erniesblog

Interact 2008, adotas.com, and the Cub Scouts

Most weeks when I write this column, I try to make some sort of sweeping marketing or advertising or interactive point by relating an experience I've had during the week.  This week, though, I'm up to my eyeballs with so many....um....experiences, I'm not sure one grand point is appropriate, or even doable.  So, I'll hit you with a couple of highlights:

Interact 2008 is happening Monday and Tuesday here in DC.  It should be quite cool.  Brunner Digital has a booth on the floor, and what we have planned for booth activities should be both interesting and fun for all.  If you make it to the show, please stop by.  If not, we'll have a flickr gallery up starting sometime on Monday. The link will be on brunnerdigital.com  Also, on Monday afternoon, I'm part of a panel discussion about trends in interactive employment.  In a nutshell, the outlook is probably much better than it is in lots of other businesses. I'll try to summarize things after the panel.

My newest piece for adotas.com was delivered Friday.  The editor there is usually pretty quick to get things up, so I expect it to post early in the week.  Of course, one never knows.  So you can check the front page there, or my author page at adotas.com/author/ernie-mosteller.  As usual, I have quasi-snarky things to say about parts of the advertising industry just not quite getting this whole internet thing. 

What I really want to talk about, though, is the Cub Scouts.  My son joined for the first time last week, and I went to the Pack meeting with him.  It brought back a lot of great memories.  Not only was I a Cub Scout, but I stuck with it, and made it to Eagle Scout.  Of course, that was a long time ago.  The thing that struck me, aside from nostalgia, though, is how much -- and how little -- has changed with the organization since I was a part of it.  There are new divisions, about a jillion new badges to earn, a far more "Politically Correct" atmosphere on so many different levels -- if you look closely at the details, you'll see what appears to be wholesale change in the organization.  Yet...

Yet, taken as a whole, the Cub Scouts today are essentially the same Cub Scouts I belonged to when I was in Mrs. Burr's Den 1. If you didn't know, you'd never know.

The changes in the way people communicate with and relate to brands are rapid, massive
and ongoing.  Smart brands can roll with the changes without losing their essence.  The Cub Scouts have been able to do it.  And if the Cub Scouts can....

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The value of an expert

I had to make the bun yesterday.  It wasn't pretty.

Let me explain:  Saturdays are busy around here.  Hockey, lacrosse, ballet, play dates, and whatever else materializes from the gigantic social spreadsheet that represents my children's lives.  In this maze of activity, I function well as a chauffeur.  I'm also a decent kid-food cook (peanut butter and jelly quesadillas, anyone?) I play great music on the car stereo, know all the good drive-thru places, and have been known to approve ice-cream, just because.  I'm ok assisting with hockey equipment, but just ok.  I'm quite good with lacrosse equipment, and even with passing, catching, and "hustle" tips.  But when it comes to ballet, I, thus far, have been delivery and pick-up only.  Until yesterday. Yesterday, I had to make the bun.

My five-year-old daughter's new ballet school is pretty strict.  I suppose that's a good thing, even if I do keep thinking, "She's five -- can all this possibly matter?"  It has a good reputation -- they required auditions, didn't accept many, etc.  And, unlike her previous ballet school, they're picky about ballet attire.  White tights only - a specific cut.  Spec shoes.  Street clothes to enter and exit.  And hair in the bun.  Not just a bun.  A specific bun. The bun. No embellishments, or bun-covering bun covers.  Just the official bun.  The bun is hard to do.

My wife had a meeting she couldn't miss. She gave me explicit instructions the night before on how to make the bun.  I listened.  I watched.  I thought I had it.  How hard could it be, anyway?  Way back in the day, I was good with my own ponytail.  Way back.

Things went sideways with the goop that glues the hair together.  I think I got too much.  And I know I didn't get the hair tight enough, but I was worried about giving a five-year-old a face lift that would be more appropriate for an aging Hollywood starlet.  I shouldn't have worried about that, because the tight-enough thing is an important thing.  You can't really cure it with several hundred bobby pins. Trust me on this.

