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Tag Archive for 'collaboration'

dmarinacci

New agency models: partnership, partnership, partnership

Published by Dawn Marinacci on June 27, 2011.

I’ve come across a few interesting articles lately about “new agency models.” And let’s face it, fresh thinking and innovative approaches about how to run an agency, or any business for that matter, are part of the industry’s evolution. We must keep evolving. There’s no alternative if your company wants to be the best. The problem is there are new models around every corner.

When PR firm GolinHarris announced the launch of g4 last week, the firm’s new global agency model designed to function in a digital and social media world, it caught my attention. According to president and CEO Fred Cook, the firm will be changing its business over the next ten years. This evolution is designed to provide services not just in earned media but equally distributed across earned, shared, owned, and purchased media. An obvious reflection of how media is changing our models.

Under their new g4 model they are keeping practice areas the same but staff titles change and are divided into four groups: strategists, who use data and research to serve as business analysts; creators, who are the idea generators and storytellers; connectors, who function as the channel experts, reaching audiences via more than a dozen “touch points”; and catalysts, who use best practices, partnerships, and other methods to keep clients ahead of the curve. I like the concept. I think titles get in the way on many occasions. And admit it, we’ve all worked with someone who has a title they have no business having, much less having earned.

Yet this model made me think, are eliminating VP-like titles really the problem? I’m not convinced clients will feel confident about trusting their businesses deliverables to someone whose titles are connectors and catalysts, but regardless – title or no title – the “new agency model,” should consist of an authentic partnership between the client and agency.

For pharmaceutical companies, some of the benefits of collaborating with agencies in a partnership model are built on the foundation that the closer the client and agency work together the more efficient they become. For instance, a partnership model can result in the following:

  • Efficiencies that result from an evolved process
  • Dedicated, seasoned teams and relationships based on deeper knowledge, resulting in less turnover of personnel
  • Discipline and trust
  • Resources that provide fully integrated communications plans

For companies searching for the new agency model my advice is to build from a different client-agency team blueprint. It starts with creating a shared approach that puts the brand at the center, erases the old boundaries, focuses on talent to task, eliminates duplicative roles and shortens the lines of communication and decision making.

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dmarinacci

Rethink advertising

Published by Dawn Marinacci on February 2, 2011.

I read Fast Company every month. I find inspiration from the content and almost always find myself thinking about the articles, days, sometimes weeks after reading them. I love the articles about the next big thing or idea, and getting a glimpse inside the minds who create such cool concepts and companies.

Last month it was the infamous (at least in our circles) “Mayhem on Madison Avenue” article that got heads churning. Then, ‘League of Extraordinary Nerds’ and ‘Rethink Teaching’ (two separate, unrelated articles in the February issue) stirred some thoughts in my head. First, the headline “rethink” and the relevance it holds today given our new reality of constant change made me rethink our industry. Every day we’re forced to rethink how we do our jobs. How do we create the right message to the right audience at the right time? Granted, that’s been a key objective for marketers but that was before social media, user-generated content, tablet technology, mobile and the next thing in digital. Today, all this change requires a new thought process; one that will require a village to come up with the right message, best outcomes and greatest results for the patient/consumer.

Then a particular quote from the Nerds article stuck with me; it was a client’s response after hearing a business pitch: “I couldn’t tell who was doing what…they seemed to have shared a brain.” Think about that. We can’t be linear thinkers in our business. We want our clients to have that same feeling – to be so convinced about an idea that they couldn’t tell who thought of what. And frankly, it shouldn’t matter. Team takes on a whole new meaning. It’s a wider net of talent bringing together different perspectives from different areas of expertise. Besides, how can we continually innovate if we don’t take the best of every resource we have at our fingertips (the brightest of the bright), put them in the same room, and create something great?

I feel privileged to work for a company where I can collaborate with engineers, strategists, medical directors, creative directors, analysts and engagement planners, all in the same room, all for the same project. In an industry that’s at a turning point of sorts, why is this blending of minds so important for advertisers and marketers?

