Where does the agency end, and the crowd begin?
3rd February 10
Posted in business models, crowdsourcing
Photo: Dunechaser, Flickr, http://j.mp/c6kd2o
I went to the ‘Crowdsourcery Potions 101′ event at JWT yesterday as part of Social Media Week in NYC. Not so sure about the event name, but the content was great, and the panel line up was genuinely stellar.
We watched John Winsor (Victors & Spoils Founder) lead a discussion that featured Ty Montague (Co-President & CCO, JWT North America), Saneel Radia (Alchemist / Chief Potion Master, Denuo), Michael Lebowitz (Founder & CEO, Big Spaceship) and the inimitable Faris Yakob (Chief Technology Dude, McCann NY).
Thanks to the appliance of science, the whole thing is viewable at the bottom of this post, on video. Lots of useful, practical discussion around the kind of cultures, systems, and processes that would enable new forms of creative collaboration. I particularly liked the metaphor of ‘scaffolding’: the structures that are required for successful collaboration efforts (the filters, the creative direction, the incentive model, the access requirements, and so on).
Anyway, I was struck by one area of the debate in particular, and I’ve been reflecting on that since. There were a number of observations about how business models (around agencies, and how they construct themselves, most specifically) were being challenged, and indeed how the definition of what constituted ‘the agency’ was evolving rapidly in new and interesting ways.
As Ty Montague suggested, ‘we’re on the verge of a remaking of business and what a company is’. Bold and exciting words from the leader of one of the largest and most powerful agencies around. In particular, Ty was talking about a point John Winsor had made just a moment before, around the idea that the distinction between JWT and *beyond JWT* was blurring, and would continue to blur. As creative businesses continue to experiment with new models of creative collaboration, and explore different approaches to maintaining a creative arsenal comprising the highest quality individuals and partners, it is inevitable that which was once almost wholly contained within an agency will become, to some extent, located outside the formal confines of that business.
Creative agencies need to move towards becoming permeable organizations. Those in networks need to be reconfigured as networked organizations versus simply organizations within networks. Creative business must be able to draw on not just the talent within the building, but the many skills and areas of expertise that lie beyond those walls. And they need to be able to draw on this external resource. Like immediately. Certainly within BBH Labs we believe this is the *only* way the future can look; and of course it comes with challenges.
For us (probably like many, I’m in no way suggesting we’re unique here), this means building and curating a broader group of people and companies with whom we create and produce ideas, and of course, we’re busy doing just that. It was an ex-CEO of Sun Microsystems who once said, ‘no matter where you work, most of the smart people work somewhere else’. Whilst challenging to orthodoxy, there’s definitely something in that.
Back to Crowdsourcery Potions . . . Ty was hinting that one logical manifestation of this philosophy would be the formation of a broader pool of potential creative collaborators, perhaps more akin to the curated creative group put together by the team at Victors & Spoils. I also sometimes think the Alessi example is helpful here. Alessi occasionally put together hand-picked ‘crowds’ outside their company to help them on specific projects. So for example, on their program to create new ‘postmodern’ style product designs, they curated an invite-only ‘crowd of around 200 postmodern architects to submit work. This seems smart. It also signals a potential way forward for agencies looking to innovate new modes of creative collaboration.
But it also raises what for me is *the big question*. In fact, two related sets of questions.
1. CULTURE: If the culture of an organization is one of the key elements of differentiation between one agency and another, when does the definition of an agency blur to the point of intangibility? When does JWT (or BBH, or Victors & Spoils, or IDEO for that matter) cease to be JWT? When does JWT become Victors & Spoils? When does it simply become a set of senior and experienced curators of skills, talent and partnerships? And does this matter, if it does happen?
2. INCENTIVES: What kinds of models are right for incentivizing the crowd? If the model of the future is going to involve fluid boundaries between ‘working for’ and ‘working with’, what does that mean for how people are incentivized? Not just in the crowd outside the agency, but within the crowd inside the agency? And linked to the first point, what value does one place on the cultural DNA found within agencies (which surely *must* have a commercial value) versus the more flexible and emerging skills found outside?
