Work smart. Partner up.
If you’re like me, these days you can’t hardly get more than one post from your GoogleReader under your belt before someone mentions the future of one of the following: the advertising industry, newspapers, magazines.
This morning my buddy Steve shared this @wired video on how they plan on answering everyone’s questions about magazines moving forward in a (hopefully) profitable way in the ever changing face of today’s technology and in the wake of the green movement. Check out the video, more after the jump…
Now what Wired is showing here is by no means shocking to most who might read this, but they are at least at the head of their industry and thinking about not only the content they produce but the medium for which they’re producing it. They talk about controlling the UI with gestures (on devices developed for those types of interaction), contextual linking and interactive, immersive advertising. All great stuff!
But please Wired, don’t stop there. Partner up.
Take a look around at existing services and companies and incorporate them into your product. Take @Jkretch out to lunch and talk about incorporating LiveFyre as a way to implement immediate live conversation about an article or other piece of content, keeping users involved with your brand longer. Grab a drink with the fine folks from Nikon and their social media goldmine Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk ) and discuss using their Virtual Touch software to bring functionality you have available on a few devices (ipad, iphone, etc.) to even more devices, the laptop / home computer / television. Increase your penetration.
One hurdle for these kind of partnerships is the attitude that you need to do everything “in house.” I can’t believe this train of thought will persist too much longer. Given the rate at which technology moves forward (props to Chris Teso of TheGood for hammering Moore’s Law home many, many moons ago) it’s going to be, or is already, a nearly impossible task for a company to remain at the forefront of every technology that it needs to understand and incorporate to truly be a leader in their industry.
There are good reasons why the opensource community is so popular. People share their work, ideas and philosophies so others don’t have to start from scratch or at least to give others an idea of where to start. Why re-invent the wheel when the guy down the street is already riding an Indian motorcycle? The world gets more and more impatient, deadlines get shorter and shorter and projects need to be more and more advanced. Finding qualified partners is the smart thing to do.
The other huge strategic upside to these partnerships is an immediate increase in qualified and interested audience. Instead of using only the Wired portals to start conversations about your new product, now you’ve got a chance to hit Ashton’s 4.5 million (!) followers with a push to go check out what you’re offering.
It just makes sense. And it makes sense for more than just the magazine industry. But perhaps that’s another post.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a5596334-c727-4e14-ba38-b8132e98b975)
Jeff Miller
February 19th, 2010, 3:03 pm #
Take a look at the article “Detroit Reimagined” in Wired Mag’s very own issue 17.06. They should practice what they preach!
http://www.wired.com/wired/issue/17-06
steve benoit
February 19th, 2010, 5:18 pm #
Irony at it’s finest! Perhaps they intend to and this is just something they’re making digestible for the general public? Time will tell I guess.
Thanks for commenting Jeff.
gabi
February 21st, 2010, 10:25 pm #
Absolutely. The agency of the future isn’t one agency, it’s the right players executing on each one’s respective expertise.
I think a huge caveat needs to be thrown out there though: managing partnership expectations.
The open source community works so well because everyone has the same expectation: to put out a great product and not care about profit or commercialization. I’ve seen too many post-mortems that end in “ok, well next time we just need to communicate more effectively up front…” This, of course, means there is no next time.
On the other hand, waiting for details to be ironed out can delay – or, more often than not, kill a project. Though, I suppose that finding that right partner and getting through the first project effectively leads to significantly quicker executions moving forward.
And now you have my brain, dumped out on your blog.
steve benoit
February 22nd, 2010, 2:19 pm #
Great point Gabi. Finding GOOD partners is the key.
What you should expect from a good partner is less of “Yes, I can do it for that price” and more of “OK, this sounds great, now here’s what we need to think about for this to be successful and here’s where we can take it a step further.”
The partner you chose, you hopefully chose because they have experience in the area you’re looking to occupy. They should make it easier for you to think about details you may not have thought about yet in the course of planning.
It’s another vote for the “don’t reinvent the wheel” idea. Partner with someone who has already been through the riggers of building from the ground up.
Of course every project will have it’s unique details, some of which can’t be foreseen by the most experienced of partners, but in large part the misery of a bad post-mortem on a project can be parlayed into a happy hour celebration by finding the right partner.