By Will McInnes

Themes from today's Wired Sussex board meeting

• The number of new jobs being posted to the Wired Sussex jobs board has picked up in the last two months, possibly indicating a pick up in the digital community
• There has also been a substantial growth in our already massive membership base - particularly in 1-5 people web design/development firms (probably those made redundant from elsewhere - one thing we discussed is how might we put together a nurturing and growth programme to turn these opportunistic small startups into the next generation of Brighton digital talent)
• The Sussex Internships Programme, which exists to provide established members with fresh talent, was massively over-subscribed (something like 550 submissions for 40 places) and with high-quality submissions too - good to see this programme building in potential and scale each year. This exists to help get graduates into the digital business community quicker and out of 'bottlenecking' other student-friendly jobs where they stop other people who might only have those options getting the same job
• Wired Sussex continues to help Brighton University to evolve its courses to be as business-ready as possible and is doing some guest lecturing their, which is good I reckon
• Exciting early-stage plans are being tabled with New England House but these are confidential for now - hopefully not for long - really cool and ambitious
• We again made it very clear to the partners in the room, especially Paula Murray, Head of Culture & Economy, Brighton & Hove City Council, that lack of suitable space is still a big issue for many of the Brighton digital community - this is a slow-burner unfortunately but even if it takes 10 years to work out it will have been worth it! I do believe the Council is aware of it (and Paula certainly is and understands), and at a previous dinner we mentioned it to Mary Mears, current leader of the council.
• Andrew Eades from Relentless Software, wicked Brighton company making videogames mainly for Sony Playstation, joined the board this month as an observer with a view to becoming a full member to give some representation to the thriving games community here in Brighton
• Paula from the Council highlighted the newly appointed Chief Exec John Barradale and updated us on some interesting forthcoming opportunities to help with the mission of ever-building Brighton's reputation as a creative city - more soon hopefully. This was the first time I'd met Paula and I thought she was smart and really clear about her work and the city's priorities.
• Gilly Bartrip from SEEDA updated on their changing focus and priorities (which really has changed since the 'changing economic situation') and I'd paraphrase it as changing from 'people and pounds' to 'people' by which I mean that they used to invest very large amounts of cash from government in big capital investment projects (like building stuff) and provide people to help with important programmes but now their main focus is helping business by using their people - especially focusing on 5 specific sectors in the South East region. Luckily Wired Sussex hasn't been counting on some big wedge from the well-connected people at SEEDA but can benefit from some of their people in developing skills, workspaces and the Brighton brand.

The backstory for those who have no idea what this is about:
I am a board member and non-executive director at Wired Sussex. I am writing these notes to share hard-earnt progress with the local digital community who often don't understand what Wired Sussex is doing for the community.

Wired Sussex is interesting because it is a progressive not-for-profit organisation that exists to develop the digital community in Brighton and basically gets on with that job, funded by a thriving jobs board, project revenues and stuff, without any interference from anywhere but the Brighton digital community.

No man is an island, and if Wired Sussex were an island it would be very small, very creative, very plugged in and would be very lost on the high seas of government, the ever-changing tides of policy, utterly lost in a giant-scale world.

So what Wired Sussex does do extremely well is partner with lots of big resource-rich ambitious regional players - like Brighton & Hove City Council, the University of Sussex, Brighton University and SEEDA. In my opinion this group is working extremely effectively together now, though there are those that will continue to ask challenging questions of Wired Sussex.

Trust me when I say that it's quite a marvel to witness these partners who could be so diluted and blunted by bureaucracy and tribal priorities doing what they do so effectively together. The power of smart, clear people in a room with aligned goals and common interests. That, and the frankly amazing bridge-building talents of Wired Sussex CEO Phil Jones and his team.

Wired Sussex's model is unusual and successful enough to have been investigated, copied and learnt about by people near and far - across the UK, at a recent Digital City conference in Paris, interest now coming from Doha and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Work continues :)

6 reasons why Brighton & Hove Council are right to hire a social media specialist

Disclosure: Our social media agency is currently conducting a piece of social media research for Brighton & Hove City Council, who we are proud to have as a client. We work with them primarily because we care about this city and because we believe this work and this movement matters.

