Hi Phil,
Hope you’re well. I’ve now changed my mind completely and decided that Twitter is rubbish.
Yesterday we got 50k visits on the site. Facebook sent 6,000 people and Twitter 600, but we have more Twitter followers than Facebook ones. No one clicks on the links and there’s too much on it.
It’s OK for the punters but for driving traffic and building brands I think it’s a lame duck.
There.
Have a great weekend.
Paul

Paul Stokes
Publisher
The Daily Mash

I received the above email from Paul Stokes over the weekend and subsequently got his permission to quote him.

Twitter = rubbish for building brands in his view.

He makes an interesting point about there being too much on it and no-one clicking on links.

I suggested that this might have something to do with the fact that The Daily Mash uses Twitter as a one-way, broadcast channel (see below), and that a more “engaged”, dialogue approach might yield better long term dividends.

With such a broadcast approach it’s probably not surprising that Facebook performs better as a traffic driving channel. People tend to fan/follow fewer, more considered, more personally important people and organisations on Facebook than they do on Twitter. The signal to noise ratio is higher. And Facebook is hardwired for word of mouth.

Is Twitter rubbish for building brands?

Live tweeting from conferences sucks.

It sucks for the presenters, who must be aware that their ‘audience’ is more concerned with writing rather than properly listening.

It double-sucks for presenters if they have to get through their content with the double distraction of seeing the ‘audience’ heads-down in their laptops AND being faced with a Twitterfall of real-time, critical comments projected on the screen behind them.

And it sucks for the audience. You have paid (or more likely you employer has paid) good money in order to learn something. Or to be inspired. Ideally both. Bashing away on Tweetdeck when you should be absorbing slide content, verbal content and hopefully a compelling on-stage performance is a waste of someone’s training budget. You can call me old fashioned about this, but you’d be wrong.

I was mighty glad to see that there was no Twitterfall at MediaGuardian’s Changing Media Summit 2010.

And, as you can see, I vowed not to tweet while people were speaking.

Here, however, is a summary of the high and low points of the day as if I had live tweeted. Tweeting after the event.

I COULD LISTEN TO JIMMY WALES (WIKIPEDIA FOUNDER) ALL DAY. #CMS2010

Jimmy Wales spoke for about 20 minutes and was then interviewed by Rory Cellan-Jones for about another 20 minutes. Neither slot was long enough, a consistent failing of this conference if truth be told. He was eloquent, passionate and candid. He had clearly edited a wealth of material down to 20 minutes, and the audience would clearly have kept him talking in the Q&A had time permitted.

LOVE THE WIKIPEDIA MISSION STATEMENT. LAYERS OF MEANING TO EVERY WORD & PHRASE. #CMS2010

Mr Wales spoke with great conviction about the role and purpose of Wikipedia. This clearly isn’t a bland, vanilla, dust-gathering pronouncement to be laminated, stuck on office walls and ignored. It is an active credo by which the organisation lives and works on a daily basis. Well worth a closer look.

His discourse on the layered meaning of the word ‘free’ (”free as in speech, not as in beer”, “not just no paywall, no wall at all”) led to an interesting examination of the contrasting approaches of Google and Wikipedia in China, which is again a hot topic as I write this.

CHINESE MENUS DEMONSTRATE THE POWER OF WIKIPEDIA. #CMS2010

If I had live tweeted this I would have used Twitpic to illustrate the point. Mr Wales showed several examples of menus from restaurants in China that appear to list Wikipedia as a key ingredient of several dishes. I have included an example below.

The explanation for this appears to be that when looking for English translations of Chinese ingredient names, the corresponding Wikipedia entries were returned first and misinterpreted.

CORPORATE ATTITUDES TO CHINA ARE LIKE THOSE TO SOUTH AFRICA DURING APARTHEID – JIMMY WALES #CMS2010

In that some companies choose not to be associated with the regime, some choose to be there as an active force for positive change, and some are just there to make money regardless of any human rights issues. Despite the differences between their approaches, Mr Wales placed both Wikipedia and Google in the middle category.

