codegent

Interesting editorial comment in this week's New Media Age. Justin Pearse talks about production outsourcing. He quotes Poke's CEO as saying there is a need for a "Soho for digital production". In other words, where the advertising industry uses specialist production houses (traditionally based in Soho) to do the post-production work on its TV ads, so the digital industry needs the same thing. This would leave the full service digital agencies (such as Codegent) to get on with the "strategy" and "creative" elements of digital projects and not get their hands dirty on the grubbier production end.

In many ways this has been going on for years with marketing agencies who profess to offer digital. For them, digital isn't their specialism, so they may employ a 'head of digital', who acts as a liason between the creative in-house team and the outsourced digital production team. Sometimes agencies will be straight with their clients, sometimes they will lie and say that they're doing it all themselves and get the outsourced agency to stay quiet. Pearse cites BBH's technical outsourcing of the entire Lynx digital work to Preloaded.

Pearse conculdes ultimately that the separation of technical expertise is too vital to a digital agency to be separated from its core operations. I would tend to agree. Digital production is so much different to video post-production, in that there isn't a distinct cut-off point between creative and technical build. In many ways, much of the creative input is as much in the technology itself as it is in the visual elements of a project.

However, as with most things, the real answer as to whether it is good to outsource or not, is: "it depends". If all you are doing is building an HTML newsletter, or e-zine, or animated gif, or even a simple microsite for a client - then why not outsource? For these things the distinction between creative and build is clear (the only one caveat would be whether the designer actually understands the medium too - as designing for print and online is about as similar as driving a bus and a sports car). But, if you need something more than a tactical digital element, then I would always go for digtal specialists every time.

Technology and what we understand about user behaviour is evolving so quickly, how can someone outsourcing ever hope to be on top of it when they aren't actually doing it? And if they don't know about it, then what sort of strategic advice can they really give their clients?

I'm writing this by only the light of my computer screen, this is my last hope. It's a dangerous thing I do putting this information into the public domain but I have no alternative, they are coming for me tonight.....

I know of two superheros which you must help to protect so they can continue to utlise their wonderous powers!  They go by the names of Antihistimine Man and Acronym Boy. 

Antihistimine Man fights against the evil chemical Histimine, his weapons are a variety of creams, sprays, tablets and injections, and his trusty sidekick Acronym Boy who can decipher any acronym known to man!  Without their talents, the world would not be as we know it.  

If you recognise them, protect them, for their fight is for good and for a better tomorrow.

There's someone coming, they're coming for me now, My God it's their evil arch enemy...... 

We love music here at codegent, there is always something playing through the speakers, and usually quite a mixed bag. ( unless Mark is in charge of the tunes :) )

So when we came across the Muxtape, we were very excited. Inspired by the mixtapes of our youth this is service where you can select 12 songs, upload them, and then share your mix with your friends. Or you can flip through the mixes others have put together. It’s a great way to discover new music, in a random way.

But it is this random approach which got in the way of the service stepping out of it niche music-nazi audience. Enter the Audience.

Members of the community have developed a serices of tools to make Muxtape so much better. MuxFind and MuxSeek have are search engines that allow you to search through all of the mixtapes available. This is the community taking something which is great, and making it better. This is the community taking control of their services, and making it what they want it to be. A similar revolution has gone on around Twitter. Companies such as TweetScan and Twhirl have developed their own businesses and services around the Twitter Tool.

This is what Web 2.0 is really about. And this is why this is why we love this thing called the internet so much.

Someone described us as a “boutique agency” the other day. I’m not sure I’m 100% happy with that description because boutique sounds like something that’s small and expensive. But the concept of working with a digital-only agency versus one that does a variety of marketing disciplines is one that people talk about a lot.

I’m going to be biased in favour of our own set-up, but my view is based on my own real experiences over many years. There are a few myths that are banded around about the benefits of one approach over the other. These are a few of them:

Going to a one-stop shop ensures joined-up thinking

I’m not saying this is the case for every agency, but what I have observed is that each agency within a so-called  'integrated' group will have its own P&L and its own interest in not sharing the love around. If one part has a budget for the year from one of their clients, they are really loathed to give it away to anyone, even if they are all part of the same group. Your DM agency is unlikely to recommend that this year you divert a larger part of your marketing budget to digital – because it will reflect badly on their own business unit’s P&L.  How do you think the excuse that you missed your targets this year is because you were bolstering the Group elsewhere going to go down?

