's 'Mac Vs. PC' Synched Banners Inspire Sharing Among Consumers

By Abbey Klaassen 

Published: March 30, 2009

Illustration: Pete McDonell

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- At an industry conference almost a year ago, Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer of TBWA/Media Arts Lab, deplored the state of online ad creative as "semi-nowhere." It's fitting, then, that arguably the most creative banner-ad execution of the past 12 months came from Mr. Clow's shop.

The ads, for Apple's Leopard operating system and its "Mac vs. PC" campaign, started showing up in spring 2008 in the form of synched ad banners running on NYtimes.com. In the fall, they started running on sites such as Yahoo Games, where iPhone ads appeared to interact with the content of the page -- game play got so intense it "busted" the navigation bar of the page on which the ad appeared.

It was enough to inspire what is perhaps the ultimate reward for compelling advertising: consumer distribution. Fans of the "Mac vs. PC" creative on NYtimes.com, for example, captured videos of the ads' animation and uploaded them to YouTube where, collectively, they got tens of thousands of more views.

Apple and Media Arts Lab weren't the first to use such tactics. Synched banners have been around for years -- an early version of an Applebee's ad ran on iVillage a few years ago. And last summer Nintendo ran a trailer on YouTube for Wii's "Warioland" game, in which the game's action busted up the entire page's navigation (the game has received 5.2 million views on the video-sharing site). But with Apple, creativity has been a consistent theme in all its web ads. And let's not forget it was only a year ago -- in this same issue -- that Ad Age wrote about the brand's paltry investment in online ads.

"Most online advertising still feels like it is a result of a conversation about click rates and the tactics of grabbing attention through gimmicks, as if tricking people to engage is a measure of true success," Mr. Clow told Ad Age via e-mail recently. "But I believe creativity should be our filter. I want to see artists and idea people find more influence in this space."

Saving online ads
His point of view has been gaining steam lately. The "semi-nowhere" remark last year was a prologue to the recent conversation about the dearth of online ad creativity. That discussion itself lies within a larger debate: Can online advertising, a once-promising medium whose momentum has slowed, be saved?

WORK

Rich-media ads with a twist tout the iPhone as a gaming device: When the user tilts the device, the web page's navigation bar follows along.

When the web was conceived as a potential marketing medium, it had little to offer besides two-way interaction via the mouse and, thus, the click was born as a proxy for effectiveness.

The conversation about clicks is not a pretty one these days -- fewer than 0.1% of display ads are clicked on, according to ComScore. And bemoaning dropping click-through rates as a sign display ads are dying is a big part of the problem.

"Simply put, we need a creative renaissance in interactive advertising," Randy Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, challenged the industry at his association's recent annual meeting. "Because of our direct-response heritage, we've toiled under the tyranny of the click for too long. ... We simply have got to emerge from under the shadow of our technological wizardry and start paying attention to the power of great creativity."

But few are doing that. According to PointRoll, the rich-media provider that worked with TBWA/Media Arts Lab on the ads, only about 5% of online ads served today include some sort of rich media. Why so few? Reasons range from budget (rich-media ads are more expensive to run) to the fact some publishers don't accept a full range of rich-media ads, making them difficult to scale.

Engagement is possible
Catherine Spurway,VP-strategy and marketing at PointRoll, said about 6% of users who see PointRoll-served ads interact with them, whether by mousing over them for at least a few seconds or performing some sort of activity within the ad unit, showing that when creative is good and engaging, people will engage with it. Online isn't passive, she said, and "people should be able to engage with advertising the way they do the rest of the net."

Ultimately the Apple ads work, both online and off, because they're the starting point of a story. AKQA co-Chief Creative Officer Lars Bastholm called this concept "social storytelling" and said it's even more essential online, since the water cooler is built into the system. The users that took the time to capture video of the ads on NYtimes.com and upload them to YouTube were continuing the conversation that TBWA/Media Arts Lab started.