WIKIA – END OF THE ROAD FOR NICHE MAGAZINES? JIMMY WALES #CMS2010

Mr Wales is also the founder of Wikia, a “consumer publishing platform that enables passionate communities to collaborate”.

He cited the example of his daughter, an avid user of the Club Penguin platform who, once exposed to the rich depth of (free) content on the Club Penguin wiki, is bitterly disappointed with the mere 100 pages of content that she gets from a $6 niche magazine.

BAKERS SELL FRESH BREAD AND GIVE AWAY STALE AT THE END OF THE DAY. NEWSPAPERS DO THE OPPOSITE. #CMS2010

An interesting parting shot from Mr Wales. He attributed the stale bread/fresh analogy to Matthew Freud, whom he had met the previous day.

SHIFTING CULTURE AT THE BBC. TECHNOLOGY AND EDITORIAL ON EQUAL FOOTING. ERIK HUGGERS. #CMS2010

Erik Huggers is Director, BBC Future Media & Technology at the BBC. His presentation (deliberately?) took the entire 20 minutes allocated to this slot, leaving no time for questions from what, judging by the murmurs, was not an entirely friendly audience.

He talked about how the creation of “products” at the BBC (things like the iPlayer, the news website, C Beebies etc) was a collaboration of equals between technologists and editorial staff. This is a common theme right now, with people like Mike Arauz posting recently about the magic that happens when technological ‘tricks’ and great storytelling work hand in hand.

IS IT IRONIC, UNLUCKY OR JUST INEVITABLE THAT TECHNOLOGY HAS FAILED FOR THE DIGITAL BRITAIN PRESENTATION? #CMS2010

Oh dear. Least said soonest mended I think.

IN SWEDEN 20-30 YEAR OLD MEN SPEND MORE TIME ON SPOTIFY THAN WATCHING TV. #CMS2010

A comment made during a panel session on “The New Economics of Content” and the different business models currently being explored by Condé Nast, CNBC, Spotify and Pearson. The above observation was made by Jonathan Forster, Global Sales Director of Spotify, as he opined that the agency mindset needed to work harder to keep up with changing content consumption behaviour.

Some interesting stuff in this session about combining various business models (freemium, micropayments, virtual goods, oh yeah and advertising) rather than relying on one.

USEFUL, USABLE, DELIGHTFUL – THE AKQA RECIPE FOR CREATIVE SUCCESS. #CMS2010

This was from a pre-lunch panel session on “Quality creative control”. Once again the format wasn’t ideal. The panelists were potentially awesome (from Contagious, Nokia, Ogilvy Labs, DDB Stockholm, AKQA and BERG) but none of them really had enough time on their feet to get into any kind of stride. Some interesting bits and pieces like the AKQA philosophy on digital creativity, but I was left wanting much more.

MEDIA COMPANIES CAN’T HOLD AN AUDIENCE BECAUSE WHAT THEY PRODUCE IS SHIT – MICHAEL WOLFF. #CMS2010

Michael Wolff is the founder of Newser.com, a news aggregation site with the mantra “read less, know more.” He also wrote The Man Who Owns The News, a biography of Rupert Murdoch.

The quote above refers to his opinion that US newspapers in particular are rapidly becoming victims of their “over-supply of inconsequential content”.

THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY IN THE U.S. IS OVER – MICHAEL WOLFF. #CMS2010

Michael Wolff continuing his candid and thus highly entertaining tirade against traditional media owners.

And against Mr Murdoch…

UNTIL A YEAR AGO RUPERT HAD NEVER BEEN ON THE WEB UNACCOMPANIED – MICHAEL WOLFF. #CMS2010

Michael Wolff and Jimmy Wales were the undoubted highlights of this conference.

