John Winsor

The Flattening of TED

Sitting here at my fourth TED I've been reflecting about how much the world has changed. Crowdsourcing, co-creation and open systems is the main theme at TED this year. There's been a paradigm shift in culture. Consumers now know they're in charge. It means a new openness. A new narrative. One not built by closed systems, they are all quickly collapsing. But one built by the people. By the crowd. 

Any closed system, whether it's an Arab governent, a big brand or an advertising agency, is doomed if it doesn't open up. Yet there is a lot to hold to. While closed systems exert hard power, protecting the status quo, open systems exert soft power. It's like water, slowly ebbing and flowing all the while erroding the hard surfaces around it.

In this flat world openness is accelerating. With it comes more fluidity, more generosity and more opportunities.

And, that's a world I want to be apart of.

 

Are you Talking the Talk or Building the Tech?

One of the most amazing and wonderful things in the last couple of years here at Victors & Spoils has been dynamic tension that’s been created between being an advertising agency and a tech start-up. That tension that’s been created by mashing up the two cultures has been profound for me.

When we started we noticed that even the most tech-based agencies were analogue at their core. We asked ourselves a couple of questions. First, what would happen if we took the functions of a typical ad agency and digitized them? The way we communicate. How we work in a massively distributed way across the globe. Hence, we created Agency Machine. Taking an analogue business process and making it digital is a messy affair, full of trials and errors. All said, it’s working pretty darn well and gives us the ability to scale globally and rapidly.

Next we thought about what we could build for our clients. It’s something that has intrigued me for a while, and was an inspiration for Alex Bogusky and me to write Baked-In. Lot’s of agencies talk about building their own IP but their own structure gets in the way.  Forty percent of the Victors & Spoils team is here to build proprietary technology. We feel it’s the only way to go beyond just building campaigns for clients to building platforms that scale across media and can be massively scalable. Yesterday we launched our second tech product, Fan Machine, working with Harley-Davidson as our launch client. Mark-Hans Richer, Dino Bernnachi and their team at Harley-Davidson have been great partners in exploring ways to shift the paradigm of how advertising is created. We want to make the experience better for creatives, customers and brands by cutting out fat and facilitating faster, deeper conversations between brands, consumers and creatives.

Agency Machine and Fan Machine are just the start of what we’re building. It’s not just about creating great work, it’s also about building the digital tools to change the way campaigns are born and executed.  

Will You Become Irrelevant?

I often wonder what makes us pull up short. Why do we not step over the line between being comfortable and terrified? Between the center and the edge? Between staying the course on a path we know leads to a slow decline and another that leads to an exciting but unknown future?

It’s a question I often ask myself not only in the world of advertising and business but also in life. A couple of weeks ago I found myself contemplating the concept of the line, with big consequences. I had traveled to Tavarua, Fiji, to chase waves. The goal was to see if I was up for riding Cloudbreak (above), considered one of the top waves in the world. It’s an amazing, heavy, super-hollow wave with a fierce reputation of throwing you directly onto a dry reef if you don’t commit to the terrifying ride of a lifetime.

Fortunately, I caught Cloudbreak when it was a decent size, not like it was in July. I’ve never put myself in a situation like this in surfing before. I was humbled by the experience: I’ve never ridden a more beautiful wave, been so scared in the water or been pummeled so hard. While some of the rides were glorious, a few of the tumbles across the reef were terrifying. Yet I couldn’t get enough. I have a long way to go to be able to delicately maneuver on a wave like Cloudbreak, but I rode it and had a blast.

Sitting out in the middle of the ocean, I realized that surfing applies to a lot of life, especially innovation and advertising. Waves are essentially expressions of energy moving through the ocean. When you’re rocketing down the face of a wave – and trying to get underneath a lip and into a barrel as it comes crashing down – you can feel the energy.

Technology is a massive energy pulse expressed as a wave of change, surging through the worlds of marketing and advertising. We all must make a choice between sitting on the beach and becoming irrelevant, or launching ourselves into the unknown. If we do decide to surf these waves, it takes commitment and overcoming a lot of fear. It means changing our business models to be more nimble. It means developing new tools using agile development. But, most of all, it means accepting failure. 