Figuring out how to "let emotional ideas live naturally" is still something most brands struggle with, Mr. Clow said. In his mind, it's not just about embracing the rational utilities of this space -- search, information and functionality -- something most brands are still trying to figure out. It's also about creating desirable content that works for the audience and the environment.

"That is the stuff that gets discovered and posted on YouTube," he said. "Because when you lead with being surprising or fun, people will pass your ideas around. But if brands force themselves into the wrong spaces, they will be called out or ignored."

MOST IMPORTANT DIGITAL LESSON I'VE LEARNED

Expand the definition of contextual targeting.

"Being contextual sometimes also means being aware of the 'physical' space," said Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer TBWA/Media Arts Lab. "The Touch ad actually used elements of the website to mimic the physical behavior of playing a game on the device itself. The intention of these ideas can't be a gimmick for technology's sake but a way to help with the storytelling of the idea."

From AdAge Digital: The Reason why Facebook Changed Face

Since Facebook launched it's new interface, a lot of my friends (and apparently around the world) have been complaining about it. Somehow, being someone adventurous, I welcomed the change and embraced it. It was very different but eventually I liked it. 

Previously, I was getting the hang of regularly updating my Facebook status and did think it was a rising trend. With the new Facebook layout, you can go beyond just text updates -- you can post links, video, pics as part of that status. I abhor it when people resist change and expect new things to be flawless at the first try.

Since the change, I've seen Facebook's layout to be continuously improving with new features and minor tweaks. I know they're listening to comments but taking them with a grain of salt. No, they will not go back to the previous layout even if a million users threaten to leave Facebook if they don't. Going back to the old just because the new thing doesn't work well yet is stupid. 

Here's Why Facebook's All Aflutter Over Twitter

Seems That the Tweet Is Replacing the Status Update Among the Digerati

by Michael Learmonth 

Published: March 23, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Did Twitter just make Facebook blink? If not, why did Facebook suddenly get so much more Twitter-like?

Indeed, mighty Facebook, steaming toward 120 million worldwide users, pulling away from MySpace and even nudging Google on its axis, started emulating key functions of Twitter earlier in March after a redesign made status updates central and immediate.

Last week Facebook moved further into Twitter territory by allowing users to open their profiles -- and status updates -- to the public, letting users to speak to people who follow them but whom they don't necessarily know. In other words, like Twitter.

But why would Facebook, quickly becoming the web's 800-pound gorilla, try to stop everyone's favorite little microblogger?

Life-casting
Perhaps because with the blizzard of media coverage over the past six months, not to mention high-profile celebrity users, it appears that the tweet is replacing the Facebook status update as the main form of life-casting among some of the 6 million Twitter faithful. "I know a lot of people who only update their Facebook status through Twitter," said Steve Rubel, senior VP at Edelman Digital.

Or, more likely, it's because of Twitter's massive growth. The site had 7 million unique visits in February, up 1,382% from a year ago, according to Nielsen NetView. But even that statistic is an underestimation of Twitter, as many users update via mobile or third-party software such as TweetDeck. Forty-two percent of the service's audience is between 35 and 49 years old.

Facebook clearly saw value in what Twitter founders Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Ev Williams had built, and made a $500 million offer for the microblogging service last summer.

While the subset of Facebook users now lingering on Twitter instead of their Facebook profiles is tiny, traffic to Twitter has exploded in the past six months. "It's apparent to me they have Twitter envy; because they didn't get Twitter, they are becoming more like Twitter," said Colton Perry, senior VP-technology at NetPlus Marketing.

Indeed, in some ways, Facebook one-ups Twitter by allowing responses beneath an update, facilitating conversation threads that can be more difficult to follow on Twitter. "Conversations have gotten much more linear and in-depth on Facebook," said Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications. "But the real issue is that Twitter has never had a real competitor and now it does."

Feeling threatened
As a media property supported by advertising, Facebook has quite a bit to lose if a start-up or intermediary like Twitter stands between it and any significant portion of its user base. In February, Facebook claimed 6% of time spent online in the U.S., more than any other property, according to Compete. Any alternative or intermediary -- Twitter can be used as either -- threatens that engagement.