ENFORCING CONTROL DOESN’T WORK WHEN YOU NEED TRUST. PARENTS GET IT. MEDIA DON’T – GERD LEONHARD. #CMS2010

Gerd Leonhard describes himself as a media futurist. I don’t know about that but I do know that he’s a complete nutter on his feet. A flamboyant presenter with even more flamboyant slides. I have never seen so much animated giffery in one place. Literally every component of every chart moved in some way, usually all at the same time. His conference slides can be found here but they’re static and so really don’t capture what it was like on the day. Maybe if you close your eyes, spin rapidly on the spot several times until you’re giddy and lose any sense of balance, then look at the charts, you might get close. All he needed were big shoes and an exploding car for the full clown effect. It was a shame because he made some interesting points but you had to not be laughing (at not with) in order to hear them.

IT’S ALL KICKING OFF HERE. YOUNG TURKS FOUNDER HAVING A RIGHT OLD GO AT NBC. #CMS2010

Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks basically accused most American journalists of being liars who are in the pockets of big business and the US political machine. This incurred the wrath of a heckler in the audience and it all kicked off from there. To describe Cenk as “cocksure” would be a massive understatement but you only have to look at some of the engagement stats on his YouTube channel to see that this confidence is not entirely without foundation.

This closing panel was moderated by Rory Cellan-Jones who was clearly enjoying it. Equally clear was his frustration at not having more time to develop and milk the debate further. And that, as you may have gathered, was the story of the conference.

If ever you wanted an example of how great content underpins great search engine optimisation, this is it.

If ever you wanted proof that optimising your site for human beings is the best way to optimise it for search engines, this is it.

The Woodlands Junior School (Tonbridge, Kent) website isn’t the prettiest thing to look at…

… but boy does Google like it.

A post on the Hitwise Intelligence blog makes this point extremely well. It shows that the Woodlands site picked up over a third of all clicks on the term ‘mother’s day’ for the 12 weeks ending 13th March 2010.

I read the post with professional interest, but with a vague personal bell ringing in my head.

It was only when I looked at the site that I realised why. It is the self same Woodlands Junior School site that my daughter’s primary school teacher had recommended to me for its interactive times table games at a parents’ evening only last week.

In fact the site is a treasure trove of useful interactive educational tools. Wall to wall utility.

No wonder it has a reputation amongst the teaching profession as a valuable classroom and parental resource.

A reputation that translates into search engine authority.

I was the seven hundred and seventy second person to save the Woodlands site to Delicious, and the popular tags suggested by Delicious when I saved it tell their own story.

The content has been developed by teachers for teachers, and this is reflected in the recommended tags – resources, school, interactive, curriculum, junior, games etc.

Once the teaching profession grapevine kicked in, so did the inbound links to the site. Indeed, at the time of writing, Yahoo Site Explorer shows 86,541 inbound links to the site.

With that kind of Google-friendly authority, it’s not surprising that a short term Mother’s Day piece on its homepage outranks all other sites for that search term.

An excellent case-study showing that consistent development of useful content for humans is the best way to appeal to robots.

When I were a lad in advertising, topical ads were all t’rage.

Responding quickly to take advantage of an opportunity presented by something in the news was a win, win, win situation.

It made the agency look proactive, engaged, interested in the eyes of the client.

It made the brand team look good in the eyes of their business.

It made the brand look good in the eyes of consumers.

I remember a couple of days after the 1987 hurricane, Volvo ran a black and white press ad featuring a press photograph of one of their cars that had been hit by a falling tree. The occupants had emerged unscathed, reinforcing the brand’s reputation for safety.

Brands such as Heineken and Durex clearly had contingency budgets ringfenced to allow for this kind of activity.

More recently the same topical principle has been applied to this bus-back execution…

That’s the ‘traditional’ approach to topicality.

But what does topical advertising look like in 2010? Maybe a little like this?

During the extended cold snap of January this year, we noticed a few people on Twitter talking about the fact that cans of IRN-BRU left in the car overnight had frozen solid.

So we created WillMyIRNBRUFreezeInTheCar.com, a simple, single-function, topical microsite that answers its own question.

