A Conversation With Mike Masnick, Techdirt.com Founder

Techdirt.com has grown from a one-man operation founded by Mike Masnick in 1997 to become one of the web’s leading collaborative voices in analysis of issues relating to technology, economics, law and entertainment. The site has amassed 850,000+ RSS subscribers, 35,000+ posts, 250,000+ comments and a consistent rating within Technorati’s top 100.

I interviewed Mike on behalf of the One Movement Word blog, where I focussed on questions relating to the music industry. Our unedited conversation is below.

Andrew: What inspires you to write about the latest in digital content?

Mike: I actually think it’s a really important issue, that is, in many ways, an “early warning sign” of some economic changes that are going to impact many other industries, from healthcare to energy to consumer packaged goods to financial services. It’s just that digital content lays out the specifics much more clearly (and yet it’s still confusing to some people!). I’m hopeful that as people start to understand these issues, when the “bigger” similar issues come to the forefront, it will be easier to point back to what happened with digital content to make it clear how things should play out elsewhere.

How do you keep Techdirt fresh with new topics each day? I imagine that you draw from a massive pile of sources.

Yes, I definitely read a lot via RSS and (more and more) via Twitter. When I see something that strikes me as interesting, I write it up. We also get a fair number of submissions through the site’s submission page, which often alerts me to interesting stories I would not have seen elsewhere. These days, there’s always more content than I have time to write up.

Which are the sites you check first when you wake up in the morning?

I have to admit that I like to switch it up pretty regularly, so that I don’t get into a rut and find myself too focused on any particular source. That said, to get a sense of what’s going on, in general, in the tech world, I probably check News.com, Wired.com, Slashdot, Broadband Reports and Techmeme most frequently.

You tend to decide your stance on an issue and argue passionately , as evidenced by the ‘from the (x) dept‘ lines under each article. How long did it take for you to hone this instinct to see issues in such an assured manner?

Well, I’ve always looked at the blog as a part of a conversation, where I expect some discussion to take place — so I don’t necessarily think that I take a totally “assured” position on many things. Often I’m actually looking to see what discussion occurs in the comments, and from there my position becomes more clear as I discuss it.

But, because of that, I do think the posts themselves have become more and more assured over the years, in part because of the earlier discussions I’ve had in the comments, where people maybe challenged this or that aspect of something, and it forced me to dig deeper and to better understand an issue to the point that I was pretty sure that where I was going with it was accurate.

I learned, a long time ago when I taught university statistics that I ended up learning statistics much, much better once I started teaching it than when I was taking all those course and passing tests. That’s because when I was teaching it, students would ask “why” or wouldn’t understand the basic explanation I would give them. So I would need to really, really understand it myself, so I could better explain it to the students.

I think the same thing is true with the blog. I definitely understood the economic framework when I started writing the blog, but when the discussions started and people started asking questions that I really was forced to understand the economics at play at a much, much deeper level, so that I could explain my positions back to people in a way (hopefully!) that they would understand.

But, of course it’s always a learning process, and I’m always learning more. And it’s in those discussions that I learn, and I hope that the next post I’m slightly smarter for it. I think that will always occur. And it’s great. I love continually learning new stuff.

From what I gather, Techdirt began as a source of customised news for tech companies. How has this role evolved since 2000?

It’s certainly evolved quite a bit. We did customized news and analysis for many companies for a while (and we still have a few “legacy” customers in that space), but we’ve definitely moved on to focusing on the Insight Community as our business model, which was a quite reasonable evolution. Basically, as we were doing analysis for various companies, we often would realize that our internal team might not have as much insight or expertise on a particular story as the large readership on Techdirt. So we started to reach out to the folks in our community… and then evolved that into a formalized process called The Insight Community, to let companies tap into our wider community, rather than just our internal team.

A second, more recent evolution, is the realization that the Insight Community isn’t just a great tool for internal research and analysis, but for marketing purposes as well. So these days, a growing percentage of the use of the Insight Community is to host public conversations that help market a company, allowing them to talk about issues with our community in a public way. It allows those companies to help build their brand and at the same time get insight back. On top of that, we allow companies to then repurpose that content, so many of them use the content developed by the Insight Community to help create their own blogs/whitepapers written by third party content. It’s really a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.

Seth Godin [pictured right] has been a vocal critic of tertiary education for business students. What are your thoughts on the value of business school in the modern economy?

I think it really depends on what you want to do. You get out of it what you need to. For certain jobs, it’s still quite necessary. I didn’t go the standard MBA route, but I did get a ton out of my experience, with two key points:

1. I learned a lot more from my professors directly than I expected to. The “book learning” wasn’t a very big deal. But we had a very close relationship with our professors, and much of what I talk about today was heavily influenced by conversations I had with three or four key professors who helped me learn this stuff.
2. The personal connections I made in business school have been too valuable to count. It’s difficult to overemphasize what an incredible help the connections have been — whether it’s in getting new business or just getting helpful introductions to people who can help or point in the direction of help.

Which school did you attend, when, and what did you study?

Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. I graduated in ‘98. It’s a general management school, so you learn all aspects, but I focused on entrepreneurship. As an undergraduate, I also went to Cornell, and got a degree in “Industrial and Labor Relations” which is sort of an antiquated name for a combination between law, human resources, economics, business and organizational behavior.

Do you ever struggle to remain productive? I imagine you’re constantly being pinged by emails and other distractions.

Yes, there definitely are a lot of distractions and interruptions. Beyond all the writing, there’s actually running the business side of things as well (and having a life). So it’s pretty constantly busy around here. I generally learn to focus in on certain things and break up the day to take care of different tasks at different times.

While the content on Techdirt appears to be heavily driven by your opinion pieces, at times, you seem to take on the role of the traditional journalist/reporter. Are you happy with the balance between opinion and fact on Techdirt at the moment, and do you have plans to direct it further down one of those avenues in the future?

Really? I don’t think of myself as a traditional journalist/reporter at all. If I do any journalism it’s by accident, not on purpose. I think, these days, that everyone is always a bit of a journalist, so sometimes that comes through. But, on the whole, I’ve never thought of myself as a journalist at all. I don’t think that’s likely to change.