On the contrary, Twitter has no display-ad business to speak of, though last week it did start showing the equivalent of a house ad on the right side of the page that explained "twitter search," "widget" and other Twitter-relevant terms.

But aside from that, Twitter's ad business is nonexistent. At present, it's a messaging platform, not a media property. But if Facebook caps Twitter's growth or slows it down, it will make it that much harder for Twitter to resist Google, Yahoo or Microsoft if and when they come knocking.

Last week Sanford Bernstein analysts cautioned that monetizing the service "would be difficult at best and likely unsuccessful," and argued that a Twitter deal could end up destroying value on the scale of AOL's $4.2 billion acquisition of Netscape, and eBay's $4.1 billion acquisition of Skype.

Yet plenty of observers think that, regardless of what Facebook does, the two can coexist. While Twitter appeals to a subset of Facebook's audience, they're used for different purposes. Facebook users tend to connect to all their friends and family, while on Twitter, they only "follow" the interesting or useful ones, and dump the rest.

Thoughtfulness
"I believe they are two different technologies," said Marita Scarfi, chief operating officer of Omnicom's Organic. "[Twitter] is about thoughtful pieces and opinions you want to put out, [Facebook] is about how or what you are doing today."

There's also a danger for Facebook in moving into Twitter territory. Facebook users consider their profiles private, and one of the bigger complaints about the new-look Facebook is that the pages deliver too much information.

"While there is a lot of overlap of audiences, they really are different groups," Mr. Rubel said. "A big reason for that is [Facebook] offers a level of privacy Twitter doesn't offer."

Just how many of Facebook's 100 million-odd users want their feeds hijacked by the Twitterati? "I would suggest some do and some don't," said Floyd Hayes, creative director of marketing firm Cunning.

As of last week, more than 800,000 Facebook users had weighed in on the new design, nearly all voting "thumbs down." A sample comment: "Frustrating to navigate. If I wanted Twitter I'd go there!"

An Evolution of Online Chat: Microchatting

Wikipedia defines chat as "any kind of communication over the Internet, but is primarily meant to refer to direct one-on-one chat or text-based group chat (formally also known as synchronous conferencing)." I still know of people who herald back to the days where IRC was very popular, long before social networking took off here in the Philippines. I wasn't a chatter during that time, and I never really got into IRC, not even after my young online friends from Davao tried to teach me how to work it.

My first foray into group chat was in "special interest" websites where netizens of a common interest, usually sexual in nature, all convene into chat rooms to talk to other people they normally wouldn't casually meet in the real world. Chatters liked the option for anonymity and the ability to maintain a totally separate online persona vs. their real selves in the real world. That's also where my online nick kuya_law was born. Some, me included, would choose to keep it real and bridge their online world with the real one thru eyeball (EB) meet-ups. Chat allowed me to expand my social circle way beyond what it was before. I have a number of good friends today that I initially met thru chat.

Then instant messengers came along -- Yahoo Messenger, the gold standard for Filipinos. But they were there for a different purpose: primarily private one-on-one chatting. It usually complements chatrooms when you want to take the conversation private. Another plus was permanence -- you can go back to talk to someone you've been chatting with before. And know if they were online or not.

Wikipedia clears, " It is important to understand that what separates chat and instant messaging from technologies such as e-mail is the perceived synchronicity of the communication by the user - Chat happens in real-time."

That's the thing about chat: because it's real time, you need to be online when others are. It starts becoming an effort having to spend a lot of time online trying to catch meaningful conversation (Meaningful as defined differently by different people). It can become an addiction. And it caters mostly to those who do have a lot of time to spend online. Not for your average netizen.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have blogs, social networks and forums where netizens post thoughts, opinions and sentiments that is less time-bound. You post whenever you can or want to, you read whenever you can or want to, and you react at your own pace. And there is a permanence to the exchange that extends the life of the conversation, but at the same time doesn't have the energy and "now-ness" of real-time exchange as chat.