For those brave enough to jump in and surf the energy coursing through our industry by innovating, the waves of change will take you far and give you a canvas to express your vision in wonderful new ways.

It’s About What You’re For Not What You’re Against

After starting a few companies over the past 25 years I’ve found that start-ups are defined more by what they are for than what they’re against. But discovering what you’re for usually takes a bit of time. That’s what I love about start-ups. It’s a clean slate. You start with a vision, which includes being different than something else, then you race like hell to learn as much as you can. Then you pivot. Only then can you discover what you’re for.

Victors & Spoils is 20 months old now. And we like where we are. We’ve had the very good fortune of being at the right place at the right time as the world becomes more open. Recently, we added new clients to our roster, including Nike Foundation, Mercedes-Benz and Unilever. And, we're putting the finishing touches on the production of new work for Harley-Davidson and Smartwool. We are honored that they want to be part of the future with us. Our creative department has grown to over 6000 and our technology is being tested every day. We’ve learned a lot and have continued to pivot.

We’ve also learned a bit more about what we are for. And above all we are for technology that powers creativity. Without our technology we couldn't do what we are doing. The technology we are building has allowed us to create more fluid and open communications, reputation ranking and a more abundant way of solving our client's marketing objectives. Our technology is enabling us to achieve everything else we are for: from open systems, to transparency, to more flexible career options for our crowd and great work our clients.

Above all, great work using Collaboration, Co-Creation and Crowdsourcing wouldn't exist without the right technology.

 

How Do the 3C’s, Collaboration, Co-Creation and Crowdsourcing Fit Together?

Being in Cannes last week I had the honor of hanging out with Jon Wilkins, co-founder of Naked Communications. He hit the nail on the head when he wrote this in Fast Company about his session at Cannes:

The one thing we learned researching our session during Cannes on community crowdsourcing and co-creation is that the best 'creative ideas' in the world have their own energy, their own means of distribution, and their own collaborators that propel them into a strata that conventional paid communications can never reach.

 From Cannes, I flew right to Phoenix to give a talk at the PDMA Co-Creation Conference and was super inspired to see Co-creation emerge as it’s own field with so much momentum.

Both at Cannes and at the Co-Creation conference I was asked how the 3C’s of Collaboration, Co-Creation and Crowdsourcing fit together. It's We think of it as a ladder of collaboration. The first step on the ladder is Social Media Engagement but it goes much higher eventually creating a whole company around a collaborative system. Think of Threadless or Local Motors.

Collaboration is not only the future of advertising but of business and perhaps society as a whole. 

Where are you on the ladder?

 

 

The Power of Creating an Ecotone

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why companies are successful in the long-run. It definitely has to do the size of a company’s ecotone.

Ecotone, you ask? This is something I wrote in Flipped to explain it.

Many models can be used to aid the thinking about the relationships that exist in any community or ecosystem and how they might inform a bottom-up strategy and prompt real innovation. I like to think of this eco-system approach in terms of an “ecotone.”

An ecotone is a place where two different, distinctive ecosystems meet, such as where a forest and a wetland meet. In this zone, the ecosystem is neither a forest nor a wetland, but has all of the attributes of both. Ecotone is used to describe a place where evolution happens, where a natural dialogue is occurring. In the business world, all brands live in an ecosystem made up of many components. An ecotone from this perspective can represent the opportunity that lies within the overlap of a business or brand and its market.

The bigger the ecotone – the more overlap between the two ecosystems internally and externally – the deeper the dialogue and the greater the opportunity is for the business. For most companies, it is at the fringes of the organization that the ecotone exists and where all the growth in understanding and meaning happens. This is also true in natural systems where an organism or ecosystem expands at its fringes.

While every brand’s ecotone is different. I’ve been thinking lately that maybe the brands with the largest ecotones, ones where internal cultures and external cultures mirror one and other. These brands deeply understand and interact with their customers in a seemless way. Think about Harley-Davidson, Nike, Apple and Patagonia. These cult like brands have two advantages. They have a deeper, more defensible, relationship with their customers. Both employees and customers are part of the same culture, something that’s bigger than the brand itself.