What are the most important discussions taking place about the changing newspaper/news-media industry?

I think there are a lot of important questions about how the news media business can survive or thrive in the coming days, and there are some great discussions going on there. A big part of it is whether or not newspapers should block off their content with a paywall (in my opinion: a dreadful idea that will fail miserably) and/or whether they should look to try to force others, such as Google to pay them (or get the government to change laws to benefit them). I think most of these discussions are misguided, and the real discussion should be on ways that news media publications can look to provide more value.

Which writers inspired you when Techdirt began, and whose writing inspires you in 2009?

On copyright-related issues, William Patry is fantastic, though, unfortunately he mostly stopped writing his blog altogether (he just did a post recently however, out of the blue!). He’s got a book coming out in the fall, which is wonderful.

James Boyle is another one, whose book on The Public Domain [pictured left] came out a few months ago and should be required reading for those looking to understand the music business.

Eric Goldman, who writes the Tech & Marketing Law blog, is a great read as well on legal issues.

On business thinking, Andy Kessler, who’s written some great books and writes columns that every time I read one it makes me view the world slightly differently.

As for when Techdirt began… it was a mixed bag. One of the biggest influences was actually Danny O’Brien, who along with a couple other guys in the UK ran a hilarious tech newsletter called NTK, which stopped updating at the beginning of 2007. It was a great loss. Danny works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation now, but doesn’t get to make use of his brilliant humor so much in his writings. I’ve definitely been a big fan of Clayton Christensen for a long time, too.

As a heavy reader, what makes for engaging writing in the tech arena? Do you think that you’re a strong writer?

I don’t think I’m a particularly strong writer. It’s something I actually work on, but I’m just so-so. I’m always amazed when I see really beautiful writing and wish I could be half as good. But, I think what makes more engaging writing is the ability to tell a story simply, the ability to have an opinion that you can stand behind with facts (rather than just for the hell of it) and the ability to interject some well placed humor. I wish I could do all of those things better.

In your mind, what are the most important discussions currently taking place about the changing music industry?

I think there are two key issues:

• New business models
• New legal frameworks.

These overlap at times, but the business models are important, because we’re seeing more and more evidence that stuff works now. That it doesn’t require some big or massive change. Artists who figure things out can make money now and do so in a much better way than they could have in the past. That said, I am worried about some of the efforts that I think are attempting to crowd out other solutions before they’ve had time to grow.

On the legal side, I’m definitely concerned. The industry has long focused on a legal path to protecting and extending their business model in the face of any sort of innovation that challenges that old business model. And I think that harms new business models and musicians who embrace them. The innovation that’s occurring has been enormously empowering to musicians, and much of what is happening on the legal front could serve to hold that back. And the end result, I’m afraid, would actually be less creativity, less music and fewer useful business models for musicians. And that’s quite troubling.

You wrote in a Techdirt article that you’re in the camp of “folks who never buy single tracks, but always look to buy the full albums of bands I like”. How have your music tastes changed in the internet age?

I prefer to listen to music I’ve purchased. In fact, I still mostly buy CDs, though do occasionally purchase music for download from CDBaby or Amazon. In terms of what music I like, I listen to a lot of early ska/rocksteady/reggae honestly. So these days, it’s bands like The Aggrolites and The Slackers.

One Movement For Music’s tagline is “Artist, industry, fan united”. What’s standing between this vision of unity between artists, fans and the music industry? What do you think it’ll take to achieve this unity in the coming years?

Yeah, actually, this is a really good question, and it’s a point I’ve been trying to make for a long time. There are solutions in this industry that truly are (as cliche as it sounds) win-win-win, where all parties are better off. Yet, so many of the old guard view the industry as a zero sum game — which is that if someone else is making a dollar, it’s a dollar I’ve lost. So the idea that someone could get something for free is viewed as a “loss” even if, in the long run, it brings back $10 dollars (or more). So, because of that view, some have always treated the market as a competition to get the very last dollar, and that doesn’t make for a very “united” front between artists, the industry and fans. Instead, you get all grabbing for scraps, even if it means everyone’s worse off.

I’m very hopeful that a growing generation of folks are beginning to recognize that by working together, these new models actually do benefit everyone — including the fans and the industry — in such a way that everyone is happy with the results, rather than anyone having to pull one extra dollar. It may be idealistic or utopian, but I think it’s possible. It will require a lot more success stories, a lot more examples, a lot more money to be made — and perhaps a few of the “old guard” to retire.

But it will happen, at least to a certain extent. There will never be perfect bliss, of course. But the resulting industry can be a lot more aligned where everyone benefits when certain things happen.

Aside from Techdirt, where are the most important discussions about the changing music industry taking place?

Hmm. That’s a good question. I think they’re happening all over the place. Hypebot is a great blog. Music Ally. I actually think that Wired and News.com have some of the better discussions on these issues as well.

Mike’s opinions on technology, law, economics and entertainment are published daily on Techdirt.com. Contact Mike via Techdirt.com or Twitter.

Filed under Conversations | Tags: amazon, andrew-mcmillen, andy-kessler, artist, bandcamp, business-model, cdbaby, clayton-christensen, Copyright, danny-o'brien, digital, education, entertainment, eric-goldman, fan, hypebot, industry, insight-community, Interview, james-boyle, Journalism, law, legal, mba, mike-masnick, music industry, music-ally, news.com, newspapers, one-movement-festival, one-movement-word, seth-godin, slashdot, techdirt, techmeme, Technology, technorati, the-aggrolites, the-public-domain, the-slackers, twitter, unity, University, william-patry, wired, Writing | Comments (2)

Bachelor Of Communication

Is it arrogant for me to state that my Bachelor Of Communication is worthless? Probably.

Aside from being a physical reminder of my ability to (somewhat) focus on a goal for three-plus years, a degree is only useful if a potential employer needs to check that box before hiring me. Since I don’t see myself applying for a job that requires a résumé ever again, can you see why I feel this way?