Enter mobile integration and the concept of microblogging. 

Microblogging, as defined by Wikipedia is "a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web."

It wasn't Twitter that brought microblogging into the Philippines. It was Facebook that started it here, with its Status updates function. Before we all knew it, a lot of netizens developed this compulsion to update their status on Facebook more and more often. It also became a quick way to share content: pics, videos, music, links -- whatever netizens found online. And you didn't need to be verbose about it, unlike maintaining a real blog.

But the real charm of microblogging was that it encouraged what I call microchatting -- unexpected snippets of conversation that revolve around topics started by simple questions: "What are you doing right now?" or the new Facebook's "What's on your mind?" Suddenly public chat is initiated not by a chatroom or forum topic, but by anyone sharing anything that piques the interest of others. These threads can end after two entries, or it can continue to be 50-100 posts long.

In microchatting, the new currency is how interesting your status update is. Junk updates can get you unfollowed. Interesting updates can get you fans or followers. In Plurk, this is coined as karma. My friends who have started complaining about Facebook's new layout have not realized that Facebook has seen this trend and have responded to it. Your News Feed thread becomes hot real estate and friends who dump junk on it can be dropped. That's the point.

Now about Plurk:

Wikipedia writes: Plurk is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as plurks) through short messages or links, which can be up to 140 text characters in length. Plurk was developed by and envisioned as a communication medium meant to form a balance between blogs and social networks, and between e-mail messaging and instant messaging.

I never started on Twitter. Maybe it's like my aversion to Friendster. It became too popular and mainstream before I got into it. And I didnt understand the value of stalking people as was the selling point of Twitter back then. Then I read about Plurk and was curious enough to check it out. One week in and I think I'm a new Plurk addict. Now, when I go online, I have to keep open four browser tabs automatically: my Facebook, my Multiply, my Blogger, and now my Plurk.

Things I like about Plurk (without the benefit of being familiar with Twitter):

1. You can stumble upon total strangers who are interesting because of what they microblog about. (a benefit you used to get from online chat).

2. You have the onus to start interesting conversations by posting something revealing, interesting or controversial.

3. You can update your Facebook status automatically because of integration. (Multiply, Twitter, and other online spaces too if you want or need)

4. It goes beyond just status messages. You can Plurk photos, videos & links. (Similar to Facebook)

5. Karma rewards better microbloggers with more functionality and options. I think this is genius.

I'm still new in this microblogging thing. But I think it's here to stay. Time will tell.

From Adage Digital: Data Visualization Is Reinventing Online Storytelling

When I first saw that Visa ad, I thought it was cool. But it's part of a new trend of being able to visualize data in a meaningful way. This is driven by the information explosion and overload happening because of the internet.

It reminds me of a big part of my work as a strategist and a client services person. We have the task of sifting thru, consolidating, and making meaning out of information --whether it's consumer insight, or a bunch of metrics -- and being able to present it in a meaningful way to sell an idea. It's a big part of ideation (related to my previous trackback post) -- discovering new connections between available and relevant information.

Technology allowing us to see data in a new way. How cool is that. 

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Data Visualization Is Reinventing Online Storytelling

And Building Brands in Bits and Bytes

Posted by Garrick Schmitt on 03.19.09 @ 09:30 AM

Garrick Schmitt

Today's consumer seems to have an insatiable appetite for information, but until recently making sense of all of that raw data was too daunting for most. Enter the new "visual scientists" who are turning bits and bytes of data -- once purely the domain of mathematicians and coders -- into stories for our digital age.

Maybe it was the way CNN's John King made sense of the minutiae of delegate data from this past year's election on a giant touch screen, or how Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight parsed polling data -- either way the art of "data visualization" has exploded recently and it is fundamentally changing the way we create and consume narratives about events, products and services.