When we were done, my daughter thought she looked beautiful.  So did I, but I knew it had nothing whatsoever to do with the bun.  But we were edging on late, so we headed off to class, inadvertently dropping a breadcrumb trail of bobby pins in our wake.  Upon entering, I made sure the very strict-looking ballet marm knew that my daughter had good reason to show up with a (here's an understatement) less than perfect bun -- by cracking a soft joke about how mom was busy, and I'm not great with hair, while referencing my own cue ball.  "Well, it looks better than it would if you'd shaved it," came the visibly unamused reply.

I could learn to do the bun.  I can take classes from my wife.  I'm sure there is some sort of online reference guide.  But the truth is, I don't think I'll ever be as good with the bun as an expert bun-maker.  My wife is an expert bun-maker, and it was an anomaly that she wasn't available yesterday.  This is a strong case for me out-sourcing the bun.  No matter how easy it looks, and no matter how much I study it, the bun will always be better if I don't do it.  By extension, so will my daughter's tenure in this particular ballet school.

But that's enough about ballet.  Let's talk about the web.

The web has, and has always had, a DIY spirit.  Technology has placed into the hands of everyone almost all the tools the experts use to create almost everything.  Anyone can shoot and edit video, tweak and manipulate digital photography, publish an article, build a site.  Because, like I said, almost every tool an expert would use is available to anyone. 

The operative word in the last sentence is:  Almost.

Because, to truly become an expert, it takes more than knowledge of the tools.  Knowledge helps -- a lot.  And lots of knowledge comes from experience, which is just one form of practice.  But knowledge alone won't do it.  Talent has a say, too.  A big say.  And talent is the tool that isn't available to everyone.

Frank Compton is a great creative director.  His perspective on what makes great creative, and how to put together the environment that helps it come to life is some of the most valuable insight anyone has ever given me in this business.  Frank explains his perspective on creativity with an easy-to-grasp metaphor:  Michael Jordan.  The athletic ability represented by Michael Jordan isn't just something you're born with. And it isn't just something you can attain by practicing every day.  It takes both.  Innate talent, and the application of that talent -- every day, for a long time -- to reach the highest level.

So, back to the web.  Because the tools are available, there are lots and lots -- and lots -- of people who know how to use them.  And they use them well -- or at least, according to spec.  But spec doesn't make the product great.  What makes the product great is the infusion of talent, on top of perfect mechanics.  For that, you need an expert.  And if you defer to that expert, the product will be visibly better, every time.

Because of the availability of tools, there are lots of people who know how to make stuff.  Which means there are frequent questions from many about the real value of bringing in an expert -- whether it's for design, code, content, strategy, or whatever.  My personal guess is that this has a lot to do with the newness of the tools.  As tools become easier for everyone to understand completely, it gets easier to tell who is truly an expert -- and the value of a real expert rises.  Right now, you hear lots of clients saying, "The intern can shoot, edit, and post the video."  But almost no one thinks anyone who can use a pencil is Picasso.  Pencils have been around for a long time.  It's easy to tell the Picassos.  It will be the same with the web, but it isn't, just yet.

In the meantime, if you're ever questioning the value of hiring an expert -- if you find yourself frequently thinking, "how hard could this be, anyway?"  I invite you to my house on a Saturday morning before ballet class.  Take a crack at the bun.  It's not as easy as it looks.

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What users care about

This week's post is unavoidably personal.  But it also has a significant lesson for anyone who makes any kind of communications for anybody.

Saturday afternoon, I took my son to the first session of his fall Lacrosse clinic.  He usually wears an old t-shirt under his pads, and for some reason, grabbed one of his favorites -- the one he got from The Spot, which is (or possibly, was) a locally-famous burger joint on the Seawall, in Galveston.  His choice was poignant to me, as I had just spent most of Friday night watching live feeds from Fox, CNN, the Weather Channel, and KHOU in Houston -- trying to get as much information as I could on the damage being caused by Hurricane Ike.  By the time we were ready to leave for lacrosse on Saturday afternoon, it was clear that things were looking very bad on the Island.