Andrew McMillen became Andrew McMillen, BComm on July 24 2009. An old dude who speak at the ceremony said to my fellow graduands something along the lines of: “Having invested years of your life studying here at the University Of Queensland, you understand that a university education is more than simply attending lectures and handing in assignments.”

Cue sniggers, because that’s exactly what I found my university education to be: a matter of attending lectures and handing in assignments. Essentially, doing enough to pass, without extending myself.

Why didn’t I extend myself? A good question. The old dude was hinting that a university education is what you make of it. There was a whole lot of extracurricular bullshit like networking, volunteering and university politics that absolutely didn’t interest me. So I opted to show up to class occasionally, hand in assignments, and do enough to pass.

I suppose I always felt that studying Communication was a waste of my time. The cute summary of the program I give to people is that Communication is half journalism, half media studies. And entirely rooted in events that happened decades ago; practices that were established centuries ago.

Why didn’t I quit? Another good question. I’ve made it clear that I don’t value the certificate that’ll sit in my closet for eternity. I guess I took the easy way out by sticking to what I’d started, rather than course-correcting from what I constantly felt was a misguided pathway. Call it parental pressure, call it social expectation; my boss last year told me I’d be fired if didn’t finish the degree. Another example of me not wanting to rock the boat, not wanting to cause a scene, not wanting to stray from the presupposed outcome I’ve allowed others to dictate since high school, even while feeling nothing toward the journey itself.

As I write this, I feel a misguided arrogance tickling the edge of my consciousness. It prompts me to spout something like: “Almost everything I was instructed to learn and understand throughout my degree was written at a time before the internet! Newspapers are dying, traditional journalists are displaced! The internet changed everything! That a university education is valuable is a fucking fallacy!”

That’s my irrational response to this discussion. I’ve attempted to curtail it many times, both psychologically and in conversation, but it still tends to rear its head. I know there are a thousand arguments against what I just wrote; entertain me with them if you wish.

I won’t pretend to empathise with my fellow graduates, Communication or otherwise. But as I sat among the hundreds, I thought thoughts like:

• How many of them feel entitled to the certificate they’re about to receive?
• How many of them feel that they deserve to walk right into a job, a career, simply because they passed classes for a couple of years?
• How many of them are prepared for the world in which we live - one that values the sharing of ideas rather than the submission of formulaic assignments that fit into predetermined criteria?
• How many are going to proudly call themselves ‘professional communicators’ for the rest of their lives, without irony?
• How many are going to fail to realise how sad it is to self-define by a Bachelor/Doctorate/Master ‘of’?
• How many of them blog?

I’d like to think that I’m being realistic, here, expressing these sentiments. Refusing to accept that life is as easy as the steps set out by the people who run the business of tertiary education: study, degree, career, happiness, death.

I’d like to think that I’m being honest with myself, and that I’m achieving something by sharing my feelings of discontent.

I’d like to think that I’m being pragmatic by shrugging off congratulations; the myth that completing a degree is worthy of recognition.

But it’s probably pretty clear that my assertions are filled with contradictions, hypocrisy and half-truths. I’m not looking for reassurance. I know where I want to be and who I want to represent, and I know that I didn’t need a certificate to signify either.

Maybe I’m alone on this among my peers, but I’d hope not. It’d make things a lot easier for me were they that delusional, but mostly I’d just pity them.

Kind of ironic that the graduation ceremony’s guest speaker, ABC reporter and journalist Chris Masters - whose speech greatly inspired and motivated me - has been awarded honorary doctorates and degrees, but chose to never set foot within a university.

It’s not all bad. My time at university prompted me to write the first post on this site, in May 2008. That single decision - inspired by frustration and helplessness - pointed me in what felt like the right direction. Namely, far from sandstone hallways and dull classrooms.

Thanks for boring me into action, University Of Queensland! IOU $16,306.

Filed under University | Tags: abc, arrogance, bachelor-of-communication, blogging, chris-masters, education, graduation, Journalism, Knowledge, Life, media-studies, myth, newspapers, professional-communication, reporting, Review, social-expectations, tertiary-education, University, university-of-communication | Comments (13)

A Conversation With Jess, Sydney Digital Strategy Director and SomethingChanged.com.au blogger

It just so happens that Jess is Digital Strategy Director at a mysterious Sydney advertising agency. She won’t say which, and she also won’t let me publish her surname. It’s not because she’s scared or nothin’, but on the internets, Jess is best known as the curator of a rather excellent blog called Something Changed, about which I wrote lovingly for FourThousand:

“Something Changed acts as Jess’ digital scrapbook, where she posts about new media, advertising, online campaigning, representations of the self, kids today, words, writing and books, funny things on the internets, politics, art, ideas, music, work, food, and sydney. The result is an aggregate of content that you’ll probably find either funny or fascinating if you’re a twenty-something who spends a lot of time online - and since you’re reading this, it’s not an unfair assumption to make.”

Jess, why did you start Something Changed? Was there an influential person or moment that encouraged its creation?

I started Something Changed almost two years ago because I was fascinated by people’s behaviour on the internet and I wanted to document my discoveries. It was partly so I could archive and remember facts, figures and links more efficiently, and partly to have something to show for the immense amount of reading and research I do! I discovered Tumblr through Gawker’s exhaustive coverage of Jakob Lodwick and Julia Allison’s relationship which largely played out on the Tumblr platform. Tumblr was perfect for me because I like to present raw data that interests me as I find it, rather than crafting long posts.

Where do you find the majority of the articles that you link?

On Tumblr you can post stuff you create, post stuff that you find online, or use their reblog feature (which is sort of an automatic “retweet” feature) to post other’s content with a link crediting them. About 75 per cent of what I blog is from the second category. I find it by either investigating a topic that interests my by searching and following links, setting up RSS feeds to my favourite blogs and websites, and by following people who I respect and who will post things I find interesting.

Does your exhaustive online presence ever spill into your professional life? Do your workmates know of the blog?

