Times are changing faster and faster everyday. As technology evolves faster than we can breathe…and as it evolves, we need people to help us with it, understand it, and sell us a strategy to implement.
Web strategy of 2010 has evolved into business communication strategy. Creating and monitoring revenue streams as we create and monitor conversations…well actually the technology that distributes these conversations and messages.
I think back to when I was in undergrad at Clemson. My freshman year (1992), no email and the only knowledge of the World Wide Web was this thing called Gopher. I remember I could use it to find my girlfriend’s class buildings at Appalachian State University. By my sophomore year, I had email and the WWW became a new idea on Clemson’s campus. By my junior year, Clemson was teaching web design and development classes. While I was in college, major AD & PR agencies were building strategic communication strategies and the computer geeks were creating webpages.
Now…here we sit in 2010, the new age AD Firm is the web/new media agency: building business models around web strategy as a communication plan that drives revenue. It started out as going paperless to save money, but now communication strategies are sold to drive revenue not only for the organizations that buy the plan but for the firms that are selling the strategy.
Why the discussion…I have been studying and trying to understand the evolution of the new media business models. Watching and researching the retainer models for web and new media firms that are not only creating an updated web presence but also building relationships with C-Level executives for long term ROI.
I have been talking and visiting with companies everyday who are caught in similar positions. They are staffed with creative professionals that handle all the graphic design and communication planning for their communication strategies. These companies are staffed with “traditional” media execution but scrambling to create and implement web and new media strategies. Many companies staffed with seasoned professionals trying desperately to get up-to-date with these web, social, and new media concepts. These same companies are staffed with interns that are training professionals how to evolve and adapt practitioner concepts into new technology.
Web strategy companies come in with big retainers and big ideas…visions of solving problems capitalizing on the current deficits in knowledge in many mid to large size organizations…”how can we make our web presence better and drive traffic to our message.” The new age AD Firm is today’s Web Firm….staffed with Presidents/CEOs, project managers, business development professionals, designers, developers and a board of directors. These board of directors made up of investors and visionaries capitalizing on the new wave of messaging.
It is a new world order…we are buying iPad’s and Androids as fast as we consume information. We sit and watch HDTV on our couches while we sit and surf the Internet with our Mac Book Pros and posh laptops. We are texting as we drive down the road while answering phone calls and listening to Pandora. Information velocity has a new derivative…information velocity. It is a new world order. And what is the next evolution? Hmm…Mobile Media Firms will take over and create the new strategies as business communication strategies with brick and mortar offices in every city.
How will we as practitioners stay relevant though this accelerated evolution of business and technology strategies. Hmm…maybe just keep on telling stories. BTW…I realize I might be one of these groups I am talking about…taking part in the new world order.