The site was conceived and built in an afternoon. It cost less than £x (where x < you think), including purchase of the domain.

The user simply selects the predicted overnight temperature in their location using a slider device and the site tells them whether their IRN-BRU is at risk via a series of randomised, amusing responses.

We then waited (not very long) for the next cold snap and promoted the link via IRN-BRU’s Twitter account.

In next 36 hours or so we generated just under 750 unique visits, and some very favourable qualitative response.

No doubt we’ll have a few more opportunities to further promote the site before the end of winter, next time hopefully with an offline PR ‘booster rocket’.

Expect to see more of this down-and-dirty, low-cost, do-and-learn style of topical/tactical digital activity over the coming months.

Social channels thrive (nay depend) on social content or social objects as they’re commonly referred to.

And clever, brand-relevant, topical content is as good a route to generating social objects as any.

People are pesky.

So it says if you click on the ‘People’ button in the affectionately named ‘amoeba’ flash panel on our homepage.

They are pesky, not just because they have too many shoes. They are pesky because they have a habit of surprising you and confounding your assumptions.

At Blonde we embrace this peskiness by talking to people. We talk to as many people as we can as often as we can.

And they never fail to surprise us. For which read that we always learn something useful.

That something might be a huge insight that unlocks an innovative strategy. It might be a smaller insight (for instance that b2b audiences are no fans of locked pdf documents), responding to which allows our clients to appear more thoughtful. As often as not it will be a reminder that we need to get our heads out of the emerging technology clouds and get our feet back on the average Joe ground.

Take a look at this video if you want to see just how far we can get our heads up our own bottoms if we insulate ourselves in an early-adopter world of Buzz versus Twitter blog posts and such like. It was produced by Google and asks a simple question of normal people – ‘What is a browser?’

In the recent past we have spoken to classical musicians, breast cancer sufferers, energy advisors, record company execs, independent financial advisors, journalists, high net worth individuals, social entrepreneurs, runners, higher education managers, internal stakeholders from several clients, and a whole range of ordinary folk of various shapes, sizes, backgrounds and locations.

Every conversation has been useful, having a direct impact on strategy and/or execution.

As it says on our homepage, ‘People are pesky. Everything we do is for them.’

Primary research to understand the people associated with a brief sounds like an obvious thing to do, but it can be inconvenient to the agency and/or the client that is in a blinkered hurry to use the latest technology.

We are huge fans of Forrester’s people-first approach to digital planning, and their Social Technographics model.

Understanding people’s relationships with technology (by asking them) ensures that your digital strategies are underpinned by the truth rather than wishful thinking.

GUEST POST

This post was kindly written by Andrew Ingle. Andrew is a freelance copywriter with whom it has been a pleasure to work. He is a gentleman, a craftsman and a true pro. He can be contacted at copy.writer@btinternet.com. He is clearly passionate about writing for websites, and one day he may even get around to writing his own.

Ok, his words and opinions from here on in….

If, in the short walk from pub to pad, the hot-totty you picked up at the bar changed appearance, attitude and sex, you’d have the right to feel a tad worried. Cheated even.

Then why is it that so many agencies and their clients are apparently unperturbed by the fact that customers are reading web copy that bears little or no relation to the ad that sent them to the site a millimoment before?

If the ad is cheeky and chatty, the website copy should be cheeky and chatty too… Isn’t that common sense: a branding basic from ‘The Ladybird Book of Marketing’? Seemingly not.

Sharing the blame

Where does the fault lie? It could be that the digital agency has failed to see the wisdom of investing in writing talent. Or worse still, the client has written the copy. (Sadly, neither of those is unheard of, and will be the subject of Whinge No.2.) But, more often than not, it’s all down to a lack of communication in our communications industry.

In this connected, networked world of ours, it’s bizarre to see such a gulf between the agency that writes the site copy and the agency that writes the ads directing prospects to the site. There’s little or no connection. Step beyond the landing page and any tone that the original ad possessed goes walkies.