In fact the internet IS my job, lucky me! I work for an ad agency where I am the digital strategy director. Since I work on campaigns and strategy it’s considered part of my work. My workmates and bosses definitely know of the blog, I bang on about it exhaustively. In fact my boss promised to buy me a cake when I passed a big milestone in the amount of readers I had, but I passed it ages ago and he is still yet to come through. Two of them have started Tumblrs themselves. We all love the internet at work.

Why the anonymity?

Well I’m not really sure now! I was doing some big work for clients around which there is some sensitivity, and I didn’t want any posts to be taken out of context and my personal views being ascribed to the client. I think in the next few months I’ll probably get with the times and put up my full name. I’ve noticed all my peers in my industry do.

Do you often give thought to how you portray yourself online and the legacy you’re building, or do you just throw it all out there?

Something Changed started as mainly a vehicle for professional development and research and largely it still is. I barely ever talk about myself (apart from “I saw this, I read this, I ate this, I visited this”) or my feelings. So at worst it will be a record of what interested me at different stages of my life, which is fine. Thank god I have never posted a poem or ruminations on my relationships.

What do you think Something Changed adds to the web?

Lots of people in marketing and advertising view the internet from very very far away with a telescope. The world does not need another “how to be a powerblogger” blog or post on “how to measure social media ROI”. I like to think I see the raw internet - the amazing stuff people create, the intense stuff people say about their lives and feelings, the fascinating ways they represent themselves online. Then I try and distill that onto my blog. It’s like a little field study from an anthropologist completely embedded in the culture they observe. Having said that, I don’t recommend people see my blog as anything special - instead they should set up their own!

As you said, you barely ever talk about yourself. But you also barely ever talk about why you find something interesting, or worthwhile posting.

You’re right. I tend to like information that I view as primary sources - people who produce things from scratch, whether it’s blog posts about their lives of feelings, collating things that inspire them, producing amazing things likes videos or songs. Or academic analysis- people who take rigorous, well-informed approach to analyzing the internet and its sociology.

I don’t have time for anything in between, that whole raft of “people who don’t really understand the internet talking in vague general terms about the internet.”

I have things I definitely won’t post, like anything about swine flu, anything about that Best Job in the World tourism campaign, or tips to become a Twitter poweruser.

Do many of your non-ad agency friends follow the blog? How do you describe the blog to a real-life friend?

None of my friends that I’ve known forever are in the ad industry. They all read it, sporadically. When I refer to my blog I adopt a stupid mocking tone and say “my blawg.” If they ask about it I give a knowing smile and say, “I’m so famous on the internet you guys.” If a waiter takes ages to take our drink orders I’m like, “this would never happen to me on the internet.”

You and I both spend a lot of time online. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve develop a kind of bias in the way that I access information online. I start to overstate the way that I operate and assume that others follow similar methods; if they don’t, I become either amused or frustrated, depending on my mood. But that’s a curious aside. When did you become a heavy internet user, and how did your skills develop to the point that they’re at now? (Because let’s face it, good internets is a skill.)

I know exactly what you mean. Good internet is definitely a skill. I am totally self taught, I didn’t even have email until 2000 or 2001. In 2003, someone at uni said, “email me a draft of your paper” and I said, “oh it’s pretty long for an email,” and then attachments were explained to me. I couldn’t use a digital camera until 2004. I couldn’t pirate music! It all sounds a bit embarrassing now.

It was in 2005 then that I started using the internet heavily because I joined some forums. Before that, I had always thought of the “web” quite disparagingly, “who are these people? Read a book, or go outside.” Now it’s completely a part of my daily routine. It’s really changed my life – how I think, what inspires me, how I work, the people I’ve met.

It’s helped that I can do it all day everyday at my work. Spending ten hours a day on something is a good way to get quite good at something. In every role I’ve had in my career, to do a good job I need insight into what people think and feel, a creative spark to generate ideas, and a plan to my implement strategy. So the internet is crucial to every single element, and my employers have always let me have free reign to work that way.

Do you keep a private journal?

No! I’m too self-conscious. If I want to remember how I felt about something, I do a keyword search in my Gmail and cringe at old emails I wrote my friends.

How did you become digital strategy director at your agency? Was ‘good internets’ part of the job description?

I met the CEO of my agency when I consulted on online strategy on a big national campaign he was working on. A few months later my position was created for me when I said I was ready for a new job - so there was actually no job description! I’m so lucky now that I get to do what I love with the cleverest team and the best clients.

The career path to Digital Strategy Director was not an obvious one. I was a journalist, then moved to Melbourne and could not immediately get a journalism job so I got a job doing the overseas publicity for Neighbours [pictured right *snigger*]. I only got the job because at the interview I told the producer, “You know it’s not too late to make Izzie’s baby Jack’s,” or something. Since I was spending my days trying to get freelance writing work I had had plenty of time to watch Neighbours fortunately.

Of course part of my job was to look after the BBC’s Neighbours website. It was my first taste of a really intense online fan community. They had a forum and everything. I learnt so much from that job. That an official website will never be as fascinating as a fan website unless you let go of the PR reigns (why would you want to read about an actors’ theatre aspirations on our site when you could go to an unofficial site to read about their love life?). That fans create the best material, that fans really get upset if you make changes without consulting them. It was a crash course in Internet.

Then I got to do my dream job being the Online Director doing national political campaigning, where I learnt about building movements – uniting people around taking action online and offline to achieve social change. Then I consulted on another big campaign, then I got this job. I always think of that thing people say, “the jobs the youth of today will be doing when they grow up haven’t even been invented yet.” At our Careers Centre at school they basically said girls could be Lawyers, Accountants, Gallery Curators or PRs.

I’m assuming that you went to university. Tell me about your time there.

I did! I went to uni to study English thinking I would have a career doing some kind of writing. In first year I became interested in social justice issues and for the first time paid attention to politics and current affairs. Before then I was strictly a reading, writing, art galleries, theatre type of person. So uni was fun, I did the student politics/share house/shop at Salvos/“feed yourself on $5 a day” thing until my last year. Then I got a full time newspaper journalism cadetship, and had to do my Honours year full time at the same time.