Google has built a pretty good brand and business off of organizing the world's information, of course. Through its Search, Maps, Trends and Zeitgeist products (to name just a few), Google makes data more accessible to consumers in a meaningful way, all with an eye towards advertising on every byte of it. Google has even -- literally -- pursued this data route to Mars, and has scaled to the moon, sky and ocean, albeit the opportunity for advertising on these newer services is a bit murkier.

Now the mainstream is starting to follow suit:

Publishers: The New York Times, which has always done stunning infographic work, is helping to push data visualization to a mass audience with its "Visualization Lab." The service, created in partnership with IBM, allows users to create visual representations of all sorts of information, such as charts, graphs and maps, and then share and comment. Similarly, the Economist employs data visualization to graphically represent an ongoing conversation as part of its "Debate" series, which enables the user to track the developments and change in sentiment on a daily basis.

Advertisers: Visa, as part of its new "Go" campaign, is integrating data into its advertising. The "Go" microsite features seemingly random bits of data (16,438 people in Paris smiling back at the Mona Lisa) that the user can explore to see how Visa is "helping more people go places and do things." Similarly, the banner ads feature live video streamed from cities (such as Times Square in New York) around the world that show people "going" and utilizes similar data.

Products: Flickr, the online photo-sharing service from Yahoo, just recently released theFlickr Clock a browser -- and very nifty advertisement, actually -- that showcases the videos that users are now able to upload to the site. The videos are graphically displayed in a scrolling timeline that the user controls.

Agencies: The Flickr project was created by Stamen Design, a small San Francisco design studio that has been behind some of the most impressive work in the infographic space. The firm has created the SFMOMA ArtScope project which is a completely interactive and visual browsing tool that makes browsing the 3,500 objects from the museum both immersive and entertaining. The firm also created Oakland Crimespotting, a service that elegantly -- and frighteningly -- maps crimes occurring across the city and enables users to sort through the data in a personally meaningful way (e.g. block-by-block).

Artists: The rock band Radiohead is working to turn data visualization into an art form with its music video, "House of Cards." Using neither cameras nor lights, the band employed two technologies called Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR to capture 3D data and transform it into a series of stunning images. Radiohead recently opened up the data to the world, in partnership with Google, to remix.

All of this data visualization is, of course, really just a new way to tell stories (or create experiences) out of the very base matter of the web itself. Data visualization is probably not a foreign concept for anyone familiar with the work of information-design pioneer Professor Edward Tufte, but it's the advances in technology at the presentation layer and the new found ability to tap into once hidden data sources that is enabling these new visual scientists to chart a new narrative course.

Now there are two questions that all advertisers, publishers and agencies need to ask of themselves: "What data do you have that is truly valuable?" and "How can you create a meaningful experience or narrative out of it?" The answers, we may find, will become the catalyst for a more authentic way to tell stories in our digital era.

~ ~ ~
Garrick Schmitt is group VP-experience planning at Razorfish and the agency's global lead for User Experience. He publishes FEED, Razorfish's annual consumer experience report, and writes and edits the Razorfish Digital Design Blog. In his spare time he flails about on Twitter @gschmitt. The New York Times, CNN, The Economist and Visa are Razorfish clients.

From Adage Digital: A New Policy for Internet Use in the Workplace

I agree with the sentiments of this article. I believe the measure of a good employee is in the RESULTS of his work, not how much time he spends in the office, or how well he follows office rules.

My work requires me and my staff to be constantly exploring online to see what's new and what's happening. Being on Facebook and Multiply is part of my work. But if I don't translate that into good work output, then I'm not doing my job.

What are your thoughts?

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A New Policy for Internet Use in the Workplace

My Position: I Don't Care What You Do on the Web

Posted by Phil Johnson on 03.16.09 @ 01:46 PM

Phil Johnson

PJA recently completed a major office renovation to unify a number of disparate spaces that we have added over the years. In the process, we carefully considered how we wanted people to work and what kind of culture we wanted to create. A big part of the design was to trade personal space for collaborative work areas and places to socialize. While we've always had an open floor plan, we took the final step and got rid of all private offices, with the exception of one for our finance director. Whatever remnants we had of private space are now completely gone. People adjusted quickly with relatively little drama. Tearing down the walls, however, has produced one unexpected result.

