The progress we have made over the last eight years toward being an agency that fundamentally operates real time shaping and participating in consumer conversations has been nothing short of very hard work.  I call it McKinney 2.0, and it was a huge leap forward from the prior decades.

We probably had an easier start than many agencies because we didn't have to break down silos or collapse business unit P&L's because we never had them.  But it did require an orientation shift, big bets and a belief in where this business was headed.

Lately, however, it seems like I've seen a rash of holding company babble about new "chiefs of things" that are supposed to come in and make networks integrated or digital or something other than irrelevant.

ADWEEK, May 11, 2010:  UM's Daryl Lee becomes Worldgroup's chief integration architect

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i1ad262646f40d099b24b73b0885a480f

ADWEEK, May 10, 2010:  The twisting path to new agency models

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ieedb56d6b7d314952ff36536412ceca9

Unfortunately, the list goes on...

What strikes me is this is not a new trend.  It's easy to find links dating back 5-7 years ago as "major" agencies hired major talent to solve their integration woes.  You know the drill, hire rock star up-and-comer to walk into a new holding company or network and make people integrate.

This has not and does not work (see link above about TBWA's 10 Digital Artist superstars).

Integration, and particularly digitally-centered integration, is more orientation than mandate.  It's more bottoms-up than top-down.  It's more spontaneous than planned.  It's more consumer-driven than process-driven.

We fundamentally believe and require digital competency for every role and level in the agency.  We start everything with the business opportunity (not the brand or consumer).  We approach creative development based on a Conversation Architecture - a deliberate and flexible tool created to help our clients' brands engage consumers.  We're really clear on what we do and don't do as an agency...and have killer partners to fill the gaps.  We do more every day to learn and optimize our work.  We put in place process to prevent chaos.  Etc., etc.

Yet, despite all we have done, we are not done.  We have more work to do. 

One thing this new world requires is a constant look ahead.  Clients want to build their brands and create demand.  They understand the power of emotional connections and the reality of daily results. 

I'm ready for McKinney 3.0...the even faster, more big-idea-integrated and more digitally savvy version of us!

I'm incredibly restless about figuring out what is next, and I know that mastering this new world doesn't happen by one "chief" no matter how big the title or stick.

Like most of us, perhaps, I know that the world is going to hell in a hand basket.  Pick your poison --  here are two of my recent  'favorites':

No seafood left by 2048 -- we over-fished the oceans! Yay humans!

All these severe earthquakes might be more severe because of global warming.

Also, like most of us, I had no idea what to do about it. So I was blown away by Valerie Casey's keynote here at SXSW Interactive.

A former exec at IDEO and Frog Design, Ms. Casey started The Designers Accord , a group of designers focused on sustainability and social change.  Her talk was really simple but moving.  The outline of it:

-- The world is going to hell in a hand basket.

-- The interactive community ( egocentric me, I didn't know I was a member of a community . . . there you go ) has done boo to help with these problems.  We lag product designers, urban planners, architects, you name it. 

-- These big 'intractable' problems are tough to solve because they are systems problems. By systems, I mean bunch of interdependent actors, and behaviors, with associated outcomes.

-- No other design discipline knows more about systems and systems design than interactive designers.  Especially if you include gaming and social as part of interactive.

-- So get out there and do something!

Email sent to Val Casey and Designers Accord.  Let me see if I can do something.  

I had the honor and pleasure of spending most of yesterday at the North Carolina Central University School of Business. 

Twice a year they host the Management Professionals Forum and I was the 2nd of 6 business leaders sharing why I think i have the best possible profession.

I have to say, I was expecting this to be a "speech" and it turned out to be an incredibly well organized, student-led, forum to prepare the attendees for what is ahead.  Everyone came in business attire.  The entire auditorium stood to welcome me to the stage.  I had lunch with approximately 12 students where we discussed the industry, trends and tips for landing their first jobs. 

Having the chance to spend time in the classroom is one of the most rewarding and fulfiling aspects of life in the Triangle for me.  This opportunity at NCCU was won of the most special experiences I can remember in a long, long time.

Thanks to the University for having me.  And a special thanks to the student organizers who made me feel incredibly welcome all day!