Early days, but exciting days.
All ideas, challenges, thoughts or builds welcome.
—-
Notes
For more coverage of the debate check out Jonny Makkar’s (@jsmakr) neat summary blog post here, Faris’s here, or John Winsor’s short but kinda sweet piece here.
For more on the critically important role of culture, see Grant McCracken’s excellent and provocative new book: “Chief Culture Officer: How to create a living breathing corporation“.
46 comments on “Where does the agency end, and the crowd begin?”
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Ben Malbon
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by LenKendall: RT @BBHLabs: ‘Where Does The Agency End, & The Crowd Begin?’ – http://j.mp/cjfboe...
A few smart comments on video. Ty: CS is still young. Faris: wisdom of crowd is not always wisdom. Michael: hard to crowdsource teamwork. And, of course, Jaron Lanier reinforces the idea that the web, open source, crowdsourcing, etc. diminishes the value of the great creator: the person who invents an iPhone, or can create a Google Chrome ad. But despite all of that there are some inevitable truths. (In addition to your belief in and conviction that you have to expand your work force to external communities if you are to find the best of the best, since they can’t all work at BBH.) But there is also this: the consumer has become a creator as much as an audience member. We can’t stop them. So why not embrace it. Two, while there is clearly a level of quality that we, in the business, all aspire to, we are in the midst of the good enough revolution for sure. Content is valued as much for speed, accessibility, portability as for polish and production. And finally, there is an economic advantage to crowdsource. Yes some models are exploitive, but others work well. And people want to participate. Look at http://thenextgreatgeneration.com It works perfectly as a crowdsourced model. It grows weekly in traffic and participation. And there is no other way in which it could be created. It may not be a Big Spaceship level of digital creativity, but it’s cool for what it is. And CS is the best and only way to create it. It costs nothing and there is value to all participants. Crowdsourcing is here to stay. It’s a great opportunity. The challenge is how to best apply it and make it work for both sides.
Thanks for your comments Edward, and your usual crop of good ideas + builds.
I’m struck by your positivity. Much of the discourse around crowdsourcing is weighted negatively. It’s true some models (maybe even ‘many’ models) are exploitative, but as you highlight, some are just emerging now that are beginning to play with how to reward participants properly (even if not winners) and how to inject higher levels of quality control and creative filtering.
I think the smartest people are quietly getting on with looking at how it might work to benefit of all concerned. Those will be the long-term winners.
Very interesting conversation.
I have to ask… what’s the impetus?
Is it the realization that consumers are no longer simply consumers?
Or is it cost-driven?
It’s no secret that almost all traditional agencies survive through lean times and busy times on the backs of a strong freelance workforce – it’s easy to imagine that this reliance on cheap, transient labor has given the agency the sweet tooth.
Agencies overcharge for the wrong work, clients won’t pay for the right work – so much of this seems driven by those facts.
I’m more excited by a talented, passionate, and interested pool of fans than anyone else – and I believe that we have to learn to tap their creative energies in lots of ways, not just what pixels they can push, but I think the idea is only being paid lip service by most agencies right now because it’s being driven by downward pressure on profits.
That’s why the brand has to be the leader. Sorry. But the brand needs to feel that gnawing sensation in their stomach, and they need to learn how to engage people once again. This is a connection that can’t be left solely to the agency. If it is, the intelligence and the insight won’t be preserved or processed.
Good question re impetus. I think the answer to that is ‘better work’/thinking/ideas’. If you accept that every problem is unique, then surely a unique blend of new/different skills/people will produce something better than the fixed (slowly regressing) ‘creative agency team’?
Great comment Bud. Agree.
I think that only when a brand / agency team is prepared to come out and suggest that the process cost them *more*, but the results were *better* will we really see this take root in marketing services businesses.
For example, I’d be intrigued to hear Unilever talk about successes and failures of the Peperami experiment (http://j.mp/dyMwuS).
Ben, I’m happy that you’ve invited any challenges, thoughts, etc., while I agree with most of what you’re saying in the post, I really want to respond the the video.
