It's a scary thing to realize; that everywhere you look technology is making multimedia, photography, website design and other marketing and creative specialist tools available to Joe Blow down the street. But not how you might think. I welcome technology. It is at the very heart of marketing, advertising and design industries. It is the means by which my work gets done. But are we abandoning the fundamental principles of good business and design with technology. Are we building websites without regard to the mechanism of business such as branding, marketing, strategy development, a business or marketing plan? We are and it is a terrifying realization when technology has made a task that required a Masters Degree five years ago and turned it into child's play with a couple of clicks. You hardly need to know web programming anymore with the onslaught of CMS options. You don't need special training in darkrooms to do photography anymore; just click and stitch; copy, past, and publish.
What does all this mean really? It means our sensibilities toward good market strategy is inversely proportionate to our technological advancement in the tools that implements that strategy. When taking a properly exposed photograph is as easy as clicking without thinking about composition, where does the artistry lie? You inherit an Internet with literally billions of photographs that mean or accomplishes nothing. With thousands of sites popping up on the Internet everyday from everyone with a computer loaded with templates, where is the branding strategy, how does the business get customers, does the business have a marketing plan or a business plan? How does that site build your brand? If you're still reading you're beginning to see what's happening. Our own faster, smaller, cheaper, yesterday mentality is devaluing our economic infrastructure and our ability to develop true skills. While that same mentality attributed to economic growth and opportunities for many, our misapplication or failure to understand the implications of our new toys will lead to a gross devaluation of our organizational identity.
I applaud the photographer who hasn't completely abandoned film. He or she understands the process, has developed an eye for lighting, a talent for perspective, and an intuition for composition. I respect the draftsman who still has parallel bars and a full set of drafting pens and pencils with protractors. I adore the graphic designer who has spent a few years in sales, advertising, marketing, and business development to understand the components of good design. When did it become smart to hold a contest to whomever produces the best new logo design for a company? That's appalling and downright terrifying. What happened to the professionals that understand the business, the market, and the psychology of true marketing and advertising; the professional that understand ROI and demographic studies?
We're abandoning basic business principles for speed and cost and it ends up costing more in the end. It's time to go back to basics and get a grasp for bottom up economics and business practices.
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