  • Encourages diverse thinking. The days of the creatives sitting across the table pitching ideas to the account team are over. A diverse team brings the biggest ideas – it’s when thinking is challenged and new, fresh approaches are brought to the table.
  • Exposes unintended consequences (good or bad). If you have a collage of power thinkers, chances are the “technical” savvy engineer may uncover what could become a problem or hiccup for the client that the writer or graphic artist wouldn’t have considered. Or the medical director will bring a scientific lens to the table that helps identify a key breakthrough insight.
  • Taps into unique skill sets. This one doesn’t really need much explanation. Working with a cross-company and diverse team brings unique talents to the table.
  • Brings together the best problem-solving thinkers. The more people you have thinking about solutions, the chances of finding a good one become greater. Add people who look at the problem from various different angles and you have a deeper, richer evaluation of the problem and how to fix it.

So, I challenge everyone to put on their “rethinking” cap. Does your organization work in non-conventional ways to produce liberating ideas?  If so, has it been successful?

And last but not least I want to give big thanks to Fast Company editor Robert Safian for putting together thought-provoking articles every month that captivate and inspire bloggers like me to think differently.

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dmarinacci

Unleash agency innovation, one idea at a time.

Published by Dawn Marinacci on November 8, 2010.

I’ll be the first to admit that I overuse the word innovation. Many marketers do. But that doesn’t stop us from chasing the opportunity to become the next great innovator. For marketers and advertisers, it’s what inspires us and what we aspire to be. Creating the next big idea or breakthrough campaign that will put your idea on the map, make it viral, or create something shareworthy that will positively impact thousands or millions of people. But in today’s environment where resources are stretched to the limit, how do we find the time to innovate, and more importantly, how can we foster it within our own organization?

I came across an article in INC magazine “8 Ways to Foster Innovation in Your Company“  that says in order to come up with their best new ideas, most companies turn to an inexpensive and efficient source of innovation: their own employees.

Two in particular caught my attention:

  1. Allocate 10 percent of time for invention (or innovation). Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit, says one of the keys to encouraging innovation is to let employees be as inventive as possible. “We encourage this by allowing our engineers and product managers in most of our divisions to devote 10 percent of their workweeks to new ideas,” Cook says. “That’s how we developed many of our products and features.”
  2. Provide lots of free time to think. “The five last bastions of thinking are the car, the john, the shower, the church or synagogue, and the gym,” Joey Reiman, CEO of BrightHouse, told Inc.’s Leigh Buchanan. Note the absence of office from that roster.  So, to allow for that crucial “think time,” in addition to nearly five weeks’ vacation, BrightHouse’s 18 staff members get five “Your Days,” in which they are encouraged to visit a spot conducive to reflection and let their neurons rip.

Sure, these seem like relatively easy things to implement but every company is different and the reality of client deliverables, back to back meetings and crazy tight deadlines can dominate our workday and in the end, easy becomes nearly impossible. This doesn’t mean you can’t try to cultivate this environment into your organization one step at a time.

A few months ago our agency developed an internal site built to encourage employees to “unleash” their ideas, share them with their colleagues and peers and solicit “votes” to help make those ideas become reality. We have more than 500 people in our organization (US alone) and what better way to foster and cultivate the creative and strategic minds in our own agency than to provide them with the tools to do just that?

Why is it important in today’s hectic work environment to create an outlet to round up our own employee’s ideas?  It’s pretty simple:

  • To Enrich Communications. As a communications company, it’s our job to do so. And we’re good at it. The problem is we tend to devote all of our time to our clients and meeting those deliverables day in and day out. When it comes to fostering ideas to make our own agency the place we want it to be, we’re short on time, resources and energy.  But, it’s a new day in today’s work force, and there’s really there’s no excuse for not providing a good, solid communications platform within your organization to generate discussion and ideas among your peers and colleagues.
  • To Promote Collaboration. There’s no better way to foster success than through collaboration. By creating another platform to share and promote ideas, you’re opening the doors for even bigger thinking.  Whiteboards and sketch pads may still reign supreme, but the convenience of technology can bring a new perspective.
  • To Unleash Innovation. Agencies are a place where creativity and innovation happen. So why not create a place where your employees can share their ideas, brainstorm and foster the power of your own people. In the midst of client deliverables and deadlines, creative minds want a place to express their ideas beyond the conference room.

