Posts tagged ‘knowledge’
What are you an Unlikely Expert on?
I had dinner with some Lady Planners last week and was telling one of them that next time she needs to buy a particular item of furniture she should give me a shout, because after a massive project for a retailer I am now an expert on the subject.
I then realised that she has a makeup client so started picking her brains for foundation and mascara advice (her top tip –if you run the mascara wand over the ends of your lashes after application it looks like you’re wearing falsies).
One of the perks of Account Planning is inadvertently acquiring an awful lot of knowledge about some fairly random topics. My areas of Unlikely Expertise now include rabbit nutrition, fruit juice manufacture, dogs with sensitive tummies, the best way to wash your hair and optimal back bar layout in pubs and bars.
But what to do with all this knowledge? I’ve stopped a friend feeding her rabbits carrots (they’re full of sugar and can give bunnies upset tummies), have shinier hair and make more educated choices about which orange juice I buy, but beyond that I’m just a head full of facts and figures waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting friend…
future trends in innovation and friends
Neil Perkin has been doing a series of ‘Future Trends in Digital Marketing Innovation Briefings’ for Econsultancy and the roadshow hit Leeds last Thursday. Some of the things Neil talked about included Networked Enterprises and Innovation within companies. In fact it seems to me that the two are pretty much interconnected.
The days of organisations when everyone who adds value is a full time employee are fast disappearing – and for good reasons. Flexibility is an obvious one, offering the ability to pull trusted specialists in only for as long as the project demands it, with the attendant cost savings and risk reduction.
But Neil talked about the wider value of a company being connected to interesting stuff and interesting people. If innovation happens at the edges of a company and it’s all about the flow of ideas into and within an organisation, then mixing it up with fresh faces and fresh ideas would seem to be a no-brainer.
Neil also talked about how the stock of Knowledge an organisation holds isn’t as important as the flow of information, which means encouraging employees to be open to new information, share it and act quickly on it. As he put it, “acting like a startup”.
Amelia blogged recently about the ‘agency…and friends’ model:
as channels proliferate and skill-sets deepen and diverge, it is going to be impossible for an agency to effectively “own” all the skills that they need to service clients. Given that, how do we start to build a loose network of partners, developers and producers who can work along side the core agency hub? I am increasingly thinking of it as an “…and Friends” model, based on the insight that you choose your friends and not your family.
It seems to me that ‘…and friends’ has got to be the way forward – a core of full timers who look after the long term interests of their clients and curate specialist help and knowledge as and when it’s needed. Obviously, as a freelancer I’m going to be all in favour of this, but it’s been very interesting for me to see that client’s really don’t appear to be that bothered when I’m introduced as ‘Gemma who works with us’, rather than ‘Gemma who works for us’. In fact, from a Planning point of view, having an air of impartiality can be seen as a positive bonus by clients.
I actually wrote an essay about Networked Economies (or ‘…and friends’) while I was at university, which was inspired by an article in a 1996 issue of World Executive’s Digest (I know, I know), titled ‘What Show Business Can Show Business’ which looked at Hollywood as ‘a network of flexible businesses that get done in here-today-gone-tomorrow alliances’. It described how the business edge belonged to those who could bring together contractors in the most timely and efficient manner, partly because that this meant that each role could be staffed by the person best suited to it, rather than whoever happened to be available within the organisation.
My resulting essay (written thirteen years ago) concluded that ‘as the network economy develops in more conventional business sectors, I expect to see it becoming the norm’.
Anyone need a futurologist?
Aches and digital pains
After ODing slightly on the exercise front this weekend, I’m now hobbling around while my calf muscles tie themselves in knots.
My brain felt in a similar state this morning when I logged on to the usual post-weekend mountain of blogs, emails and news websites needing to be read and in most cases remembered.
If the majority of our knowledge is now being stored outside our brains (i.e. electronically), we’re going to have to develop more sophisticated filtering tools to a) help us find the information more quickly and b) remember where we last read it. Despite the best efforts of google, microsoft and bloglines, I’m still experiencing brain ache.
Information Overload
Is it too easy to get hold of information? With online news and creative databases, google, technorati and consumer reviews sites like dooyoo all only a mouse click away, its easy to find yourself buried under a mountain of information.
But theres a difference between information and insight. The nugget that points us in the right direction towards understanding might actually be harder to find in a world of plentiful information.
I started as a Planner just as everyone in my first agency got hooked up to the ‘net in 1999. I’ve never known anything else. But in that same agency we suddenly had to tighten our belts and I lost access to all those juicy online subscriptions. I had to search twice as hard and be twice as creative to dig up something that was fresh and relevant. And I suppose I was more likely to actually go and talk to people, to put together a very quick and dirty focus group or literally stop people in the street.
I think there has to be a happy medium between primary and secondary information and an over and under supply of the same. Because theres a difference between knowledge and insight.