And no, of course, this isn’t true of all sites (or of all agencies and all clients). But unless your standards are depressingly low, it’s undeniable that good web copy is the exception rather than the rule. And good web copy that’s consistently on-brand, hitting the right tone of voice from one end of the map to the other, is as rare as rocking horse poo.

Nobody is immune

Just before writing this, I took a link to a famous drinks website. This brand is one of my favourites, with a lovingly developed tone of voice that makes me smile at least once a year – usually at Christmas.

Designwise, the site is charming and witty (as it should be). But, once you’re all loaded, the tone changes. The site loses its voice. The writing is dry, repetitive and overlong. It’s everything the brand wasn’t before I got on the site, but is to me now. What a shame.

Surely it’s in the interests of the client and their above-the-online agency to ensure the digital copy is on-brand and on-promise? The site is where everyone gets to see – and prove – ROI: it’s where conversion takes place, data is gathered, sales are closed. It’s not just important. It’s frigging vital.

Making the marriage work

What’s the solution? Well, a single agency doing the whole shebang is one answer. A Jack of all trades. But that’s not always possible or desirable; unless you’re pretty sure the in-house talent is evenly spread across all the agency’s offerings.

So, assuming there’s more than one agency involved, it’s got to be client-led. The client is, after all, responsible for these arranged marketing marriages. And only the client has the clout to get all those egos toeing the line.

The client has got to insist – from day one of the contract – that their agencies talk, meet and work together on a regular basis. So very regular that the usual preening, point-scoring and political positioning of most inter-agency meetings (we’ve all been there) doesn’t just become foolish but untenable.

Channels of communication must be permanently open and used. Briefs must be shared. And systems and positions must be set up to ensure that the terms of this relationship are adhered to. All parties must invest in it.

And if agencies really have their client’s interests – as well as their own fragile reputations – at heart, they’ve got to be ballsy enough to tell it like it is. That without this kind of relationship, they simply can’t be as good as they could be. Indeed, as Dave Trott never said to me, “nobody can work well in a vacuum, unless they’re called ‘Shake ‘n’ Vac’.”

Of course, this sort of creative cohabitation doesn’t just apply to copy. It applies to every facet of any campaign that requires the input of more than one agency.

No excuses

It’s all very irksome for the client, because it means more work, and probably greater cost. They might even have to stay in the office until 6.15pm. But the resulting ROI will prove the effort worthwhile.

On the flipside, it may not make an iota of difference. If, after everyone has been properly informed, consulted, included, briefed and generally loved-up, the copy is still tummy-rot, then it’s okay to flourish the waggy finger of disappointment in the red faces of those responsible. Clearly the fault lies elsewhere. Exit Whinge No.1. Enter Whinge No.2…

A few clicks on from another excellent Mashable update and we’re demonstrating and debating our own variance in social behaviour with chat show style banter on Google Buzz. Here’s the discussion thread…

Following an email around the office this morning, investigating what our individual thoughts were on Google Buzz, I received a few pretty cynical responses. To be fair, many people are still recovering from Google Wave: asking where and what now?

For me, it’s a bit different. Google is half my social equation. I have a Gmail account and am also a member of Tech Meet Up, Mobile Monday Edinburgh and Girl Geeks. TMU is a Google group, as is Mobile Monday and for Girl Geeks we organise information around Google Sites. I have a number of files in Google Docs, plus I’m in and out of Google Maps all the time. It’s fair to say I like Google.

Not everybody feels the same though. Here were a few thoughts from other Blondes about Google Buzz, starting with our tech team:

“It’s like twitter, but without any clients and unable to tie into any other of the microblogging/social media things…

It does follow the two people I have set up in googlemail already though.

Sadly, until they create some reason for it to exist my thoughts are:
“Just what the world needs, another twitter-clone.”

Oh it has “like” from facebook, which twitter haven’t managed to add yet.”