Innovation can make good companies great. How is your company unleashing innovation?

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sperkins

Meetings!

Published by Stephanie Perkins on July 29, 2010.

While in a meeting last week, I was daydreaming…wondering how I was going to ever get my day’s work done and yet survive the remainder of my meeting-laden day. I find marathon meeting days to be draining, and all the more commonplace these days. I’ve even attended meetings set up to plan how to run an upcoming client or planning meeting. So why do we have so many meetings? To communicate!

I recently learned that while we can speak roughly 150 words/minute, we can listen to approximately 400 words/minute, and that delay in how quickly we can communicate vs listen contributes to or desire to fill the void playing with blackberries, typing emails on laptops, or daydreaming. It got me thinking of Leigh’s post and Marcee’s post on how to reduce distractions during meetings to make them a better use of time. It feels as though, distractions aside, we can do more. So we have a ton of meetings. If we have to have them, how can we make them a better use of time?

Some project management basics come to mind:

Meeting relevancy
Determine the validity of the meeting. Do you really need to have it? Are the right talent to task invited? Are too many individuals invited? Is what you need to communicate better done via one or two 1:1 conversations? Is the content/topic of the meeting relevant to all invited parties?

Meeting planning
If a meeting is called for, circulate an agenda beforehand. At the beginning of your meeting, be sure to clearly communicate why the meeting was called and what needs to be accomplished.

Meeting monitoring
Have a watchdog! Make sure you are staying on topic and accomplishing the goals of your meeting! Another fun stat reads that 25% of meeting time is unproductive. In a 30-minute meeting that’s 7 ∏ minutes of wasted time!

Meeting retention
Circulate meeting notes. These don’t always have to be formal, but are always necessary. I learned that within walking out of a meeting, individuals only retain roughly 50% of what was communicated, 25% within 2 days, and merely 10% a week later. Yikes!

I don’t want to knock meetings…they are necessary sometimes. Meetings feel more personal, more collaborative, and more ownable when having a conversation directly with individuals in a room. But by increasing meeting relevancy, planning, monitoring and retention, it’s arguable that more work can get done, ideas generated, and information disseminated more quickly and efficiently.

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pbonneville

Mind the Gap: Connecting creative and technical minds for more cost effective digital projects

Published by Paul Bonneville on July 27, 2010.

Mind the Gap

“Mind the gap” is a warning to train passengers of the gap between the train door and the station platform. It was introduced in 1969 by the London Underground. —Wikipedia

In all of my years in the Web & Interactive industry, there is a single recurring issue within many corporate cultures that almost always leads to major bottlenecks for interactive projects. That issue is the communication gap that exists between creative and technical stakeholders.

Whenever a new digital marketing concept or advertising campaign crosses the line from being a purely creative endeavor into one that seeks to leverage data and collaboration in a real-time and interactive way, folks get excited. The brand managers are excited about the innovation and “wow” factor that these types of projects bring to the table. CEO and executive teams beam with a childlike giddiness they can hardly contain. Interactive agencies get fired up about the opportunity to develop these types of projects that use bleeding edge technologies for the first time. Excitement, innovation and passion abound. This is the good stuff that leads to award winning campaigns that have a real impact in their respective markets.

All is glorious in the world, the birds are singing and the sun is shining until…the IT (as in Information Technology) groups are brought into the fold on what this new digital chicanery is all about.

Ohhhh how they just don’t understand. These information gatekeepers. The self-proclaimed omniscient digital gurus. The defenders of all that is good and wholesome in our companies’ digital infrastructures. The bridge trolls. Stodgy, anal-retentive process mongers who are ready to put the kibosh on anything creative that steps outside of the predefined infrastructure guidelines and standardized technology platitudes. They are the proclaimers of, “If it ain’t SharePoint, there’s no point.” Did I miss anything?

I just set the tone for the relationship, and that my friends is the gap.