Mixed emotions on that…I feel great that there’s so much new awareness around crowdsourcing. Faris, Ty, John, Michael, Saneel, thanks for taking the time to sit on this panel. On one hand there were some really insightful comments-especially Faris’ acceptance of market and economic forces and John’s understanding of scarcity and abundance. That, IMHO, is the engine driving this movement.
On the other hand, I’m discouraged by how much opposition there still is to letting people in behind the creativity curtain. Creativity is commoditized, always has been and always will. It’s just that the commodities market has finally begun to function via the web. Which is why I think that the Picasso’s napkin story isn’t especially relevant in trying to argue against this new production model (I’m hesitant to say the CS word as it’s really being thrown around loosely as of late). The $10,000 price tag was developed after a career of being Picasso…absolutely…and that’s what price the market put on it. There was a fixed number of possible works of art by Picasso and an unlimited amount of dollars chasing that art. So, that’s what the napkin was worth.
But, now there are a lot more budding Picassos with a lot more tools to evolve into artists and we can begin to facilitate their development. And now, people are actually opting in to this type of work and when they stop opting in, they stop opting in…So why should we shut them out now? They’re never going to be a threat to the “best” until they become the best, the process of which has simply become more democratic and market driven.
To put this into perspective, Wolfgang Puck could cook you a steak at his restaurant, and you would pay more for it than if you had wandered into an Outback and ordered the same thing. But, not that much more…and he spent an entire lifetime becoming Wolfgang Puck. There’s a mature market for steaks, I think that the market for creativity will eventually follow. Most importantly, I don’t think that Wolfgang is threatened when I cook a steak.
(I think) my point is that the price of creativity was too high, which is why this new market is scary, exciting, has limitless possibilities and has everyone talking. This new type of workforce, at the moment, is poised to level the playing field across all types of creativity. For too long, too few people had too much work and the work was costing too much until technology (necessity is the mother of invention) stepped in and made things accessible to everyone–just like John Winsor’s typesetting machine.
Lower costs + more need for work = more work and more people working. Who is that a bad thing for?
Thanks James. Challenging stuff. Making my head hurt just trying to think through the ramifications.
Not sure I agree with this statement, but I think I know what you’re getting at, as you explain through the latter half of the comment:
“Creativity is commoditized, always has been and always will be.”
James’ comment seems to perfectly flow after my question…
Thinking about your two questions and ‘incentive’ and ‘culture’ in the agency model of the future, there’s an interesting book called Total Engagement which came out last year which proposes that employee models have a lot to learn from gaming, specifically co-operative gaming like World of Warcraft…
For instance, at the incentive level, you may have a a set of levels, power-ups, badges and the like that are earned through work undertaken for the agency. You’d perhaps base the metrics on things like ‘objectives hit, client satisfaction, cultural resonance’ and the like. Or just award points for the winners as picked by client/BBH.
We know a community like ours will buy into the ‘badges/levels’ (we’re the only ones playing FourSquare in London so far it seems…), and it offers further incentive beyond the purely financial, it allows the agency to identify where the best work is coming from, and it gives the ‘players’ an incentive to keep coming back…
…so they can tell their friends in the pub they’re a level five BBH Mage or whatever.
What does that do to culture though?
I wonder if it would exist on two levels; the macro culture would be the equivalent of the Blizzard guys who make Warcraft. They define the boundaries of the world, the missions to be undertaken… the ‘scaffolding’, as you put it.
And then under that, the micro-culture will be similar to that of ‘Guilds’ – groups of players who self-organise to crack the mission. And defining their culture within that world is their business (as, to be honest, it always has been with good teams within larger organisations).
Where does the differentiation come from though (assuming others followed suit)?
Well, in the same way the MMORPGS have their own culture, and attract different types of folk, who then get very tribal about their allegiance, I guess the same might happen, depending on the way you set the ‘game’ up.
Something like ‘Idea Bounty’, because it’s new, has to build the community culture from scratch. A JWT, McCann or BBH has got a defining culture to put in there straight away, and the pull to attract the best players from the off.