We moved to Northern Virgina from Galveston two years ago.  We don't own anything on the Island anymore, and haven't been back since we left.  But we have a lot of friends there, and a lot of memories -- and a sense of place that can only come from happily calling somewhere home for as long as we did.  As I write this on Sunday afternoon, it's tough to look at the few pictures and video feeds that are trickling out of Galveston proper -- tough to listen to reporters who don't know anything about the physicality or culture of the Island.  Yet, I want to see more.  I want to check on places I know, to see if they're still standing -- or to see just how high the water might have gotten in our old neighborhood.  The Island remains closed for the safety of those there, and those who will return once it re-opens. But also -- and this is just because I know and understand Galveston culture -- it's closed because Lyda Ann doesn't want the world to see the mess her Island is in -- until she can get at least part of it cleaned up.  So the press has been mostly about Houston, which also sustained significant, albeit lesser damage, and which, as the fourth largest city in the country and the home of a quarter of US gasoline production, is a more interesting tale.

It's easy for me to understand how concerned I am, and how concerned my family is, about a place where we lived just a few years ago.  We know our friends are all fine -- though many will be returning to uninhabitable houses, and all will face a tough battle to repair and rebuild.  What has struck me, though, over the past couple of days, isn't that I'm up to date on Ike and the aftermath -- but that most of the people I encounter here in Alexandria barely seem to know that it happened at all.  A hurricane in Texas just isn't on the radar here.  Not really.

There was a local news story about spiking gas prices, and some spotty coverage of the damage in Houston. The Ravens game that was to be in Houston Monday night is postponed because of Ike.  Stuff like that.  But most of the people I've encountered seem only marginally aware that such a strong storm has affected millions of people.  It's just another story on the news, if you happen to have caught the news.  I was particularly surprised that it wasn't even mentioned in church.  Usually they mention stuff like this in church.

And then it came together for me.  What I'm witnessing here in Virginia isn't the evidence of particularly clueless, or callous people.  It's simply human nature.  You care about the stuff that affects you directly, or affects those very close to you -- whether that affect is positive or negative.  For most people, "close" has a geographic connotation, but not always.  In this case, I'm an example of "not always" -- Galveston is a long way from here. 

The point is, people are concerned about whatever is immediate for them.  For people on Galveston Island right now, that's mostly about water -- getting rid of one kind, finding another kind.  For people in Alexandria today, it's the 90-plus temperature, the traffic caused by the Art Festival, the birth of a baby, the death of a relative, the upcoming election, the report due tomorrow at work, the Skins game, or any number of a bazillion things that concern individuals at any given moment -- simply because that's what concerns them at that particular moment.

Which brings me to the advertising point:

Forever -- and I mean forever, since the dawn of time in advertising -- we as creators of advertising and marketing messages have labored under the false assumption that people care what we have to say.  They don't.  They never have. Unless, that is, it has some useful purpose for them at the moment that they hear us say it.

The web hasn't increased this phenomenon -- it's simply made it more visible.

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Time to make the donuts

Time.  Did you do your time sheets?  Are the hours over for the job?  How much time is budgeted for this?

Technology has done a very good job of accelerating time.  It just doesn't take as long as it used to for just about anyone to make just about anything.  The idea of perpetual beta, or even extended release beta, not just for apps, but for communications platforms and messages, means now the job is to get it out fast, and fix it when it breaks.  Time to produce is short. Time to place is instant.  It doesn't take much time to make the donuts anymore. Except...

Except the whole advertising industry, at least as long as I've been in the advertising industry, which is a pretty long time, is built on the idea of charging for time.  But now it takes less time, which means there's less to charge for. Except...

Except agencies, especially creative ones, and creative people inside agencies -- creative or not -- have always argued against charging for time.  Argued on the basis that time is a commodity, whereas creativity and talent are not.  Most of the time, they lose that argument.

Now that things take less time, and there's less time to charge for, agencies have a choice:

They can cram more jobs into the time they have, so they have more billable time.  Or they can allow the creativity and talent they're paying for, in the form of creative and talented people, have more time to make work that isn't as much of a commodity -- allowing the agency to charge for talent, instead of charging for time.  It takes less time to make the donuts, so you can spend more time thinking up better donuts to make.

I think, more than anything an agency says about its product, the way they look at time spent on that product is the leading indicator of how much the agency values the product.  If it's a commodity to you, what makes you think it will be anything else to your clients?

Gotta run.  I'm out of time.

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