While my over-exaggerated and inflammatory description of our IT brethren (a field from whence I hail) does hold some arguably true stereotypes, it is this relationship that can be one of the most challenging to evolve within organizations. On a rare occasion, you will find organizations that have figured it out. Creative and technical stakeholders have been able to set aside differences, agree to disagree and moved on to figuring out how to blaze trails on innovative digital projects. This is indeed lottery-win rare.

If your organization is not one of those that has already developed the bridge that gaps the chasm between technical and creative team members within your organization, I say to you that you have the opportunity to be an agent of change and forge new relationships within your organization that will ensure efficiency and increase the ROI in your digital projects.

Put down your coffee cup, get up out of your chair, walk down the hall into your IT department and hug a tech support team member. Ummm…awkward. Since hugs probably won’t do anything more than earn you a walk of shame up to the HR department, I’ll propose an alternative starting point:

When your latest and greatest digital project kicks-off and the highs of the kick-butt campaign concept are waning off for the day, call up your IT lead and loop he or she in on what you are cooking up before you sign on the dotted line for the project with your agency. Get your IT group and your agency’s development team on the phone together and hash out how this project is going to be built, where it is going to live and figure out who will be maintaining it going forward. Do this before your agency starts building your project.

The sooner you loop in your IT group before your project is set in stone, the more bottlenecks you will be able to avoid when it comes time to bring your project to market. There are definitive differences in priorities for creative and technical team members and the sooner these are on the table in the process, the more stumbling blocks and sticking points can be avoided over the life of the project.

Mind the gap. Avoid the cuts that come from stepping into the gap. Eliminate the need for a band-aid. Build relationships.

Loop in your IT team on you projects as early as possible. It may be painful at first but I guarantee this is one case that begging for forgiveness will not trump asking for permission when it comes to the bottom line for your budget.

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dcaiazza

Global marketing communications: It’s not what you say, it’s how you listen!

Published by Damon Caiazza on July 20, 2010.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” - Winston Churchill

Over my professional career I’ve had to overcome my natural tendency to stand up and speak before I’ve finished listening, if I was even listening in the first place. Often times I’d have a response cooking in my head before someone finished making their point. The net result of this shameful behavior was poor interpersonal communications and potentially poor results.

In my experience working on global marketing communications within the pharmaceutical industry, I’ve observed similar situations that I feel are a result of the same behavior I’ve worked hard to correct.

Global marketing professionals don’t do enough listening!

Instead of listening, here is what I frequently observe them focusing their efforts on:

  1. Global campaigns and messaging
  2. Global advertising assets
  3. Market research in key global markets

While these efforts are all necessary and very important, I can’t help but think that each one of them would be that much more effective if there was a little more listening going on. I’d even go as far to say that some don’t listen because they are afraid of what they may hear. They are afraid that the things they and their teams have worked hard to develop are only marginally effective or rarely used.

There is room for improvement, so let’s get started

Good global communication starts with listening, but it definitely doesn’t end there. Here are my thoughts on how you can build upon some of the good practices you may already have.

  1. Embrace a culture of curiosity
    Curiosity is a powerful tool that can drive insightful questioning, learning, and communication. This seems like such a simple thing, but in reality very few marketers approach a conversation with a curious mindset, which starts by asking questions about key challenges, past experiences, etc.
  2. Meet face-to-face
    In an era where emails, text messages and instant messages rule, face-to-face communication has become a lost art. A little face time can still go a long way to improving communications and relationships.
    Get people talking globally
  3. Encourage conversation between global markets.
    You’d be surprised how little different markets actually speak to each other about the dynamics within their markets and how they are creatively addressing them.
  4. Leverage social media concepts
    There is a lot we can learn about communicating from the social media boom that has taken by storm our culture and our daily lives. The key communication takeaway is the fact that people want to be heard and are willing to share. Give your global partners as many opportunities as possible to share their feedback, rate your work, and get engaged.
  5. Leverage technology
    While I stand firm that there is value in meeting face-to-face, there is also the reality of increasing cost pressures, reduced corporate travel, and natural geographic barriers. This places a high value in online collaboration and communication tools that can quickly and globally be deployed to fill in the communication gaps when face-to-face meetings are not possible.