Anyway, I’ve gone on a little… but yeah, as Omar says; ‘it’s all in the game’…
Love this idea, mainly because it makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. My hunch is that our industry would loath the idea of comparative point scoring (wrap it up in groovy game terminology – badges etc – if you like, but that’s what this: a professional rating system). Our industry prefers the behind-closed-doors, smoke and mirrors of awards juries made up of our peers…
Exactly as James says above, there is a ‘creative curtain’ .
I wonder if it’s going to take an entirely new generation of people to feel comfortable with a much more radical, open approach. It is much easier to create new neural pathways in fresh young brains than it is to unmake old ones
This touches on something broader (beyond our industry, more a cultural thing) I’ve got half-written in my head about how reputations are built and destroyed in future, when technology enables us to know everything about a person within seconds of knowing their name. Apply something tangible like the ‘whuffie’ currency and bio-tech in Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom – the former now available in ‘real’ life here, of course: http://www.thewhuffiebank.org/ – and it starts to feel at once exciting and more than slightly creepy.
More on this to follow..
Yep, we’re not an industry that would favour the cut & dried vote count vs the hidden jury… it’s easier to take losing when there’s a jury involved I guess, as you don’t know why you lost (or can deny it).
I wonder if there’s a way to soften the impact to make it more palatable… much in the way that there’s background ‘point scoring’ at play in the likes of twitter (followers, retweets, number of lists etc). Not overt & formalised, but enough at a glance to get a good feel for someone…
…which I guess then becomes part of your ‘reputation’ that everyone can see instantly, as you point out.
But rather than twitter just rating the things you say, I wonder if there are background metrics that can pick up the things you do, and the work you create?
RE: Incentive Models
There’s a very interesting academic paper on the incentives of the Threadless community, by Daren C. Brabham, “Moving the Crowd at Threadless” (PDF), which is worth a read.
I used it for my post a couple months ago Crowdsourcing: What’s My Motivation? If you’re only considering monetary or reputation-related rewards, you’re thinking too narrowly.
My hunch is that the big leap into creative crowdsourcing won’t come from traditional agencies themselves, but from completely new startups.
Whether a scientific, technological, cultural or creative revolution, the impetus to change hardly ever comes from the establishment as they already have vested interests in the status quo. It’s not until something new comes along and really threatens that status quo that they make any significant changes, and usually too late.
But whether the likes of 99Designs, Crowdspring etc will ever take on the mighty agencies remains to be seen…
Jim I think you’re right, but I think (maybe I hope too) that splinter cells within the larger organizations will start to experiment, taking their future fortunes into their own hands a little. We’ll see.
Great discussion guys! This is a subject very close to my heart.
We are set to launch a London based ‘Hybrid Agency’ on March 8th which we believe goes a good distance to answering many of the questions raised regarding incentivisation, exploitation and client interface and value. It’s been in research for a year now. We retain the trusted agency touch points for our clients and we incorporate a validated remote creative department ranging from Directors to Product Designers to Creative Technologist (and lots in between). In a digital social realm your content(conversation) has to be credibly shared. The more culturally grounded it is, the more this happens in our view. Art directors and copy writers are nowhere nears as relevant in this fragmented space. They need to be augmented with a far wider skill base. Having this in house is financially not possible.
At our in house core we have a range of backgrounds, from traditional agency to cutting edge experiential. It’s our opinion that in a new habitat you require new species. Once an entity is in existence it can adapt, but to evolve it has to die and look to create progeny with new favorable traits. Of course they’ll be transitions, but to excel you need a new animal with new behaviors.
Interestingly I spoke with Edward Boches back in October last year, since I felt of all the trad agency people he was a guy who was prepared to embrace change as an opportunity and not a threat. Without serving up too much cyber-sycophancy, he totally ‘gets it’. Then in November we saw the V&S guys become the first hybrid to stake a claim in the new landscape. Good on them for making the early steps, they’ve certainly got the pedigree. A lot of their model we agree with but there are some elements of fundamental difference between our offerings based around the notion of ‘competition’. Our creative is a selected, limited, ‘walled garden’ of talent. These highly skilled individuals don’t want to feel part of a competition since it can appear to devalue their very focused efforts. Similarly the idea of status upgrades and ‘badges’ was strongly rejected for much the same reasons.
