Level2wo

Less money to throw around and weak consumer demand is forcing companies to cut back on their advertising–in newspapers, radio, television, and just about any other media you can think of. While not completely dead (and for some, this is probably a good time to buy advertising, given that you can probably do a little more bargaining than usual to get the placements you want), retailers, financial companies, airlines, car dealers, and just about any other advertiser marketing products and services affected by the economy, gas prices, and the housing market disaster are cutting back, putting the hurt on media groups.

Conventional media, already on the ropes because of technological advances and advertising budgets shifting towards that technology, is getting the one-two punch from advertisers reigning in budgets or cutting their budgets completely, at least for the time being. And things will only get worse for media companies if the country goes into a recession (although, and I agree, we’re already in a recession).

While digital media has clearly boomed in recent years, the revenues that follow from advertising in that area may not necessarily be as high as if the marketers were sticking to conventional media advertising. Add to that the consumer cinching their wallets and cutting back on the products and services they’d normally be buying (but that are not necessities), and you can see how trouble is brewing for a good many companies. And it isn’t getting better any time soon.

Seems like Facebook is about to crack the whip. When it comes to the applications that make it through to see the light of day, anyway. At a recent programmer’s conference, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke to a group of programmers about the influence his 4 1/2 year old company has built up, as well as what their role might (or might not) be at Facebook in the future.

And no suprise here, the programmers listened. Turns out (and it’s not a suprise to anyone reading this, I’m sure), Facebook can make an application company. Literally. Some $200 Million in Venture Capital has poured into companies that have been building applications for the social networking site, not to mention the $240 Million Microsoft through at Facebook for a piece of the action. With the deluge of applications on the site, some issues have arisen.

Personally, I’ve sent email to contacts I did not want to send email to. A few careless clicks and away went communication to people I did not intend to send email to. Apparently, I’m not the only one. One of the issues Zuckerberg and Facebook will be trying to tackle is that of applications either maliciously or unfortunately performing actions detrimental to users–either exposing security holes, or anything that would damage user experience. And seems Facebook will now be rating, endorsing, and banning applications moving forward. In my opinion, that’s a great move.

Personally, I don’t particularly want to be invited to slay anyone or throw pie at any of my contacts. But then again, that application is probably not for my age group anyway.

Don’t know if this is a good way to start a blog entry, but just noticed that I had 666 tags on this blog to date. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry–it means something in terms of how many tags i’ve posted, but yes, I was thinking of that sinister number that you were. Hopefully the blog doesn’t explode.

I was thinking today about the industry I’m in, and while it’s not a shocking revelation, it did occur to me again how young the industry actually is. Many of the professionals in the industry (myself included), were not in this industry a decade ago. And why would they be, when the industry had really just begun–at least as we know it. But it gives light to the fact that it’s the skill sets that matter–not so much the industry, per se. Although yes, it does help if you come from a related industry. Marketing, advertising, programming, project management, copywriting–these are all areas within interactive media that are crucial to what we do–and if you’re in one of those areas in another industry, you’d probably be able to make the leap.

If you are, my suggestion is that you do a little messing around on your spare time. Figure out what you like to do, and practice it. Build a website. Run a PPC campaign. Write some copy on a blog somewhere, and see if you can use a little SEO magic to make it show up on the first page or second page of google. It’s not easy, but it’s not that difficult. In fact, I landed at the third spot on the first page of google a few weeks back for ‘Project Management Steps’ without even trying to. (No, it’s not there any more, but hey, I did it without trying). Good luck.

Without sounding too…something, I can’t stress the importance of teamwork. Not only in the sense of your coworkers helping you achieve the goals you need to achieve and vice versa, but in bringing together ideas and perspectives that, when combined (again, sorry to use this word, which I’m sure you’ve all heard plenty of times just in the past few weeks alone) create synergy. It’s what makes projects succesful, initiatives succesful, and, to go a little further, it’s what makes communities, country, and the world succesful.

But with teamwork comes personalities, egos, opinions, and every other factor you can imagine that has the potential to throw teamwork off track and away from the goals you’ve set for that team to begin with. Though not always the case, gathering groups of people, especially in business, means that you’ll often have to deal with adversity, often have to defer when you think your points may be valid, and, the true test of your understanding of situations and benefitting from teamwork–you’ll have to be able to open your eyes and be receptive to points other than yours, right or wrong.

It’s through that process that the best ideas will emerge–be it for a direct mail piece, a larger marketing strategy, creative, or even what type of venue to have for company outings. Let me stress that again: open your eyes and be receptive to points other than yours. You’re not going to be right all of the time, and I’m not going to be right all of the time. I learn from you, and you learn from me. It’s what makes the wheels turn, and what brings the good ideas to better ideas.

Rarely will you encounter that genius who’s ideas and insight and execution are perfection incarnate; rarely will you have anyone single-handedly, at least in a company of any size, be the end all be all for whatever product or service you’re hawking.

Knowing how to be a teamplayer doesn’t mean giving up your place in the food chain–it means securing it through smart decisions, an open mind, and the realization that we’re all consumers of good ideas and bad, and we’re all producers of them as well. It’s the end result we’re after by participating in a team of any size or structure–so don’t sabotage it, because you’re the beneficiary.