Bigger is better

Imagine, all those experienced directors from all those marketing disciplines all thinking about my business? Er... no. I worked for a large agency where everyone tended to operate in silos. OK they were big and some of the people there were bright, but the client might have one person fresh out of University really thinking about their business. He or she may get a share of a designer and a developer, but again, experience and expertise was a real lottery. Unless you had a lot of money to spend. But please don’t ever think that in a large agency the CEO sits down on a Monday and applies his or her enormous brain to each and every one of the campaigns going out that week.

Multi-disciplined means multi-expertise

Again, not always so. A lot of agencies will offer digital because they see an opportunity to cross-sell to their existing clients. I’m talking here more of agencies whose real expertise lies in something else. This may work for a bit of an HTML newsletter here or there, or a flash microsite, but ask them about database-driven content or video delivery and watch them reach for the “I’ll get back to you on that one” excuse.  I tend to think of it like asking your plumber to build you a shelving unit. Yeah – it all kind of falls under the same broad umbrella, but really wouldn’t it be better to get a carpenter to do that?

So, if being a boutique means that we are digital specialists, that we are small enough that the senior people are able to really care about each and every one of our clients, then I guess we are that. And if a boutique means that we have some soul and passion, where the department stores recycle the same old shit just to make the figures work, then I’m happy to be a boutique agency every day of the week.

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Now is the winter of our discontent.

The digital world is an exciting place to be right now, but it’s time to get selective. Trouble is, browsing the web, it’s so easy to get distracted and go off on tangents.

My digressions used to include thoughts such as ‘how long have my trainers been so dirty’ or ‘how long have I had my umbrella up and it’s not been raining?’ Now they’re more frequently ‘how long have I spent on this website!?’

I guess Shakespeare was right when he said, ‘All the world’s online, and all the men and women merely avatars.’

I switched my ipod off last night so that I could listen to the elderly gentleman sitting on my bench at the tube station.  He was singing about Jesus.

He had a nice enough sounding voice, but it was the fact that his eyes were closed that really struck me and the serene look on his face. I watched him singing, meaning every word and I thought about updating the playlists on my ipod, but actually, maybe I just need to turn it off every once in a while, to see what else I can hear.

I know what you're thinking, but apparantly it’s not a diet, it’s a mixture of "dietary and lifestyle changes that will enable you to lose weight without the unpleasant side-effects normally associated with dieting."

What are the 'unpleasant side-effects' I wonder, putting on weight I guess.

The 'No diet' diet will change the way your body responds to food. 

Well that's great, but whilst we're at it, how about ‘No payment’ bills and ‘No hangover’ alcohol or 'No show-up' work,  then you’d really be talking!

Driving from Brighton to London, I ended up sat behind this truck with the words "Alan Partridge" smeared in the grime.

A few things occured about this; firstly, it's really high up - so the person must have decided to either climb a ladder or another vehicle in order to make the name stand out. And secondly... why? Were they actually called Alan Partridge and just wanted to add a kind of "... woz 'ere" type thing? Or were they fans of Alan Partridge and felt the best way of expressing their admiration was via the gift of dirt graffiti?

I really wish I knew.

These are the people I recognise soley from my journey into work.  We get on the tube at the same station, we always try and sit in the same seats.  I don't know much about you but I know you all by name - 'woman with big hair and strong perfume', 'man who looks like my uncle' (gets me every time) 'boy who stares' and the 'old lady who tuts when the carriage gets full' who I always wonder if I should offer my seat to (but I don't).

I see you more regularly than some members of my family, so I thought I should just throw out a quick Happy Christmas. Sorry I didn't get you a present, perhaps I'll just give you a smile next time I see you (and you pretend not to recognise me either), although would that just make me 'random smiling' girl to you.......?