I’m not sure exactly how V&S work collectively too, so no doubt they’ll be further differences which we can each learn from.
One thing is for sure; these are exciting times and it’s only going in one direction. Our aim is to grab the collective intelligence zeitgeist and apply it to the meaningful engagement of consumers, not by interruption, but by function and fun.
But as always the proof is in the pudding…..and there are a lot of people to feed!
First, the name – we failed to get enough feedback, I guess. Toby and I put it out there to suggest that CS still feels like magic and not many people understand why it works really well sometimes and fails in other cases.
On what/how the crowd contributs – We (Mutopo) have been using the scaffolding concept for a few months to talk about what organizations can do to help the crowd. Often the focus is too much on what the crowd can do for organizations when I think CS requires that organizations first do something of value for the crowd. Also I think the creative discussion is far too narrow, since the crowd can do so much of value beyond competing with freelance creative talent. In our the SMW CS session on San Fran, mySQL CEO, Marten Mickos talked about value from all contributions including the very negative and the seemingly very small. From my research this seems to be a part of successful CS implementations – making every potential contribution count. A little more on that in this deck http://www.slideshare.net/mutopo/causing-more-mass-collaboration
On organizations – I had the good fortune to spend a morning with Sir John as part of a Berlin School session last year. During a Q&A session, I asked him what he would do differently if he started BBH today and he described what he called a “club”. In this club members would be free to do their own projects and then would come together for larger, more complex work. Why call this out? As you point out, the thinking has been around for a while about where the edges of the organization might be and how agency structures might, but making successful change to existing organizations is hard. Ok its very very very hard. My sense is that if organizational structure and business models were seen as creative work (I seem them this way), more people would be open to experimenting the way they do with traditionally defined creative work.
Finally, lots of people are placing bets on new organization structures – I think this gets lost in the CS discussion. What is the right level or form of compensation? I dont know. How many people in the club? What do you need to do to become a member? How do they work together. Still dont know, but some new structures seem to be working (from the client and the creative perspective). I recently invested in http://www.jovoto.com because they have an original approach to the crowd by encouraging them to interact and reward one another independent of what clients decide. Similarly V&S is experimenting with all manner of approaches and they are having success (where success = learning + winning new business). If they can do great work at 1/3 the cost of what it takes to do today, other agencies will have to respond. Is it fair? I hate this question. Is it fair that manufacturing jobs move to China or IT jobs to India? I dont know, but I do know this change killed off lots of US and European businesses because they didnt adapt.
Finally had an opportunity to chat more with John Winsor yesterday and touch on some of these issues, too. On his blog http://www.johnwinsor.com/my_weblog/2010/02/from-scarcity-to-abundance-part-2.html
I love this conversation.
I’m a firm believer in a totally permeable culture, in fact so much so, I’ve set up my own in the form of a production company that has an entirely freelance workforce. The model is very nimble, very lean, but extremely responsive to the needs of agencies looking to tap into great talent.
My main interest is to work with the best and most tried and trusted people, regardless of the communication medium, technology, or platform. The pace of change – especially with digital technology – has reached such a fast pace that not even the largest and most high-tech digital agencies can truly keep up with skills to offer the most value to their clients. They simply can’t hire fast enough to stay ahead of the curve. Freelance specialists are the way ahead, or at least one of the paths.
Going back to the question of culture, I don’t believe that agencies have a monopoly on this or ever have. Despite every agency’s claim that they have a set of core values they uphold and measure themselves against, the reality of culture often rests with a few people within any agency, and they’re not always the ones defining the values.
I believe there is another culture that underpins all these agencies, and this is driven by a few great people who exemplify this culture through a combination of original thinking, subtle repurposing of old ideas, proactive collaboration, professionalism, a passion for learning and a genuine joy of creating great work regardless of their skillset.
