I presented this question to a Dialogue hopeful and it’s gotten me thinking as well:

I see today’s digital space as both a channel (medium) and a platform. Where, Best Buy’s TWELPFORCE uses twitter as a medium, and Foursquare or Groupon use attributes of digital as the platform. Is this traditional agency thinking? How are you all defining the utility of digital? Or, are you defining it?

One end is constant, while the other is evolving and creative. Kind of like grocery stores and restaurants. Grocery stores are product, while restaurants use product to create. And then it goes in all sorts of directions. You could argue that some grocery stores are also creative and that some restaurants have a standard product. I suppose a good restaurant is run by a good chef- one who knows all about the base or products involved in making his/er food.

This, understanding which ingredients do what and the overall appeal of the restaurant, is what we’re after when we speak of utility in the digital space.

PSFK’s This Week in Brand Strategy & Advertising has a heap of more reading on the topic (of the new organization + digital media + experimental marketing ++)

http://www.psfk.com/2010/07/this-week-in-brand-strategy-advertising-3.html

“… the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. It may provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society; a society itself is formed through a plurality of shared norms, customs, values, traditions, social roles, symbols and languages. Socialization is thus ‘the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained’.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialize)

Lots of conversation on different ways to approach this, lots of different ways to approach this conversation. Here’s what I’m hearing and reading: (1) I spoke with a Planning Director in Austin who mentioned an opportunity in the digital space for planning. Digital clients are asking his agency to provide content strategy and data analytics. (2) Then, I read Faris’s (hi?) repost of Fallon’s ‘The Engagement Opportunity’ which calls out the “liminal space”,  labels the value of digital planners, and provides a POV on implications and next steps with some proprietary tools. (3) Yesterday morning, I attended a coffee catch-up with the Austin AMA (American Marketing Association) chapter on the topic of Integrated Marketing Communications. The conversation became energized when the group started discussing the new (marketing) environment and how to stay ahead of the curve. Controlling and herding were suggestions from one side, while parallel pathing and forwardly creating came from another. THESE (control & create) are the two sides of this dynamic.

There’s no doubt we continue to be in the midst of shift. In terms of from / to language, it’s:
from mastery to invention
from telling stories to getting others to tell them for us
from listen/absorb to speak, share, comment, update, check-in
from making stories to making experiences
from campaigns to commitments (Fallon pres- see below)
from talking to doing
from making to being

IMO…
Brands live (lived, have lived) by being a part of life. While there is desire for socializing digital, there is also the reality of our state of being which I see as one of perpetual adaptation. Part microscope (tools/organism in place), part back-packing (packing tools needed but finding the value in the new experience). I hope to speak more with Aki (at Fallon) about this subject…

Relevant fodder for your reading pleasure:
1) BBH is looking for ‘rare breeds’: http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=142795
2) Fallon, The Engagement Opportunity: http://www.slideshare.net/akispicer/fallon-brainfood-x-vcu-brandcenter-the-engagement-opportunity
3) Article on the new creative team: http://edwardboches.com/the-new-creative-team-and-getting-it-to-work?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Creativity_unbound+(Creativity_Unbound)&utm_content=Netvibes

The Mike Wallace Interview archeives are digitally available through The University of Texas’ Henry Ransom Center: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/collections/film/holdings/wallace/

Viewable content spans from 1957-1958 and includes: Frank Lloyd Wright, Margaret Sanger, and Gloria Swanson (to name a few).

This blog (aka ‘Dialogue’) has been created to provide perspective. Perspective comes from all over and we’ll throw some content darts around with the intent of providing sticky thoughts. We are also eager to share and help spread the good word with happenings in the Account Planning and Strategy space. That’s where the idea for the recorded ‘Dialogues’ came about.

Re: Dialogues:
Interview topics will vary. Each will feature a conversation with a thought leader in a now space. Specific conversation information, including questions asked of each interviewee, will be promoted here, through LinkedIn, and also via my mailing list (info@alixcompany.com to sign up). Conversations will be taped and offered here for 24/7, at your leisure listening. Click here to listen to what’s been recorded already and click on ‘Dialogues’ to the right [under Quick Blog Links] for the same list of what’s been recorded to date.