Do you already listen?

If you are reading this and thinking that I’m totally off base, please share with the audience your examples of how you currently listen. We are all ears!

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ajoly

We all have the same job: making better ideas

Published by Amanda Joly on June 24, 2010.

This sounds like such a simple, basic, notion.  Unfortunately we don’t always behave in a way that is conducive to actually producing better ideas.

How do ideas percolate?  There are many ways to develop and facilitate building ideas but at the heart of building successful ideas is successful COLLABORATION.

Collaboration, according to Wikipedia, is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals…by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. We all talk about collaboration, after all it is it is one of our 5 behaviors at GSW (#4 working collaboratively), but how each person approaches and practices collaboration can be vastly different.

I am by no means the expert on this subject but I do know this, when I am engaged in way where my thoughts and ideas are respected, when I feel part of something that is bigger than me, I am more motivated to develop and share ideas.  When I feel like I am brought into something at the last minute, or better yet, when I sit in on a meeting to kick-off a project, leave the room with no clear direction, and then receive a note asking for my piece of the presentation, I don’t get that same motivated, engaged feeling.  In fact, it is sometimes de-motivating because you don’t see the entire strategy or the ideas to support it.

So, using my own experiences from other agencies and GSW, I jotted down a few quick tips to guide us all in being more collaborative…and to help us all get to what we do best more often – sharing and making better ideas.

  1. Collaborate early, often, and consistently.  Not just at the beginning of a project but at the beginning, in the middle, at the presentation, and at the end.
  2. Assemble people who offer different perspectives of varying disciplines/skills.  If you only talk to colleagues with a point of view similar to our own, we’re only cultivating a portion of the knowledge and experience available to us.
  3. Use collaboration as a means to build team connections and raise morale.  If you have a really difficult problem and the team collaborates to solve it, it fosters the importance of team participation and let’s everyone know their ideas are valued.
  4. Turn “outsiders” into stakeholders.  By collaborating with clients, customers, and other agencies we strengthen their belief in our ideas and lessen the “us versus them” mentality that is sometimes pervasive in our industry.
  5. Don’t forget to listen and be authentic.  Many times people use the guise of collaboration as a means to further their own ideas or agenda.  To truly collaborate you have to be open, honest and unbiased.

No matter how hard we try to foster the behavior of working collaboratively (and most of the time we do it well), let’s face it were all human and we get stuck at times, we behave badly, and we start over…

Making better ideas isn’t always easy, but it is our job.

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mnelson

What if the only cells we brought to meetings were brain cells? (UPDATED)

Published by Marcee Nelson on June 2, 2010.

(Originally published on 4.27.10)

We have a new client on the west coast who has a wonderful policy for working back to the future—meetings with no cell phones or Blackberrys allowed!

Imagine actually focusing on one subject—the subject you are sharing with people across the table from you. Imagine your mind in the same conference room with your body. Imagine actual eye contact.

The irony of our digitally enhanced work lives is that in the effort to be multi-tasking and multi-achieving we often end up being virtually productive. Not to mention, just plain rude. I have a feeling this electronic-free meeting policy will move eastward. At least I can dream. Until then, I will be left without my own devices in conference rooms to come.

Update: It looks like I’m in good company on this idea. In a recent post on Harvard Business Review’s blog, Peter Bregman wrote:

“A study showed that people distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQs. What’s the impact of a 10-point drop? The same as losing a night of sleep. More than twice the effect of smoking marijuana.”

Multitasking is a myth. Moving your attention from one thing to another is really interrupting yourself. (Not just your meeting). We lose focus, concentration, and – potentially – some of our best ideas.

(Article via Mark W)

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pdeschamps

Even superheroes need to trust their partner to work alone at times

Published by Phil Deschamps on May 27, 2010.

(Reprinted from my guest post on PharmaLive)

It is very interesting to me that we are still trying to figure out how to improve our working relationships with clients. In the health care advertising and marketing business, we’ve largely been working with the same 20 or so core companies for 40 years. The answer is not better communication or sharing more, or even better contracting. Those improve things marginally.