Today, when you take a walk around the office, you can see exactly what people are doing online. We're talking zero computer privacy, and it has created some uncomfortable moments. Approach someone's desk, and you may notice a few quick keystrokes, the blink of a Facebook page, and an awkward smile. God bless Tony Zappos, but we've got compulsive shoe buyers around here, male and female. (You'd think our reception desk was a Zappos loading dock.) Other big online winners include, in no particular order, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Twitter, and a couple hundred blogs. That's not to mention solitaire, Sudoku, and the occasional glimpse of medieval battles on "WOW" in the IT department. We're talking epidemic levels of surfing.

The whole thing puts me on the spot and creates a real conundrum. Understandably, people don't want me watching their online shopping habits, and in this economy who wants to be seen goofing off? You've got to admit, I have a legitimate concern about productivity. So, I decided to take action. While I'm not big on rules and regulations, I absolutely felt the need to set up guidelines for the agency on acceptable internet use.

After some deliberation, I arrived at a policy that works for me. It's short, it's direct, and it's very hard to misinterpret. I don't care what you do on the internet. (O.K. no porn, fundraising for terrorists, and online scams.) I'm not a babysitter, and we're all responsible adults, for the most part. Plus, nothing will kill creative energy and a spirit of collaboration faster than distrust and paranoia. My message to all of my colleagues is this: Please don't hide what you're doing online. No one cares. In fact, if you've found some cool application or content, definitely share it.

As an agency, we encourage people to follow new technologies and experiment with social networks. I can't exactly talk out of both sides of my mouth and limit that exploration during business hours. Who cares if a few pairs of shoes and some books get ordered in the process? Big deal. I'm glad that we've got people who understand and use all the platforms that make up the new marketing landscape.

This topic also ties into two strongly held management convictions. One, we've done everything we can to assemble the most talented people we can find. We care intensely about the quality of their values, their ideas, and their work. As long as we honor our commitments to our clients and each other, how and when people get stuff done is their business. Second, we live in a world that is always on. People don't shut off when they walk out the door. Their curiosity and life experiences all contribute to the success of the agency. We want to respect that spirit in the office as well.

Let's keep internet surfing out in the open to the degree that it's reasonable. Please don't flip to that Word document just because I show up. Who knows? I may see a pair of shoes on Zappos that I want. More importantly, remember the pendulum swings both ways. Don't be too harsh if you see me posting to Twitter or slipping in a few games of FreeCell.

~ ~ ~
You can follow Phil Johnson on Twitter: @philjohnson. 

Trackback: What's an Idea?

Previously posted on http://practicalmagician.spaces.live.com last 24 September 2006.

When do you know that you have a new idea that is your own? Are there really unique ideas? Or have all ideas already been thought of and it's just a matter of you picking it up? Or is it combining different ideas to come up with a new one?

 

This weekend, I had to take part in the creative brainstorming for my team. I was really diappointed to see everyone becoming too logical and too linear to come up with breakthrough ideas. I learned from our idea generation workshop that creativity is the ability to see relationships & patters, and make unfamiliar combinations & connections. My take-away from this is that, yes there are no real new ideas, BUT you have to be able to find new connections between usual things -- not so logical, not so obvious. Yes, it's the role of Accounts to inspire Creatives with a good brief, be able answer their questions on the brand, product, target market and strategy... but not to spoon-feed them with creative ideas. That's sad.

 

Then there's a question of if was someone else who you didn't work with while understanding the brand, understanding the market, coming up with the strategy, proposition and creative idea, but later found out you both had the same creative idea... does that make you less creative? Or does that just validate that you both had the same great idea?

 

When does practical magic become less magical and just practical? If you had two magicians who came up with the same magic trick, does that make you less of a great magician? Or is it in the presentation that will be the judge? on who is the greater one?

 

More questions.. less answers. :(