I couldn't sleep last night, literally wide awake ALL night (this will be very ironic in a second).  At about 1:45AM I went to my home office and checked email (why, I don't know), checked Facebook, watched a few iWeb tutorials on my Mac and ultimately went back to bed at 3AM where I turned on television.  Right before my eyes was a PBS Frontline program called Digital Nation.  As it turns out, the show was about me.  Seriously, I saw myself in a scary way...as a technology user, as a marketer, as a parent.  There is no question the digital tsunami is coming.  What this show revealed to me was what it might be like in a few years when the barrel crashes and we push through the back of the wave.  I'm thrilled by all the new possibilities technology brings...and now super aware of some of the potential downsides in the years ahead.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

What happens if you mix the collection and adoration of images with the concept of crowd sourcing? You'd get dropular.net. There are many sites that are similar, like ffffound.com, but I choose to collect images on this site. Under dropular's concept, you drop images into the site and they will naturally create pools of similar images through tagging. Through this process, you can start to see the development of trends, categorization of design styles, and the comparision of different media. This site is different in that you can bookmark or "drop" images, videos, and links, all in one place. Also, the navigation is intuitive. You can simply use the arrow keys to scroll down or go to the next page, which is awesome for users like me who tend to zoom through images quickly, too impatient to even use the scroll bar.

I love images. Well, media really. Sites like this are like my little box where I keep them and bring them out when I want inspiration. I guess some people collect stamps, coins, or shells... I collect media. It's one of the things I love to do.

Here's my collection: http://dropular.net/user/free_

what an extraordinary week!  and i'm not referring to the fact that we closed the agency for 2 inches of snow and the kids missed 1.5 days of school!  that's just crazy, but i'm adjusting to what happens when old man winter blows through the south.

i can remember three times in my life when i huddled around a television at work;  the OJ trial, 911 and Tuesday's inauguration of our 44th President.  thank God for Tuesday!

i voted for Barack.  but to be clear i also voted for "W" -- and i voted for Clinton.  but this was the first time in my life i really supported a presidential candidate and i'm not simply talking about money. 

in the fall of 2006 i read The Audacity of Hope, i picked it up initially (and probably hesitantly) as fodder for the strategy we proposed for Audi.  i never read that kind of stuff.  suffice it to say, we lost audi...but Barack won my heart.  i'm a sucker for the way he moves me.  and never before in my life have i ever been more afraid about the future for my girls.  it really hit me this summer on vacation and watching the Beijing Olympics.  it was an awful feeling that i think margaret and i had about the same time...that the US had lost ground, lost its way, lots its lead.  and that can not and should not be the case!

it was the first time in our 20 year relationship we realized that for our children to have all we want for them, our lives will need to be different.  we must recommit to the fundamental things in a whole new way.  it's also a spirit i've tried to bring with me to work as the year has begun as well.  a feeling of recommitting to what matters most in this business.  a recommitment to doing business the way it used to be done, without forgetting about the role we must play with respect to innovation and the digital world.  when i ran lbworks my creative partner called it "new tools, old school" and that's what i'm talking about.

i've also been struck by the fact that over the course of history many people have told stories about America that are exactly the stories that ring true to me about what we're facing as people, as teams, as an agency, as a member of society, etc.

in this uncertain world that we all face, the truth rings true...and i believe

i believe.pps (28.00 kb)

Having spent a couple of minutes perusing one of my favorite places on the interweb, I happened upon an interesting article that discusses how digital communication is killing the art of face-to-face conversation.  Hmmmm- think about it, how many times do you email or IM people who sit in the same office as you when you could easily get up and walk over to them and convey the same message personally?  I do it all the time, have I just become extremely lazy or have I just found a way to communicate that fits me better?

But seriously will behavior like this really lead to the death of face-to-face conversations?  My parents have stuck with their tried and tested methods of communication- snail mail, the phone, and in person conversations to communicate with people in their lives.  Me on the other hand- I use Facebook, text, email, my mobile, IM, and yes face-to-face in my conversations nearly every day but ask me where to get a stamp and mail a letter and there is a fair chance I will glaze over.  So maybe it's not face-to-face conversation that's in danger but other legacy forms of communication.  It always shocks me when someone pulls out a pager- I mean, how does one even send a message to someone on a pager?

There is a nice article over at 'The Marketing Student' that compares the communication methods of boomers vs Gen X-ers vs Gen Y-ers which is worth a look even if only to confirm what we thought we already knew...It goes as far as to suggest that Gen Y-ers consider only the most urgent situations require face-to-face communication.  

I'd like to think that I will always retain the art of face-to-face conversation and will from time to time make use tools that suit the situation better.  But I think I remember feeling the same way about the art of writing letters, and look where that got me.