Maybe instead of spending a lot of time trying to convince customers that you’re product is better than your competitors it might be worth creating an internal culture that is a matter of creating Esho Funi.

Esho Funi?

It certainly deserves it’s own post.

Love Love, Love Hate

Nobody likes conflict. I don’t. I’ve been especially sensitive to it my whole life. I’ve never been very good at taking criticism. I’ve been known to not fully listen to my friends and colleagues. I was horrible at listening to my parents. And, I have tortured my amazing wife with my insecurities around any kind of criticism or even positive suggestion (sorry, Bridget). Honestly, I was scared. Scared to be vulnerable. Scared to be wrong. Scared to fail. It’s certainly a journey.

Well, a lot’s changed in the past year since we’ve started Victors & Spoils. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some amazing partners at V&S. I’ve been honored to team up with so many inspiring clients who want to change the way things work. I’ve learned and built ideas with some of the smartest collaborators in the industry who are not only unafraid of change but want to get in and lead it. I’ve had the good fortune of jumping into this crazy torrent of change that is besieging our industry and am learning so much so fast. I’m having a blast.

I’ve even learned to love the haters.

While I was traveling yesterday, I received this email from my blog that made me reflect on just how much things have changed for me and on my journey to overcome my own insecurities.

Dear John,

Congratulations on selling a desperate ... company some snake oil.  Always great to book new biz.

If your approach works (which it won't) you send me some raw squirrel meat and I'll eat every bite.

Regards and laughing like a maniac,

Steve Fisher
Owner
Goldfish Public Relations
818-688-1502
<http://www.goldfishpr.com/>

Thanks, Steve. I do understand these are scary times. A lot of things we’ve taken for granted have been pulled out from underneath us. It’s created a lot of insecurity and anger for a lot of people.

Emails like this remind me to let go. Let go of my insecurities. Let go of my ego. Let go of myself. And, jump into the cultural revolution we are in the midst of.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your support, your criticism and your input.

Love love, love hate.

The Crushing Devaluation of Digital Tools

A couple of days ago, I was getting ready for a speech in New York. I couldn't find my digital powerpoint remote and was about ready to buy a new Logitech Wireless Presenter R400. Just before I pushed the Buy and spent $49.99 on this:

A thought occurred to me. Is there an iPhone app?

Sure enough, I found the i-Clickr Powerpoint Remote App for $.99.

So, $49.99 for the physical product or $.99 for the virtual one? Not a hard choice. And, best of all. I only have to carry around one tool instead of two.

It's a great illustration of as things go from physical to virtual the downward price pressure is enormous.

Crowdsourcing and The Future of Corporate R&D Labs

Steve Lohr did a wonderful job exploring the future of the corporate R&D Lab in his article entitled, The Corporate Lab as Ringmaster. Here are a couple of good thoughts:

Crowdsourcing and other new, more open models of innovation are really byproducts of the low-cost communication and new networks of collaboration made possible by the Internet.

So, in the Internet era, what is the continuing role and comparative advantage of the corporate R.& D. lab?

You could substitute almost any organization that acts as an intermediary into the question above and be searching for a way forward.

Steve's answer to the question is a good one:

The best bet for corporate R.& D. labs, he said, is to adopt a “federated” model that leverages all the innovative work by outsiders in universities, start-ups, business partners and government labs. The corporate lab’s role, then, is to be more of a coordinator and integrator of innovation, from both outside and inside the company walls.

How can you become more of a ringleader in what you do?

The CP+B Intern Auction

We're auctioning our summer interns to the highest bidder on eBay. If you'd like to have our brilliant interns work on your advertising, join the bidding. Here's the description from eBay:

In the past, our interns have created work for companies like Burger King, Volkswagen, Guitar Hero and Microsoft. And now they can do the same for you. Bidding starts at $1 for three months of service with all proceeds going to the hardest working people we know - the CP+B interns themselves. So bid early and often, and world-class advertising can be yours for a fraction of the going rate. Send questions/comments to [email protected].