The bandwagon of Buzz bitchin’ rolls on…

“If everyone starts using it then it becomes really relevant. Haven’t seen a killer feature yet…

Google have been, shall we say, intermittent in their marketing of services so the jury is out about how big it will become.”

Having said that the current debate (going on around me while I’m typing this) is that if you are a heavy gmail user (I am) then it does appeal -as long as the take up is good.”

And then the rest of the planning team jump in….

“Google Buzz – initial reaction = “groan”.

Groan because as a digital marcomms professional I’ve got no option but to try it out, when my gut feel and the input (via Twitter) from people I trust are telling me that it’s going to be no great shakes.

Groan because I resolved this year to add more depth to my social graph (more emphasis on RSS, blog writing and commenting), and this feels like more breadth. That’s my personal take on the whole signal to noise issue.

Groan because there’s this stool called RSS, and there’s this other stool called Twitter, and I can’t see a valid role for anything between those two stools.

Groan because I only ever use Gmail for opening Twitter accounts. I really really can’t be arsed to have another following mouth to feed.

So I’ll watch with interest how it develops but at the moment it’s not even coming out of the box for me. “

And the tech team is still going….

“It just seems way to complex and unfocused.

Twitter
Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.

Facebook
helps you connect and share with the people in your life.

Simple. I get it.

Buzz
Go beyond status messages
Share updates, photos, videos, and more.
Start conversations about the things you find interesting.

Try Buzz in Gmail. (why do I have to do it in gmail by the way?)

You lost me at “Go beyond status messages”. Er.. not so sure I get it.

Really bad design as well. I find it really hard to scan. Twitter is so easy to just fly through and pick what’s interesting. Buzz is a mess and feels horrible to read.

Google seems to have forgotten their design roots. A million miles away from one input box to search shit.

Social network app fail.

A lot cleaner in t’iPhone though. Bordering on being useful.”

Before finally concluding…

“My friends are on Facebook (for the most part)
My friends aren’t on Gmail (for the most part) and if they are they’re not updating their status there.

So, for social/picture sharing stuff = Facebook.

I get interesting web/marketing/wotsit links by following people and searching on twitter.
I don’t get that from Buzz (yet, since there’s noone on it)

So for interesting links/finding out what random “famous” people are upto/whatever = twitter.

Buzz is only as good as the people using it – and currently noone is.

I expect it to go the way of Google Lively, to be honest. “

It appears I am the lone voice of Google Buzz support here.  I don’t think this product… this service… from Google is anywhere near complete and of course I’m aware of the privacy issues, which have been flagged up; but I need something that bridges the gap(s) between LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Social networking online isn’t this simple. I don’t want my engagement with professional communities to be confined to LinkedIn. I want meaningful, human-to-human knowledge sharing, which goes beyond the offering of Twitter and I certainly want a richer experience than Farmville updates on Facebook. I’m not arguing that Google Buzz is the solution, but given the incredible insight Google now has into our online behaviour, I’m holding out for some improvements first, before I search for a conclusion. Here’s to growing out of Facebook and Twitter…

We need a new planner.

We experienced a surge of inbound interest in the last quarter of 2009 and were fortunate enough to convert more than our fair share of the opportunities that presented themselves.

We’re also benefiting from year-on-year organic growth as existing clients place a greater emphasis on all things digital.

So we’re hiring.

We canvassed opinion here about the kind of person that we’re looking for, and the aggregated response is the recruitment equivalent of asking for the moon on a stick.

So here are the must-have qualities, minus the long tail of nice-to-haves.

1) HIGH-CONCEPT THINKING

A brief comes in from client x. It gives some details of their market, their brand, their audience and the issues they want some help with.

It doesn’t take you long to come up with some outline strategic thoughts, maybe a couple of headline themes that you could hang a pitch off, some clever ideas for channel strategy, and some interesting creative starters.

We want the intuitive leaps to go with the planning rigour.

We want a ‘Sherpa’ who can guide the creative process and occasionally deliver the ideas themselves.

A client once said that a really good planner is the only person he’d move his account to follow. Could you be that important to a piece of business?

