Is It Safe?
One of my favorite movies is Marathon Man. There is a famous scene where Lawrence Olivier poses a simple question to Dustin Hoffman, "Is it safe?" You probably know the rest of that scene. Here it is for the brave-hearted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPQ7KMCrPLE. The last few months, I have been curious about this question relative to marketing and advertising and how the marketing and advertising community is preparing for the horizon. I have observed a few trends worth sharing. No dental instruments were involved in extracting these views:

• Measure and Adjust – I recently did some executive interviews in gathering a POV for an assignment we are doing. In talking with marketing and advertising industry leaders, I heard a consistent view around the issue of measurement and adjustment. Several times this came through in words like "ready, fire, aim - with nimble adjustment quickly following". This is the world that marketing and advertising joins with and the speed of decision making and expectation for measurement then adjustment is how strategic accuracy is now viewed.
• Digital Haste – There is a race toward digital competency by some and digital mastery by others. Regardless of the target, marketers and agencies are chasing a capability panacea that is now quickly becoming the latest communications table stakes. "Doing it" means little, solutions with instinctive digital sense and a deepening set of exciting, integrated cases and results means a lot. Digital haste has moved past resource capability and structural provocative, past conversational media, past page views and past click-throughs. Now digital is squarely into what all communications are accountable to – causing positive behavior movement. It has come almost full circle. Here's a great article offering an interesting view http://images.proxm.com/31988/Article_GivingUpBrand.pdf
• Behavior – Speaking of behavior, this seems to be another transition worth noting. Behavior is where marketing and advertising is headed. It is where CMO's must convince CEO's they bring the most value. And they must do this to regain their slipping seat at the executive table. It is what agencies must become most valuable in - understanding, influencing and measuring to regain their value, lost and spread out to a myriad of other resources including marketing strategy firms, design firms and management consultants. Rory Sutherland has a fresh, contrarian view in this article http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/949585/Why-advertising-needs-behavioural-economics/
• Organic Growth - The growing propensity to work with customers on a scope of work/project basis, especially for agencies, is causing great pressure on garnering organic growth from on-going client bases. This is a new expectation and skill set for many account and customer relationship staffers. It is not one that many are equipped to do or are especially anxious to sign-up for as a critical piece of their role. Companies (especially agencies) are faced with two critical adjustments. #1 – Train customer facing staff (who generally view their role as relationship management, strategic leadership, project management and work quality leadership) to become skilled at business development. Not sales – business development. Train them to continuously review a client's business and create solutions for their problems. Train them to reframe a client's view of their problems. Train them to expand their relationships within a client. Train them to activate the company's full resources and eliminate internal obstacles. Train them to keep a client's view of their company fresh and ever-expanding. #2 – Executive leadership needs to get involved with clients at a granular level. I didn't say give-up C-Suite interface. I am suggesting that relationship building and business understanding needs to click down a couple more levels. This is where so much of the scope of work decision making is happening and where agency executive interest and activity pays off.
• Transformational Players –During the last year, most of our assignments have been for what I would term "transformational players". Sounds like an impossible search assignment right? Not really. What these searches represent is an expectation of change and new possibilities, principally tied to establishing new capability, a new leadership approach or new business creation. And they are always entwined with an expectation for revenue lift. Our view may be skewed somewhat by the nature of how our practice has evolved, but I also see this when I talk with connections in every corner of the marketing and advertising world. A great replacement is not really considered a high value staffing move. More often than not these transformational player moves are accomplished by trading out another role(s) to fund this move, making an incremental FTE add or moving a star player into a transformational role. The result over time will be a version of the GE model... every year trade out the bottom 10% of your performers. In this updated model, every person is intricately tied to a higher value role with a constant re-evaluation of the roles and how they fit in. This future view will put a premium on a person's ability to influence and activate the organization regardless of their current role. Their role will (or better be able to) change and they will be expected to demonstrate greater value to the company over time.

Renaissance Man/Woman
There is another very interesting transition occurring in the marketing and advertising world which is beginning to gel in my mind. Let's call it the emergence of the renaissance man/woman. For a base, I did find a definition of Renaissance Man - "A man who has broad intellectual interests and is accomplished in areas of both the arts and the sciences". Close in meaning, but more specifically in the marketing and advertising world, here are some further thoughts. Now it is mostly about incremental expectations. Marketers have always needed to understand and be skillful in product, branding and overall communications. But, now they need meaningful skills around licensing, digital, WOM, content creation and you can name a few others. Marketers, despite working with specialized agency partners in a project directed manner, want all their partners to bring a broader understanding of the world and what is relevant to align ideas against. And ideas are the most valued gem sought from agencies – not simply communication. Agencies expect all their people to be more skillful across a broader spectrum and to able to communicate persuasively with clients in a manner beyond a narrow resource role. Agencies we work with are looking for creative talent with broader solutions capacity and a more diverse "book", planners that can nimbly move between right and left brain approaches, and account candidates that have worked across many categories to maximize perspective. I believe this transition will continue and it will put a premium on a few important dimensions in the talent arena. This would include personal curiosity, openness to cultural diversity, global fluency, ability to manage ambiguity, communication and connection skills up/down the hierarchy, quickness and ability to learn rapidly, independent strength and courage.

No Fear of Flying
Rarely a week goes by when I talk with less than 10 candidates who are no longer employed. Lately, I see a noticeable change in these people's attitude relative to becoming a free agent and starting their own business. It's not a new trend, free agency; Dan Pink wrote about it over 12 years ago in Fast Company http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/12/freeagent.html and again in 2001 http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2001/04/pink_main.html during the last recession. In between, he wrote a couple compelling books about this concept. What's different now is the financial need for many given our economic backdrop, the viability and acceptance of talented people in these roles and most importantly, the diminished fear of flying. When I talk with people who are in a career change challenge - code for out of work – invariably, we get to the topic of starting a business – code for becoming a consultant free agent. If they seem to express interest in heading in this direction, I ask four questions:
      #1 – Have you had an "itch" to do this that doesn't seem to go away?
      #2 – What does your spouse/partner think of the idea and how will they help?
      #3 – Have you talked with 5+ people who have started a business from scratch?
      #4 – Are you prepared to manage through a likely 4-6 months financial ravine
                 at the beginning?

In the past, this question funnel moves about 80%-90% of people off that path, with a large thud heard on #4. These days, that rough number is more like 50%-60%. Why? At a macro level, I believe a big part of it is lack of fear. Nearly everyone has now been through a career challenge and once you have been through that gauntlet you have less fear about things turning out well. At a more granular level, it is revealing how important collaborative alliances are becoming, how effective virtual work approaches can be, how companies are more open to working with talented people this way and how flexible this lifestyle can be. Overall, I believe this trend is a good thing for all. I have great respect for someone who tries being an entrepreneur and more companies are beginning to view this similarly. I am certain it helps make them a better company employee if/when they return. These people value their jobs more, figure things out more effortlessly and have better listening and empathy skills. My hope is that our leaders in Washington understand this trend, comprehend the importance to our economic growth and cease combat and begin to cause movement and positive support change. Yes, that was political commentary.

Fresh Ideas, Simple Truths
Several months ago I spoke at a conference for an independent agency network and presented a discussion titled "Fresh Ideas and Simple Truths". You can view that presentation here http://www.brickhousepartners.net/PDF/BHP_Fresh%20Ideas-Simple%20Truths_3-3-10.pdf

Ralph A. Cutcher