To be in the presence of someone who embodies all these cultural traits is what incentivises me to work with them, regardless of who they work for. Agencies have shown me what this DNA can look like, but they don’t own this, it’s the great people who pass through agencies that quite literally own it.
Not trying to plug my product in, but this post is perfectly matched to Skillbasket !
Our system works in a way that hopefully should engender this Agency+Crowd:Interesting Projects movement; A place where gainful engagements can happen amongst people and smaller companies in a structured framework of best practice, which hopefully incentivates freelancing, flexible and fractional working making it easier for great skills to come on the radar.
Anyone can create a job and seek the most interesting people to help on it and/or participate with their skills on someone elses project. This, in theory at least will also bring interesting projects and skills online.
I believe you don’t need hundreds of people working on one project or task when you have the right crew, but you will need to wade through hundreds of candidates and their ideas before pulling the best on board. So the question in this paradigm is how can that process be streamlined.
If it’s an online focus group you need then Crowdsourcing probably will work well. However if it’s a job and it requires the structure, discipline and steer of a commited person/team you’re probably better off Folksourcing.
(NB Sb is still in early development stage, so there really is nothing to buy here, I’m just passionate about this very topic!)
[...] to be reconfigured as networked organizations versus simply organizations within networks.” Great post on BBH Labs This entry was posted in Social Web, Trends, agency and tagged crowdsourcing. Bookmark the [...]
Having previously worked on the agency side and for the past few years being independent, there are definitely perspectives from both sides to this that one can agree with or argue against, and I’m not sure which is right or wrong. Although, I definitely agree with some of Mike’s comments regarding the commoditizing of services, and the Picasso story that relates to value.
By executing against the Crowdsourcing model, the benefits are obvious. You’re able to get a much broader range of thinking, select from those individuals with the most relevant skill set and client experience. As well as keeping a tighter reign on managing costs, overhead, and profitability.
If you’re a creative resource, you certainly have the option to participate in this “creative shootout” for maybe a nominal fee and an additional fee if your work is chosen. However, what exactly is that fee and what type of industry pricing model will it be based on? Is it a day rate that is based on the level of experience or a predetermined flat fee that’s set from the very beginning? Also, who owns the rights or intellectual property to all of the work that was submitted and not chosen?
With Crowdsourcing fees being much more competitive compared to traditional fees and rates, could it eventually undervalue the efforts provided by all of those involved, firms included? Will clients expect to pay less based on this, even though they are getting a great deal more than the traditional model?
Everyone puts a certain monetary value to what they do, but as with anything that service or expertise is only worth what others are willing to pay. Will Crowdsourcing further define this?
[...] labs asks where the agency ends and the crowd begin in terms of creative and strategic development. This topic is one that touches on a lot of [...]
What an amazing conversation. I can’t express quite how I feel in words at the moment, so I drew a diagram.
“Crowdsourcing Bello Curve”
http://constructivegrumpiness.squarespace.com/storage/skitched-68.jpg
OK a few words…
1) Crowdsourcing will only help us if we can prune that crowd. I think this is essentially the model that Victory & Spoils is taking.
2) You’ll see that the work going into your efforts are high at the left and right ends of this chart. It is first hard to collect a decent number of qualified members of your “crowd.” Once you do, and the project becomes more widely know of, your work becomes hard because you sift through a higher volume of submissions. There is a perfect number that varies from project to project.
3) The quality of output degrades when the crowd swells to be too large. I agree with the points above that a broader pool of people brings a greater range of talent and skills, but the problem with having too many is that the most skilled will get overlooked or lost by the sheer mathematics of this equation.
Thanks for this Len. I particularly like your graph, of course, which I intend to borrow and use myself.
Filtering, creative direction and crowd selection are the three big levers that must be pulled in the right direction if these kind of initiatives are going to work well, and sustainably.
I completely disagree with the comment, “creativity is commoditized, always has been always will.”
