Scamp is back. For those of you not familiar with his blog (where have you been?) Scamp's place used to be the home of some great posts on the craft of creativity and also the liveliest comments section in ad land. He went quiet on us back in June in order to write a book. The book that is now launching on May 25th, and that has just become available for pre-order. If you're at all interested in becoming an ad creative, or in how creativity should work in ad land, order it now. If it's anything like the series of Tuesday Tips (like this one) he used to write it will be brilliant. To quote Scamp himself:
"it's all about what you need to know to be a successful creative, above and beyond being good at writing ads. So it's not about craft, it's about guile. It's about how to get the best out of directors, how to find the right partner, and how to sell more of your ideas to your CD"
Agile is rapidly becoming something of a fixation of mine. This week I got together with the estimable Johnnie Moore and Robert Paterson to record a podcast on agile planning and agility in business. How and why many companies need to change in order to operate effectively in the networked world. As Johnnie says, it's a "non-linear kind of conversation exploring what makes for agility in organisations and what gets in the way".
"We have to stop putting sand where we need oil, sugar where
we need petrol." JP Rangaswami
Let's face it, the recession has been a wake up call for many businesses. If it hasn't, it should've been. The key challenge for many organisations of-course is to understand how much of the damage that has been wreaked is cyclical (the result of market downturn), and how much is structural (the result of markets that have changed forever). There's something else too. Another big challenge for big business that is rarely spoken about. A quiet revolution.
When I talked about the need for big business to get a whole lot more agile in its philosophy as well as it's working practices, I linked to a Paul Graham essay in which he proposes that instead of organisational success being all about economies of scale and discipline as it has been for much of history, it is the increase in speed attainable through small groups that is beginning to trump the advantages of size. Large organisations, he says, will start to do worse now because:
"...for the first time in history they're no longer getting the best people. An ambitious kid graduating from college now doesn't want to work for a big company. They want to work for the hot startup that's rapidly growing into one. If they're really ambitious, they want to start it."
If small, smart, agile start-ups have become the most progressive places and offer the best and broadest opportunities, then they will get the best people.
The reality is that organisations are now having to appeal to an audience of potential employees with very different ambitions and expectations. In his excellent post on The Facebookisation of The Enterprise, JP Rangaswami talks about an enterprise world where the workers choose their own phone, their own laptop, their own operating system. A world where the workers' identity is independent of the company they work for, where their network of relationships describe the people that they actually spend time with, where their 'company' profile looks the same as their 'web' profile. A world where you did the job you needed to do rather than the one you were just told to do. A world where the IT, HR and Finance functions had ceded control of the device, the profile, and job description. His point is that for 'Generation M' (multimedia, multitasking, mobile generation, born post 1982) "they don't have to imagine any of this. It is how they live their lives. And if we want access to their talent, we need to change".
These are the kind of norms (for what he alternatively calls the 'Net Generation') that Don Tapscott identifies as prizing freedom, customisation, collaboration, integrity, scrutiny, speed, fun and constant innovation. These expectations are universal, as applicable to institutions and corporations as they are to life. When I began my career, it was all about joining a big corporate and working hard to steadily gain more responsibility. Now, as Paul Graham says, it's not so much about people wanting to climb the corporate ladder as about those who are growing the ladder beneath them.
What many businesses forget is that the web is empowering of individuals not organisations. In his 4A's talk, Vivaki's Rishad Tobaccowala talked about the challenge the ad industry faces in attracting the best talent. Talent, he said, is very scalable: "Companies with a disproportionate share of talent win. Industries that attract a disproportionate share of talent win…The talent we most need are builders, sculptors, painters. Folks who create and not just manage."
And yet I see, in many of the young people I meet, a generation who are very aware of the possibilities of technology because they live it every day. Who realise that the best jobs are often filled not by agencies or advertisements but by word of mouth. Who recognise that what happens when a prospective employer Googles your name is important. Who build their own value. Who interview planning directors for their blogs. Who create stuff online. Who generate online portfolios. Who present their experience in new ways. Who have a real belief that anything is possible. Who want to work for principled, purposeful companies (the kind of companies that would do this). Who want to work for the companies that do the best work. The ones that innovate. That are not afraid to change. That grow their careers and their skills as they grow. The companies that are not about status, but about being the best you can be. The companies that are not about being corporate, but about being human.
We spend a lot of time endeavouring to understand young audiences, their attitude to advertising, how they consume media, and very little time applying that understanding to help shape our organisations into desirable places for them to work. Right now, companies have the luxury of a poor jobs market but for how long? If the industry is serious about wanting to attract developers, creative technologists, the people who will build the future, I think it needs to change. This generation, far more than any before it, have the tools to take control of their own careers and their own learning, and they are doing just that. If you don't believe me, watch this:
I find the whole idea of 3D printing rather intriguing. Not least because along with free and openly available design software and affordable technology it has the potential to redefine manufacturing. Projects like Arduino, the open-source electronics prototyping platform, and Makerbot, the first sub $1000 dollar 3D printer that can produce plastic parts from digital files, hint at the kind of distributed manufacturing model that John called 'Social Production' and that I talked about here.
But this one takes the biscuit. In Pisa, Italy, Enrico Dini has developed a machine called D-Shape which sprays a magnesium-based glue onto a thin layer of sand (at a resolution of about 25 dpi) to bind it into solid rock, which can be built up, layer over layer in a process that can include internal curves, ducting and partitions.
Its worth reading the whole story over on Blueprint. As they say, the implications are massive. Digital architecture made real. Printed buildings. Technology that makes building organic, fluid, Gaudiesque-type structures much simpler.
Dini claims that his process is four times faster than conventional building, is far more cost efficient than using cement, creates very little waste and is better for the environment.
It's a story of seven years of innovation and determination, but also near bankruptcy, investors that pulled out, and a marriage that broke down. But he's now creating real structures with his machine. Good for him. That's the kind of drive and inventiveness that creates real change.