Was that a difficult year? Did you ever question what you were doing?

It was difficult. Fortunately it was things I loved doing – researching and writing. I’m also one of those people who needs to be busy to get things done. I like approaching big tasks (daily deadline of journalism combined with a yearly deadline of handing in a thesis) and strategically breaking them down in an efficient way. Having said that, I am never studying again. And whenever my friends say “I’m thinking of going back to uni,” I always say “NO! YOU FORGET HOW HARD IT IS!”

How did you land the cadetship? Was it shit or awesome?

I decided suddenly I wanted to be a journalist so I got a two week cadetship at a newspaper. I was lucky they gave it to me because I think now they only take people studying Proper Journalism at uni – a bit short sighted in my opinion, but I think it’s because the universities provide insurance. I got a story in the paper almost every day, including a huge feature on mobile phone use that was published in the Features liftout on the Saturday. The story is completely lame and I am so glad it’s not accessible by Google.

After my two weeks the Chief of Staff said they were hiring a cadet, and would I like to apply? I said “yes”. I interviewed and didn’t get it – someone else did. But a few weeks later they phoned and said I could be a cadet anyway. So that’s how I got the job, and now the other cadet is one of my best friends. The cadetship was amazing. Every day as a general news reporter is different and being a journalist is like having a license to walk up to anyone and ask them anything you want.

Do you read newspapers? Could you imagine being a full-time news reporter?

I only read newspapers on the weekends: the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Sunday Sun Herald and Sunday Telegraph. I get rid of all the Drive, Careers, Business and rubbishy sections. Then read the news, then the Lifestyle, then glossy lifestyle supplements. It’s a habit. Print will never die while people have weekend brunch routines to uphold.

I can’t imagine being a full-time news reporter. I would love the thrill of finding a big story but miss the calming routine of planning and strategising in advance. I get a nice mix of thrillingly busy versus long term planning in my current work, so I wouldn’t go back.

Lots of people view their time at university as instrumental in their personal development. What did you learn about yourself during that time?

I learnt the same thing at uni that has proved true in the workplace. Studying and work (doing your actual job as per your job description) teaches you nothing. You have to do it and do it well. But everything fun, amazing, professionally exciting or leading to personal growth has always been thanks to things I do on the side. Whether that’s groups I joined at uni, friends I made on the internet, ideas and projects I’ve suggested at work, or new career opportunities I’ve conjured up. When I think about what my life would be like without my blog that I randomly started a few years ago… I just can’t imagine it!

Something Changed is my favourite Australian blog. You’d best subscribe via email or RSS. Unsurpisingly, Jess is also quite lively on Twitter. Thanks for the interview, Jess!

Filed under Conversations | Tags: ad-agency, Advertising, anonymity, bbc, blog, cadetship, Career, Community, conversation, creative, digital-strategy, fourthousand, gawker, inspiration, Internet, Interview, jess, Journalism, neighbours, news-reporting, Online, Politics, publishing, Social Media, something-changed, teritary-education, tumblr, twitter, University, Web | Comments (2)

A Conversation With Tait Ischia, Junior co-founder and freelance writer

Tait Ischia is the co-founder of an excellent resource for young creatives named Junior, a freelance writer, and a RMIT Creative Advertising graduate. The degree is listed last for a reason, as Tait believes in getting shit done, instead of basking in his own glory.

It’s no secret that Tait’s Junior - founded alongside RMIT fellow Ed Howley - regularly kicks my inspiration’s ass. They rope interesting, real-life creatives into entertaining conversations; unsurprisingly, their no-bullshit style is a big influence on my interviews. In tribute, this piece will adopt Junior’s bright-highlight style to draw your eye to choice advice that’ll flow from Tait’s brain to yours. Eww.

I sent Tait the link to my Tim Kentley interview, which referenced his initial piece for Junior. Since he’s such a fucking nice guy, he agreed to answer my questions that’d lingered since reading The Enthusiast’s January 2009 interview.

Tait, I loved your statement in The Enthusiast’s interview: “really, the economy being in the dumps doesn’t mean anything [for junior creatives]“. Marketing budgets might have contracted of late, but businesses still need agencies to develop engaging ideas to raise awareness of their products or services. Hell, you could probably argue that right now is the best time for dedicated creatives to work their arse off and make a name for themselves; on the economic ground floor, so to speak. What do you think?

You’re really asking two questions here. One about the economy and one about juniors. It’s a fucking elephant’s cock of a question, so bear with me.

It’s a tough time for anybody in business, and creative businesses aren’t immune. I’ve heard a bunch of stories where agencies have had budgets cut in half, projects fall over just when they’re ready to shoot, and clients taking away their business entirely. It sucks big time.

Having said that, the creative industries aren’t a giant immovable object. Unlike businesses run by boring dudes in suits, creative businesses are run by people who can change and adapt pretty easily.

So although it’s a tough time for everyone, this is a pretty good industry to be in at a time like this.

The other part to that is everybody in the world right now is re-thinking what the hell they spend their money on. All of a sudden throwing money around on bitches and fine cheeses isn’t seen as a very good idea anymore.

So as far as creative industries are concerned, especially advertising agencies, there’s a whole lot of people reading newspapers and watching TV wondering what the hell to spend their money better on. In other words, a captive audience. Which means it’s the perfect time for clients to advertise. And the word on the street is those clients that do will come out of this faster and bigger than those that don’t.

As far as juniors are concerned, “really, the economy being in the dumps doesn’t mean anything“. I’m glad I said that. I can’t put it any better than what Clemenger BBDO’s Emma Hill told us in her interview, “It’s the toughest that it’s ever been for juniors. That being said, their advantage is they don’t cost much. So you can look at it as glass half empty or full.”

Many big agencies have put on hiring freezes and a huge amount of poor people are losing their jobs. BUT! And this is a huge but. Good people will always get work. If you’re awesome then businesses will go out of their way to get you in. You will make them money. It’s as simple as that.