Creative agencies have shifted from an exclusive, out-of-reach country club to a Gold’s Gym — they have become a commodity from a high perch of royalty and that’s why we’re having this discussion. As Godin coins in Linchpin: we are in a race to the bottom. Everything is cheaper, faster and, yes, good enough. And, once you get to the bottom, where can you go from there?
If your client’s sister’s son is constructing their website on a dime, how do you compete? Well, first you educate your client and bring them what that kid can’t — expertise, experience, thinking that will change the way that organization approaches their marketing, research, creative approach that repositions them competitively, etc., etc., etc.
And, if they don’t see your value? MOVE ON. You will need to work harder these days to find clients that appreciate your organization on a level that is beyond vendor.
How this relates to crowdsourcery is that we are all rethinking how organizations need to rejigger to be sustainable, competitive and profitable, but however nimble and open you become, you still need to build long-term relationships with clients or your future is short. This can’t happen unless you have a solid organizational structure, whatever it turns out to be. I totally agree with Ben and most of you that we need to build networked organizations vs. organizations within a network.
My point is this: as we are in this raw stage of redevelopment, look to gain the most from old models and the new ways of thinking and acting.
It can’t be helped — if you are to succeed, you still need chemistry with the core team, reliable players that can uphold the client relationship and clearly defined expectations with everyone in the mix.
Our thinking is in a paradigm shift, one that is based on possibility, the need to have no fear and the ultimate search for being and doing better. To really shake up your thinking, read James Carse’s “Finite and Infinite Games.” You will start to rethink how everything works — old and new.
Thanks for the thoughts Suzi. I’m a big fan of modes of thinking that push in the direction of “and”, not “either / or”. Totally agree that what will probably start emerging as the successful models in this space will be those approaches that bring together the best of how things have worked in the past with the best of how things might work in the future.
For me that’s about adding technology and community (via technology) to stringent control over the nature of the crowd, strong creative direction, and clear & rewarding incentives for participants.
[...] BBH Labs, a sweet future-y morsel nestled inside BBH, believes that crowdsourcing, or some kind of permeable relationship with creative talent outside the agency, is a necessity for the agency of the [...]
[...] BBH Labs, a sweet future-y morsel nestled inside BBH, believes that crowdsourcing, or some kind of permeable relationship with creative talent outside the agency, is a necessity for the agency of the [...]
[...] with user-generated ideas. I wonder if this is the type of crowdsourcing the brilliant minds at BBH were writing [...]
I think the ‘magic of crowds’ is nicer than the ‘power of crowds’ as the lingua franca for developing creative products. The industry is at an inflection point in the development of the agency business model, and I guess that’s where this debate should centre. The ad agency business hasn’t actually changed that much as a business model, if at all, since 1960. “Oh yes it has’ I hear you all cry, cos we’re all digital now. Well, that’s only proportionally true. The model of reaching consumers has evolved into multi-channel, multi-point media, and this has meant new competencies (search and so on) have evolved. But the basic creative brief premise remains the same, to develop a concept that becomes an ‘ad’. Who has the most to *unlearn* as well as to *learn* in assisting consumer perception and purchase behaviour? Opening up the model to a wide range of idea contributors is brilliant, to get to answers that make a difference to consumer behaviour or set a trend for consumer behaviour. Everybody makes claims to this effect. Putting it in practice and building an evidence base for positive crowdsourcing experiences is the challenge. IT won’t work for everybody, or for every brand. But it will work for enough of them to make the model competitive. You’re right about the incentives, though, Ben. Structuring an effective community reward system is actually the toughest job.
PS I’m offering a reward of 1 pint of continental lager for the person who spots the typos in previous comment.
I claim my pint of Stella; there is a different form of speech mark after the phrase “oh yes it has” than at the start.
Thanks for the thoughts Alastair. All good food for thought.
You missed the IT should be It. So that’s a half of Stella for you
[...] [Links] what consumes me, bud caddell Tim Malbon at Made By Many thinks we should be asking what an agile advertising agency looks like The Future of Agencies: What Do You Think? BBH Labs [...]