If you think about it, focusing on these types of things is only necessary because both the client and agency have a shared responsibility for every project or implemented strategy. As a result, things like improving contact or better sharing are the solutions that we typically focus on as they relate to the way that we work in general.

I dare say that the answer is actually in communicating less but trusting more.

Think about it. Every single project that an agency works on has a client owner who passionately wants to contribute to its success. It is impossible for a marketer not to want to put a little bit of their DNA into almost every project for their brand. This desire is the source of “make my logo bigger” or “I don’t like the color” type of comments that drive everyone nuts, and drive absolutely no improvement to the end product.

The agency, on the other hand, lives for the day that our clients would actually let us do what they hire us to do without interference. (Note – this is why clients often get the best ideas in pitches.)

And while both perspectives are understandable at some level, there may be another way.

Imagine a world where every project you work on has only one owner; either the agency or the client, but not both.

In this world when the client owns a project, the agency restricts its efforts to cost-effective studio resources that focus on information design and mistake-free project management. The client runs the project, soup to nuts. They call the shots.

Project number two is agency-owned. In this scenario, the client owes a thorough brief, but after that briefing, the client goes away. The agency takes care of strategy, developing the idea, taking it through med, legal, regulatory review, and works directly with needed resources to print the sales aid, deliver the e-detail, produce the convention panel or leave behind, or upload the website. All completed post briefing with little if any direct client involvement.

Obviously this approach isn’t for all relationships. But when the agency and the client have been working to develop the brand and its visual assets, and intimately know its marketing and communication objectives, this approach can work. Surely we can work more independently than we do today.

This type of approach creates a world where the talent to task is vastly improved on both sides. There is also a huge reduction in non-value-added churn between the client and the agency. Job satisfaction will increase on both sides. More work for the brand can be completed as each party is enabling the other to focus “elsewhere” at different points in time.

Client and agency teams can usually shrink as a result too. And, the client will begin to feel that their agency is really complementary to their team working and extensions of their corporate resources. Clients are even able to focus on the 847 other things outside of work that involves their advertising agencies.

Oh, and this approach saves the client a lot of money while allowing the agency to maintain its margins. In this world, agencies aren’t commodities. They are strategic partners.

Hey, where have I heard that before…?

Any examples of working this way with your agency or clients? Any thoughts?

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leigh.householder

No distracting devices (Or: How to make Marcee’s dream come true)

Published by Leigh Householder on May 14, 2010.

A few weeks ago, Marcee asked a provocative question: What if the only cells we brought to meetings were brain cells? What if we could all really be present and never emailing or texting or otherwise tapping and typing?

That got me thinking about lasting solutions to our distractions.

Most people who split their focus in meetings aren’t disinterested or bored or otherwise unengaged. They’re time starved, overwhelmed by both mounting to-do lists and packed calendars. They’re trying to fit a little doing into a day packed with planning.

How can we use culture and technology to make space for people to do both better?

I love the recent ad our creative team ran in MedAdNews. It’s a get-out-of-meeting free card when you really need to focus on another task. An on-demand study hall for the time starved:

But, we probably need some lasting ideas, too. Like:

  1. Calendar rules for critical mass: What if your calendar could save you a little time for doing by blocking out the remainder of your day when you reach, say, 70% of your time committed to meetings?
  2. Meetings on the 15. Could we plan for checking in and catching up by ending meetings on the hour and starting the next ones at quarter past?
  3. No internal email days. What can we learn from companies that have set one day a week to slow down correspondence? Could we be more in touch by being less immediate?
  4. Download discipline. What if fewer people were required in any one meeting because we were better at reporting the outcomes and sharing the discussion (before and after)?
  5. Team covenants. What if we really read the status reports and backgrounders and proposals that were sent our way and didn’t need to use collaboration time to go over the basics? What if each team made agreements about what they’d do together and what they’d commit to doing on their own?

Off to a meeting. And, leaving the cell phone at my desk. (For now!)

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