All you have to do is prove to them that you are awesome. How you choose to do that is your choice. Here’s a good tip though, again from Emma Hill, “If your idea is a bit gimmicky, you come across as a gimmicky creative. Rather than a genuine, intelligent one.”

Show them you’re intelligent and that your work is great - do that and you’ll be fine.

You rose from a ‘zero’ advertising undergraduate to junior ‘hero’ over the last two years, and it’s all documented online. I’m a couple years younger than you, but this is essentially the ethos of our generation: everything we’ve ever done online will be visible to everyone, forever. Gary Vaynerchuk discusses this legacy regularly; what are your thoughts?

That is by far one of the funniest and scariest vlogs I’ve seen in a while. Whatever that guy says should be taken with a grain of salt, then possibly spread on something to make it delicious. Unless you want to be a greasy entrepreneur and have a lot of people hate your guts, don’t talk about your ‘personal brand’ too much.

I think smart people will be careful what they put their real name to. But I don’t think anyone should worry too much about what they put online, especially in this business. The internet is here to stay, so rather than get scared by what people ‘might’ find, embrace it. Put out a lot of stuff you want people to see, and put your name all over it.

I’d rather there be pages and pages of things I’ve made and be proud of on Google than a clean page with nothing on it.

Vaynerchuk reckons that legacy is always greater than currency. The latter is frequently cause for concern among my creative friends - “how do I get paid to do what I love?” Conventional wisdom suggests that the creative industries are tough to break into, in that it might take months or years to work on your passion full-time. What was your experience scraping coin together as an undergraduate - and later, junior at The Surgery - and would you advise that others follow your path?

I’ve had a lot of fun scraping money together over the years. I moved out of home while at uni and started a profitable friendship with Centrelink [note: Australia's welfare/youth allowance provider].

I moved closer to the city so I could hang-out with my peers and blow my money getting drunk with people like Penny Modra at ThreeThousand. Getting drunk and spending all your savings doing it is a great investment in your career. Like those old douchebags in business school always say, you need to spend money to make money.

If you’re really that passionate about what you’re doing then you will make enough money to survive. If you’re super smart and commercially minded you will make a decent amount of money and possibly own a Mercedes. Best thing to do as a junior is get a full-time job, get paid a salary, stop worrying about money, and focus on doing great work.

“Blogs get jobs“. A mantra you share with the likes of Craig Wilson and Gavin Heaton. My experience is that if you’re prepared to invest your time into an unpaid personal project, a smart employer will recognise that investment and reward you with an offer. It’s really that goddamn simple; why do you think people still have a hard time understanding it?

Because everyone’s so frickin’ lazy. The problem with social media and all the ‘gurus’ it has produced is that everyone’s so caught up being a part of the conversation that they forget to actually do stuff.

I suppose it’s OK if you want to be a planner or an accounts person because those jobs require you talk shit and be good at it. But if you want a job actually doing something, it’s not enough to merely want one. You have to prove to business owners that you are good and that you’ll make them money. And of course the best way to prove it is by doing stuff.

Blogs are the easiest way to do stuff. It’s basically like maintaining a Facebook but isn’t a complete time-wasting exercise in vanity. If all the kids these days spent the same amount of time writing blogs that they did on Facebook, then this industry would be a hell of a lot more competitive.

Woody Allen said, “eighty percent of success is showing up“. If you write in a blog regularly you are already doing better than eighty percent of your rivals. Now all you gotta do is write well, try not to piss anyone off and spread the love. After that, getting a job should become a hell of a lot easier.

Procrastination. How do you deal with the urge to shirk your writing responsibilities when YouTube/Wii/the pub seems more enticing?

I’m still dealing with this one. It’s an ongoing struggle for everyone, but I think I’m finally getting on top of it. I recently found this article on procrastination to be pretty fascinating. I think it’s something we’ve all got to deal with in our own time.

Some people are married to their work, some want to actually have a life, and others sit at their desk staring at a blank screen for hours. I don’t have any other advice than sit down and do some work. I recommend ‘just starting’. That’s always been a good motivator for me.

If you don’t know where to start, just begin anyway, and it will start flowing soon enough.

Really, if it’s that big a problem, the best thing to do is to quit all your jobs and have your livelihood depend on your work. If you know you’re going to get evicted unless you write that article, you’ll be working your ass off.

And if you don’t do it and get evicted you’ll know what it feels like and you’ll never do it again.

You studied creative advertising at RMIT. Was it a kick-ass, practical degree full of industry-applicable knowledge? Would you recommend taking it?

To tell you the truth, I have no idea whether taking that course was better than taking any other university course. It was as awesome as it was shithouse.

I made some incredible friends. One of our lecturers became our weekly Junior whip cracker, Stan Lee. We were exposed to the industry and all the shit it stirs. Sometimes I wish I had gone to Melbourne Uni and done a good old arts degree but even that has its own ups and downs.

I think the best advice is to never let your schooling get in the way of your education. University is just a building. Most of them don’t even have any good resources anyway. If you go to a uni where you can immerse yourself in culture, ideas and people than you’re on the right track.

So as far as that’s concerned I definitely recommend it as a course. Just don’t go there hoping to learn everything there is to know about advertising.

What’s next for Junior?

Good question. We’ve got a few big things on the horizon. Nothing I can divulge on right at the moment because there’s a chance it will all die in the ass. But as soon as its locked in we’ll let you know.

Otherwise I’m meeting with Woody from SneakerFreaker Magazine tomorrow for a beer and a chat and an interview. It’ll be nice to do an interview that isn’t advertising focussed. I haven’t done one of those in a while.

What’s next for you?

I’m headed to New York City in June. I’m done with Melbourne and this wasteland called Australia. I’m ready to be a very small fish in a very big pond and put myself to the test, Big Apple-style. I’ve got a handful of contacts, a neat little folio of work and this thing called Junior that I’ll be taking over with me. I’m staying for nine weeks but if all goes to plan I’ll be staying a little longer.