[...] discussion on Crowdsourcing – where it begins and ends. On BBH-Labs [...]
It’s really interesting reading this post about the infinite power of crowd sourcing and then read Julie’s Brand Twist Blog about the subject of creative environments fostering more creativity in a post titled “I Wish I Worked There.”
http://brandtwist.com/?p=2024
The crowd sourcing conversation has been dominated by getting projects produced differently by tapping a large number of people. When I think about this I think of a large number of people working out of their homes in non-creative spaces. What if the conversation was flipped and dominated by a single individual tapping a trusted but smaller crowd of confidents to tackle challenges through collective wisdom?
What if we hire an individual to work in a ‘creative space’ that fosters creativity, but instead of hiring just that one individual… we hire that person and their professional network. Right now people have references that they use when interviewing, but imagine that this group of references agrees to be available to spend micro blocks of time to work on this new hires projects. Perhaps this person is hired with an additional pool of money each year (say 5% or less of their salary) that they can use to compensate this network of people when they need help or fresh thinking on tackling projects.
Now we have a world where ad agencies are still great at providing creative spaces for creativity to foster. These spaces are filled with people who are all part of smaller professional crowd sourcing networks. Everyone is told that they have to work on their agency business but they are also given time to work on their networks business. This model will likely increase employee retention and training because they have the ability to challenge themselves on new projects and learn from their network about best practices. NDA’s and client conflicts will always be an issue in a crowd source dominated world.
I know I took some big leaps in this comment so thanks for sticking with me! I’ll leave you with one last quote on why the industry needs to take the idea of crowd sourcing seriously: “A rising tide lifts all boats” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy
People still quote Bill Bernbach because he was a leader who created a branded ideal. It took… and it scaled. I’m not sure crowdsourcing can do the same. It’s timely, ballsy and topical, but rudderless.
[...] to that of Michael Lebowitz at Big Spaceship, who may well have his idea slightly shot down in this video, but that doesn’t mean he’s [...]
Thinking about your questions re: agency brand and culture and how each are defined in a disintegrated organization, it seems like the ‘scaffolding’…considered in every detail…has the potential to become a differentiator from one agency crowd network to the next.
The filters, creative direction, quality of open dialogue, incentives, and the interface itself might all help shape and extend brand and culture, and even have the power to attract different talent to ensure quality and distinction.
Great provocation Ben. No doubt lots of stuff we all need to figure out here but it’s another place where innovation certainly wins.
Better late than never…
Puzzled about why we would like to keep the existing agency model whilst at the same time applauding the more and more socialized marketplace.
I believe that what will push the evolution of the everyday life, enhanced digitally, are people that are – like Daniel Pink points out in his book “Drive” – driven and motivated by our need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things and to do better by ourselves and our world.
Enter John Hagel´s “The Networked Creator” – which integrates at last our professional and personal identities into one primary source of meaning and fulfillment.
Joakim
Thanks for the comments, absolutely better later then never (& in any case this is a debate that’s far from finished; in fact it’s barely begun).
You ask a good question. I think the simplest answer I can think of is that the ‘existing agency models’ take longer to evolve than the technologies and opportunities around them. I imagine few forward-thinking agency CEOs would now deny the power and potential of the socialized marketplace, but many have supertanker-sized businesses (even after the last 18 months) and changing course in a supertanker takes time.
I have looked up the Nagel reference, looks fantastic; here it is for others: http://j.mp/9vxeGJ
[...] the smarties over at BBH Labs have an excellent post – Where Does the Agency End and the Crowd Begin? – that captures a recent Social Media Week conversation that featured top names in the [...]
[...] Where does the agency end, and the crowd begin? 42 comment(s) | 6061 view(s) [...]
[...] an ever-increasing backdrop of recent pieces examining crowdsourcing (here are two of our own, here and here), I wanted to dig quickly into a single thought that the book provoked in me within its [...]
[...] Where does the agency end, and the crowd begin? – [...]
I couldn’t agree more with appropriately incentivizing users.