If you would like to suggest a topic or recommend an interviewee, please reach out to me via email at alixmorrow@alixcompany.com, or by posting a comment on this blog. I will follow up on all requests and posted recommendations.

Thanks for visiting my Dialogue Podcast page featuring people doing interesting things in trending spaces. Conversations are independently sourced and placed here for 24/7 at your leisure listening.

If you would like to suggest a topic or recommend an interviewee, please send me an email at alixmorrow@alixcompany.com.

Special thanks to Geoff Moskowitz of Fat Cat Productions, LLC for audio production services.

Thanks for listening – please enjoy!

Liz Simpson
Founder / Stimulyst
Topic:  B2B sales for freelancers & especially expert-level practitioners
October 15, 2019
53 minutes
Liz Simpson Dialogue (click here)

Lisa Solomon
Founder & CEO, Atheneum Collective – an educational platform where seasoned advertising and marketing professionals share their knowledge via engaging, level-raising online video courses

Topic:  Atheneum Collective – the courses that are live now, what’s around the corner, who should listen, and how experts are selected

September 3, 2019
27 minutes
Lisa Solomon Dialogue (click here)

Aliza Sherman
Co-Author / Cannabis & CBD for Health & Wellness
Topic:  Cannabis & CBD for Health & Wellness
June 18, 2019
40 minutes
Aliza Sherman Dialogue (click here)

Christian Madsbjerg
Co-Founder / Senior Partner, ReD Associates
Topic:  Algorithms Meet Biorhythms – A Call for Context
March 20, 2019
25 minutes
Christian Madsbjerg Dialogue (click here)

Graham Hall
Founder / Owner, The Insight Edge
Topic:  Algorithms Meet Biorhythms – Putting the Analogue Back into Insight
January 17, 2019
30 minutes
Graham Hall Dialogue (click here)

Dan Carlton
Founding Partner, The PARAGRAPH Project & Founder, PlannerU
Topic:  The who, what, and why of PlannerU (PlannerU.com)
August 28, 2018
30 minutes
Dan Carlton Dialogue (click here)

———- Dialogues Before 2018 —————

Jacob Henderson
CEO & Co-founder at WindowLikr
Topics:  WindowLikr + “Mobilizing Interactive Video” and CE Week
June 17, 2014
20 minutes
Jacob Henderson dialogue (click here)

Chris Kocek
CEO & Founder at Gallant
Topics:  his new book The Practical Pocket Guide to Account Planning
May 28, 2013
30 minutes
AlixCompany Dialogue with Chris Kocek (click here)
Purchase the book here
TEDxYouth Austin:  Chris Kocek shares five techniques that anyone can use to see the world with a fresh set of eyes.

Lien Lea Merritt
President, White Label Analytics, LLC
Topic:  SXSWInteractive 2013 proposal trends
March 19, 2013
30 minutes
AlixCompany Dialogue with Lien Lea Merritt (click here)
Link to topline (recommend uploading first before clicking link to audio; we’ve used this as the backdrop for our conversation)

Nancy Tag
Media and Communication Arts Chair, Professor, AD/PR, City College of New York & author of the recently published book, Ad Critique
Topics: Ad Critique and ad critique
March 9, 2012
20 minutes
Purchase Ad Critique here
AlixCompany Dialogue with Nancy Tag (click here)

Christy Liu
Founding Partner + Strategy Consultant at Living Breathing / Director of Marketing + Co-founder at Wanderfly
Topics:  Strategy, Wanderfly, Living Breathing, entrepreneurship
June 2, 2011
17 minutes
AlixCompany Dialogue with Christy Liu (click here)

Clay Langdon
Director of Brand Strategy and Experience Development
McGarrah Jessee, Austin
Topics: the opportunity for agencies today, the value of social connections, and crowdsourcing
October 12, 2010
23 minutes
AlixCompany Dialogue with Clay Langdon (click here)

Aki Spicer
Director of Digital Strategy
Fallon, Minneapolis
Topic: Socializing Digital
July 26, 2010
36 minutes
AlixCompany Dialogue with Aki Spicer (click here)