Right now though, I’m taking some time off to read books, go to the cinema, pick chestnuts and freelance.

Why freelance? What attracted you?

Not having to be at work at 9am every morning and 8.30am on Mondays. I can also focus on my work much easier without an office buzzing around me. It’s a temporary thing for me before I go to NYC, but I can see why some people can’t do it and why others swear by it.

We interviewed Todd Lamb on Junior and he told us this, “I don’t have any advice other than freelancing is 100% gambling. It’s unsteady and with no guarantees. So you better be brave and you better be OK with falling flat on your face. But I recommend everyone try it, it is a different way to live.”

So there you go. It’s helped me work better and more efficiently in the two months I’ve been doing it and I’ve made enough to pay the bills so I’m doing OK.

Finally; why did you stop blogging? I figured that freelancing  would mean that you could better spread your time between client, publication and personal writing, as well as Junior and name-yer-social-network-flavour-of-the-month.

Ah, that old chestnut. I literally blogged for about two weeks. That blog got me in with the lovely people at Right Angle Publishing - as discussed in my interview with The Enthusiast -  which was why I started it in the first place. So after I achieved my goal I just stopped. I was a student when I started it and I don’t really think the same as I did then either.

I’m not a huge fan of ‘marketing comment’. I think there’s a place for it but I don’t want to be a strategy planner or a social-media guru. I want to be a creative. And a creative doesn’t comment on what other people do, they go out and do stuff themselves for other people to comment on.

So yes I sorta do plan on blogging again, but only when I can use it to show the world my creativity and not just to add to the already saturated pool of marketing comment.

If you’ve read this far and you haven’t yet subscribed to Junior, it’s best you click here and follow-through. Don’t be scared; it’s likely that Tait Ischia’s writing will regularly kick your inspiration’s ass, if the above interview hasn’t already. Contact Tait via email or Twitter.

Filed under Conversations | Tags: blogging, conversation, creative, creative-advertising, creative-economy, Economy, emma-hill, freelance, freelancing, gary vaynerchuk, inspiration, Interview, Junior, melbourne, nyc, procrastination, right-angle-publishing, sneakerfreaker, stan-lee, tait-ischia, the-enthusiast, three-thousand, tim kentley, todd-lamb, University, Writing | Comments (8)

A Conversation With James Drewe, Digital Planner at Starcom Worldwide

Meet James Drewe, Digital Planner at Starcom Worldwide’s Brisbane office. Starcom is a media agency that focuses on the strategic implementation of advertising and marketing objectives. James deals with sweet digital projects every day. Jealous?

James, Starcom seem a lucrative company to break into. How’d you first hear of them, and how’d you talk your way inside?

I had the possibility of taking two subjects’ worth of work experience in my final year of university and I really wanted to take advantage of that opportunity, so I did a lot of research on advertising agencies and weighed them all up based on a few factors which I thought (at the time) were important to what I wanted to get out of my career. I looked at the global size of the company and their clients. Starcom was on the list, along with half a dozen other agencies with offices in Australia.

How did I talk my way in? The old fashioned way - networking. University is about what you know, but the workforce is also about who you know. So I began to network in order to approach the right people in the industry. Timing was also on my side, as Starcom happened to be looking for a new digital person at the time I made contact with them.

Which degree did you study, and, thinking about your career, how effectively did the coursework prepare you for life in the real world?

Originally I wanted to study 3D animation and work at a company like Pixar, but in my first year I discovered advertising and in my second year I switched to the Queensland University of Technology’s Bachelor of Creative Industries. It was an open-ended degree that allowed me to study the bulk of marketing and advertising subjects from a full Business degree, but also continue my passion for arts by taking electives in film, television and website development.

After looking at how many business subjects I could take, I took as many advertising specific courses as possible, everything from consumer behaviour to copywriting, marketing and PR. Some subjects prepare you better than others, but I can’t comment on the current course because it might have changed.

There are very few courses which focus specifically on media. A Business degree and in particular the Marketing/Advertising Major is very broad in its scope because marketing is a very broad field. Marketing covers advertising, public relations, the look and feel of your brand, consumer behaviour, media, research and more, so it is very tough to focus on your particular interest unless you went on to do post-graduate work.

At the end of the day, you can only learn so much at university and most of it will be theory rather than practical. There are a few team-based subjects where you get the opportunity to prepare a marketing/advertising strategy for a company (made up or potentially real) and these are the closest you will get to applying the theory in a real-world context until you actually land on your feet in the industry.

Tell us about your role at Starcom. How has it has changed during your time there?

My role at Starcom is Digital Planner which encompasses research strategy, media planning, campaign implementation and reporting and analysis. This means that I sit in with our client teams at the time of briefing and help develop their campaign strategies, specifically how those campaigns will play out in the digital space (be that online, digital video, social, mobile or other forms of ‘digital’). I also plan the intricacies of the campaigns, including which sites we will use suggesting ad formats to creative agencies, and implementing (booking) these campaigns. Once a campaign is over I assist with the reporting and analysis of performance and what we can learn for future campaigns.

And, because I know digital (and therefore computers), I’m also substitute IT guy when ours is out of the office!

This role has evolved since I started in 2006. When I was fresh to the agency my primary role was to look after reporting and material management (making sure the correct ads appear in the correct places). The role has definitely grown and my responsibilities are now far greater.

In this Mark Pollard article, he and his merry band of marketing/advertising commentators joyously bash the words and phrases with which you deal each day. Is your blood boiling, or do you agree that the industry tends to disappear up its own arse on occasion?

As you can tell by the number of comments on Mark’s article (45 at last count), this is a sentiment shared by a quite a few people within the ‘digital’ community – I’ve even thrown my two-cents into that post as well.

Marketing as a whole is full of jargon and catchphrases, it’s not just the digital fraternity. However, it seems to me that along with the rise of online and digital marketing, the number of buzzwords has proliferated – you can’t just use generic terms anymore, you have to put your own spin on it.

