How to Cope With a Scarcity of Interactive Talent

Props for working Voltron into your article.

Dear Chad,

This is why head-hunters have become so prevalent. You can steal people away from competitors and not feel bad when the same thing happens to you. After all, you didn't do it, a head hunter did it.

The reason they move around so much is that eventually you discover that the work you saw isn't the work you're getting. Seldom is a project the result of a one-man-gang. Good work is generally the result of a good creative team coupled with good account work and production. Not a single individual. And when your superstar comes up short, it is usually because part of the equation is missing, the part that made it all work. Assessing and nurturing talent is what takes time and the ability to spot it to begin with is the trick. This is why they have award shows, to make it easier for larger agencies to spot the talent so they can buy it away from you.

It is tough to do everything you say to do, then watch it all walk out the door on you. So perhaps that is what is needed: a formula for success where people are always interchangeable, so instead of relying on people, you rely instead on the formulated approaches you recommend, that can be replicated again and again no matter what happens. Personnel changes have to be factored in as a big part of the puzzle. Two-year colleges keep minting new ones, so you need to learn how to use them up and then spit them out, keeping your agency always fresh and creative with new idea generation. You can tout the youth of your organization -- and the latest in IT education as your excuse for the inability to retain top creative talent.

I'll make a plug for Owen Frager, creative genius behind the blog FragerFactor and startup GrandNames.com, a interactive call for action advertising approach utilizing the power of domains and the power of Creative combined. It is probably the missing link for most businesses that aren't finding their way to riches on the internet....

With respect, the talent, or lack thereof, isn't the problem. The problem is the organization. As an IT professional and tell you without equivocation, the problem is always the organization, not the talent. In organizations that understand creative personalities (and IT has some of those too) the talent is easy to find, easy to hire, easy to retain and turns out magic...every day. In organizations that do not understand creative talent the industry scenario you describe is always true.
Changing corporate culture so that creativity can flourish isn't easy. I have succeeded more often than failed in adapting a corporate culture of conformity to one of creativity. When I succeeded magic happened. Failure was easy to predict in hind sight...the corporate culture wasn't really ready for an change.
You allude to Google but stop short of explaining why their approach works so well. And it's not because of their wealth...although...money makes it easier. Rent the movie "The Pixar Story" sometime. It contains the answer. Pixar gets it. – Gordon Rudd, Tulsa,OK

With respect, the suggestions support the ongoing believe that talent only comes from within. Some of the strongest organizations are willing to look critically at their own infrastructure to determine "if" they are providing best in class interactive development. Subsequently, "is the organization better at driving creative, strategy and the interactive producer functions?"

In the absence of corporate introspection, IT professionals continually become part of a corporate machine that ultimately leads to poor job performance and repetitive development efforts without the sense of completion desired on any given project.

Clarity in the knowledge of internal capabilities can then drive an organization to determine if the company (and client) is better served to "direct" vs. "produce" the actual development.

So, a 5th option might be "outsourcing the interactive development" which becomes a viable solution as the focus is on what the agency does as part of routine core competancy (strategy, creative etc.). Allowing the agency to leverage Creative Directors and Interactive Producers to execute campaigns.

Brian Daniel - Phenomblue, Omaha, NE

Dear Chad:

Methinks that many agencies may have competent creative right under their noses but
fail to tap that resource, despite hands in the air, because they are considered 'traditional', and for some reason that does not translate to interactive. Or it just doesn't seem efficient.

With every endeavor whether Print, DM, Broadcast it is the thinking and design skills that have made me successful.

Bringing talent forward (ie: traditional art directors and writers) is prudent for agencies and an oversight if they don't.

Consider this:

Gilgamesh and Web 2.0.
It might be heresy but I happen to think Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 or the Web
turned upside down is so much hogwash.

Why?

Because such phrases are merely digital argot designed to make Web seem
complex and inscrutable. Only web guys can get it. That's bunk. The Web
doesn't matter. Good communication does.

Now not long ago I read (not in the original Sumerian) one of the first
books ever written, the epic Gilgamesh. It's over 5,000 years old and it
was pretty riveting. Gilgamesh got me going and here's what I concluded:

I don't think communication principles have changed since the beginning of
time. Techniques have. Principles haven't. So to that end, and thanks to
Gilgamesh, here goes:

8 Retail Principles
By Gilgamesh ibn Mahmoud, proprietor,
Gilgamesh's Date and Camel Hut,
Sumer, Mesopotamia
3323 BC

1. Be nice to everyone who enters the store. If you don't know them by
name, attempt to learn their name—and their interests—so you can greet
them by name the next time you see them.
2. Based on what your customers have bought before, make suggestions on
what might interest them now. Suggest but don't be pushy.
3. Reward customers who come back. Often I give my best customers
special service, my son. First dibs on the freshest dates from the
greenest valleys over the high sand hills of Nod. You know what I mean.
Quid pro quo.
4. We sell a relationship. Not dates and camels. In other words,
service the products and services you sell. If the camel you sold Mrs.
Weintraub pulls up lame, give her a loaner until we can rehabilitate
it. An expensive business practice, yes, but good for the long haul. My
son, repeat business is what it's all about.
5. Hire the smile. Remember Annukaki, the bearded one with the scimitar
in his belt? Not a good hire. The gestalt of our shop should be
friendly, helpful, knowledgeable, my boy. A smile is your face to the
world and must appear whenever a customer shops with us. Even Mrs.
Weintraub and her lousy Bactrian.
6. Choices lead to sales. Yes, dates and fish are an Emperor's dish,
but what if you have only Medjools and the Emperor wants Deglet Noors?
A severe pain might ensue from where your hand once was. You cannot
anticipate all, my son. You must provide choices.
7. The customer is Caliph, my son. Make it easy for the customer. Thank
the customer. Provide the customer with service and he will reward you
with loyalty.
8. Don't point. Show. If a customer says, 'what aisle are the
dromedaries in?' don't gesture and say, 'over there, buddy.' Take the
customer to the dromedaries. When you show the customer where the
merchandise is, when make things easy to find, they're apt to buy more.

Though all of the principles above can be applied to Web design, it's not
Web 2.o we should worry about. It's People 1.o.

Did I miss something, because your article doesn't really answer the question of how to hire and retain good digital staff.

As a good digital staff person, I would say make sure they aren't bored, don't micro manage them, support them as a vital part of your organization and not an afterthought, and realize that they may be working at midnight and goofing off 9a-5pm. Be flexible. And you were right about not making them manage. But you were wrong about their skills being taught. They absolutely like to teach, as long as they think they are converting.