2) LEADERSHIP

No, we’re not looking for a head of department, but we are looking for someone that can lead pitches and big presentations.

The way we’re growing we need to be on our A game in several places at once.

3) TECH-SAVVY

Our planning philosophy is rooted in the idea of people first. For a given audience what is technically desirable?

That said we need a planner who is also au fait with what is technically possible.

If a client asks, ‘Can that be done?’, you need to know the answer without having to phone a friend.

We’re doing interesting work for interesting clients, and we independently muck about with our own projects on a regular basis. We’re based out of London and Edinburgh. There are 25 of us, but we’re also part of a large marketing services group. So there’s a start-up vibe but we also have some very interesting friends in areas like co-creation, RoI analysis and media planning who can seamlessly slot into the team when required.

If you’re interested please get in touch via the email form on the contact section of our site. No agencies please.

(Image borrowed from hdurdle).

We need a Senior (or aspiring Middleweight) Interactive Designer for a 9 month contract at one of the UK’s most progressive digital marketing agencies.

This is a rare opportunity to get one foot inside the door of Blonde. First and foremost the right candidate will be a passionate and inspired digital designer, able to take a digital brief from concept through to completion with an outstanding portfolio to back this up. A solid understanding of web technologies / trends is a must, with Photoshop & Illustrator skills a necessity along with good Flash skills. Any motion graphics and 3D experience is beneficial but not essential.

We’re looking for the best emerging talent to work in our Edinburgh office.

If you think you fit the bill please send your CV and examples of your top 5 pieces of work to info@blonde.net.

This contract starts at the beginning of March. No agencies please.

The trouble with the Internet is it’s become too darn accessible. For every digital work of art, there’s an optimised-to-the-max site bumping genuine articles out of search engine listings, re-routing traffic to unhelpful destinations and making a fair amount of cash on the way. There’s no craft here anymore… right?

Shortly before Christmas I went to see my friend Alan at the Gallery of Modern Art*, who had very kindly offered to give me a tour around the conservation studios.

The tour consisted of four main areas: paper conservation, the mount cutting studio, lining and framing and the painting conservation studio. Rather ignorantly I’d never really given much thought to the conservation of historical works of art and had, pretty much, just taken it all for granted. The education on restoration was fascinating… like taking a pinhead sized sample of paint, casting it in resin, cutting the block into slices and then taking a section to put under a special microscope to view the layers of paint, so the painting can be restored authentically and flawlessly.

Look here’s a photo taken on my trusty iPhone:

The conservation studios at the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

What also made an impression was the painstaking dedication each team had to their part in the restoration process.

Their crafts.

A painting that needed restoration was given the time and attention it deserved; it was finished when it was finished and no deadlines were imposed to hurry the work along.

Perhaps the trouble with Digital is it the ease at which work can be replicated. We always seem to be in such a hurry to get work out, because if we take too much time, there’s every possibility that somebody else will get there first. But if we get there first, what if somebody trumps us with a better solution? It’s exhausting!

Perhaps the thing about craftsmanship is that it’s actually very difficult to copy.  It is indeed a fine art of a finely tuned skill and genuine creative talent. In the context of digital marketing, finely tuned skill and creative talent might even be defined as “Brand”; that intangible blend of characteristics, where there is a unique and original strength in the sum, but virtually no value at all in the parts. Digital marketing becomes a craft when it appears to seamlessly meet the demands of an audience, without the audience having to explicitly communicate anything at all… without an audience knowing it’s an audience. I would argue Google, Amazon and Facebook are examples of companies which pursue digital craftsmanship.

This reminded me of some questions that were recently asked in an EEC talk by Alexis Ohanian from Reddit, essentially enquiring what distinguished those individuals and companies which made substantial amounts of money as start-up ventures and…. Well, those which didn’t.

I think this brief post by Seth Godin sums up the case nicely:

“Craftsmanship

Find a calling and then deliver.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” – Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Inspired.

* Thanks Tim.