My blood certainly isn’t boiling after reading the article, it’s been a great opportunity for some of us to have a laugh at ourselves, because at the end of the day we’ve all been guilty of using at least some of ‘those’ words – I know I am.

What are your thoughts on the recent commercialisation of social media - wherein many companies are realising that people are talking about them online, and that they’d best monitor those conversations - and do you think this concept is solid, or a mere phase?

Social media still has a ‘flavour of the month’ feel about it to me but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It just seems that a lot of companies see social media as something they have to jump into because everyone else is. Unfortunately, very few people know how to do it properly and actually turn it into something which can drive measurable business results.

Social media has been around a long time, digital has just made it easier for groups to congregate and get their voice heard. I’d include word-of-mouth marketing, public bulletin boards and to a certain extent free newsletters in the social media category because these are all about people voicing their own opinions. However these three examples are much easier for mass audiences to ignore due to the limited reach these mediums have.

The internet made it a lot easier for groups of like-minded people (say, bitter Walmart employees) to get together and share their passion. When the issue of physical distance is removed from the equation, you no longer have just a small, local community – instead you have a national, or even global – group which has a lot more weight behind it.

I think social media is a great way for some companies to extend their customer service and public relations into an environment that their consumers are actively engaged in; however, there is a very fine line between utilising this space correctly and simply jumping in because ‘Twitter is in the press at the moment’. There are some great examples of companies using social media to their benefit, including Dell and Zappos on Twitter, and there’s just as many examples of companies who have created a lot of bad press for themselves, such as RyanAir.

Financial crisis. Big and scary for advertising agencies. Right? Have the last six months been kind to you?

The financial crisis is affecting different companies and agencies in different ways. There is certainly an overwhelming mood of cautiousness at the moment. Many companies, regardless of industry, are doing it tougher this year than they were at the same time last year - some are choosing not to increase their budgets, others are cutting theirs, some are continuing on with business as usual.

Okay, recession. We get it. Tough times for the job market. Near-impossible to get a start in the creative industries if you’re a recent graduate. Fact or fiction?

Near-impossible might be taking it a bit far, but it certainly is a lot tougher to get a job at the moment, and it is the same in many industries. That doesn’t mean that without some determination you can’t land a job though.

Bearing in mind that Craig Wilson at Media Hunter has recently opined on how to avoid the ‘resume run-around’: if you’d just graduated and wanted to get a start in the advertising industry - with no formal experience - what would you do? You mentioned networking earlier, and that Starcom were on your hitlist when you were looking for a job in 2006. Run us through your self-marketing pitch at the time, and advise how you’d approach the same task in 2009.

I quite liked Craig’s article – I hadn’t seen it previously – and the overall tone of the article certainly rings true. Personally, there is one sentence that stands out for me, right at the start: “I encourage starting a relationship before asking for the job,” and this can only be more important in the current environment.

If you are still at university (or out of university, it doesn’t matter) the best way to build a relationship in an industry you have no contact with is to do work experience. Your course co-ordinator can help you out with organising this and will more than likely they have a few contacts in the industry to help get you started. This is how I got my foot in the door.

I worked at a media agency for two full days a week for 13 weeks with no pay. A lot of people won’t like the ‘no pay’ aspect but to be honest, if you enjoy it then it shouldn’t matter. Build up a rapport with your co-workers, ask if you can go into meetings with them with the media, ask to meet clients and, if you are enthusiastic, and get the work done. Then people will take notice.

This is the same route I took - except I also ended up joining my co-workers when they went to the bar every other Friday night, it’s a great way to meet people in the industry! - and while I didn’t get a job with the agency I did work experience for, I was able to make some calls and find a placement. I had an interview the day after I called in, and a job that afternoon. Sure, I still had a formal interview and had to submit a resume, but I was able to avoid a lot of cold calling and rounds of interviews.

In today’s job market, a similar route will still get you in the door, and that is the important part. You might not be able to land a job with the company you do work experience for, but it will allow you to add some real experience to your resume and you will be able to demonstrate a knowledge of the day-to-day tasks and workings of a company that university can’t teach you.

Great advice, James. Finally, Simon Van Wyk of Hothouse Interactive spurred discussion within the advertising community by declaring that interactive web agencies need to stop behaving like digital advertising agencies. Since Starcom seem to be positioned directly between the two - I might be wrong here, please clarify - what’s your take on Van Wyk’s rant?

First off, I’ll try to clarify the different types of agencies that make an appearance in Simon’s article, and then I’ll get back to the question.

HotHouse Interactive is a company that produces websites and content management systems for their clients (purely based on the content of their website). Then we have digital advertising agencies, I would put companies such as Amnesia|Razorfish and Tribal DDB in this category. Starcom is a strategy and media agency, in that we focus on our clients’ messages being in the right place at the right time. We don’t focus on one particular medium over any other, nor do we create any of the ads, since this is usually the role of a creative agency. For me, when digital suits a client’s objectives, that’s when I get involved.

So back to your original question. Not having worked in an interactive agency (such as HotHouse), I can’t really comment on how much these agencies do (or don’t) want to be like digital advertising agencies, but there is obviously a bit of contention in the industry about how these agencies fit in and act within the industry as a whole. There’s also a slight issue (as many commenters have pointed out beneath that article) that Simon’s rant is exactly that, a rant. Like many rants, it gets off topic a little and I feel like he contradicts himself in places too.

I agree with the stance on social media, as I’ve stated above and some of his points in this industry code of practice also hold some weight. Unfortunately there aren’t any facts or case studies to back up the claims he is making. Ashley Ringrose made a great point that the valid points are muddied by some invalid and sweeping statements.

If the purpose of the rant was to start a discussion about where the different agencies fit within the industry - and there is quite a lot of overlap these days - then Simon has done a fantastic job. However I think a few revisions might have given the article a lot more weight.

James - thanks very much for your thoughts, advice and time.

You can get in touch with James via Twitter.

Filed under Conversations | Tags: Advertising, Career, conversation, digital planner, Interview, james drewe, jobs, Marketing, Media, Social Media, starcom worldwide, University, web strategy, workplace | Comment (0)