So the background is that our local council is hiring for a new role to join the communications department to "increase visibility, build our brand and learn about our audiences by utilising social media".

The local newspaper, The Argus, took a disappointingly critical viewpoint in my opinion so I felt I had to chip in with a different perspective - one passionately for Brighton, but tempered with experiences in how large organisations are changing with the new digital era.

There are 6 reasons why I think this is a significant and smart step for the citizens of Brighton & Hove, who the council must serve:

1. We are there

The council works for us.
We are spending more time in social spaces and less time consuming and paying attention to traditional media.
To work for us, they must communicate with us.
Simply, they must be where we are - and we are in these new social spaces.

As a crude yardstick the Brighton network on Facebook is marginally larger than the population of Brighton so there is some substantial engagement or opportunity available (though many sections of our population will not be represented there). At the other end of the mass to niche continuum, the work of SCIP and the rest of our digital community has created little clusters of very niche community sites such as Prestonville Postblog and Coldean Residents Association.

We are there. They (BHCC) must be too.

2. Getting value for money

All large organisations carry an overhead in communicating (just internal communications, for anyone that's come across it in a team larger than 20, is gigantic, let alone external comms).

Most organisations are adapting their communications spend from how we used to consume media to how we do today. In our work with our client base we know that the sparkliest, bravest blue-chip brands are only part-way on this journey.

What drives all of these organisations is the knowledge that if they spend more money where we are, and less where we aren't, then they will get higher levels of engagement, better results, and at less wasted communication £££.

Brighton & Hove City Council, like all major organisations, can get better value for money and free up more resources for elsewhere in the city by improving its communications mix.

As citizens, it makes sense to support them in this.

3. Leading the digital way

For me personally this is huge, as someone that grew up here, and who passionately understands the quality and potential of what we have in Brighton and wants to see it succeed.

Brighton is leading, digitally.

Economically, my understanding is that our biggest sectors in the city are public sector, followed by health and financial (a significant chunk of the latter being American Express) and then it is Creative Industries. Our digital community is the biggest chunk of Creative Industries.

Our sector is growing fast. We have more than 800 companies employing more than 8,000 people in digital.

A BBC journalist recently commented to Phil Jones, CEO of Wired Sussex and the man that gave me this information, that he reckoned proportionally we have the biggest digital community in the UK. I agree and hope somehow we can prove this.

We have talent in so many different flavours of digital:

• In mobile
• In search
• In virtual worlds - both of whom's only HQs outside of California are HERE in Brighton
• In user experience
• In social media
• In web development
• In e-learning
• In video games (or is that another sector - I dunno)

Talent enough that in the recent HSBC 'Super Cities' report, which speculated about the tier of cities that would emerge as power-players in the knowledge economy, Brighton was selected as one of the five in the UK.

The work of Wired Sussex and its committed team and board* is all about helping that happen. This is an active work in progress. (* Another disclosure: I am a board member at Wired Sussex).

So we need more attention and recognition from the big policy makers and funders to support this upstart community. To recognise its value now, but its significant strategic value tomorrow.

Gradually that is happening.

To speed that up we need momentum: momentum that is powered by an understanding of the new digital age within our council - a big player in this; within our local media community; within central government.

And across the board, at every 'touchpoint' we need to lead - to demonstrate how the Internet can be harnessed to make real differences to the real world. For me, that absolutely includes excellence and pioneering with Brighton & Hove City Council. It transcends. In fact, it reminds me of how Curtis James invested his time speaking with the management of Brighton Station to see if they could improve their appearance and customer experience, given that it was the moment of arrival for so many visiting our city. It all matters.

Personally, as a citizen, I buy the very smallest riskiest tiniest seed of that for 24,402 - £ 28,353.

4. Change is very hard in big organisations

Other than our work with Brighton & Hove City Council, our work is exclusively for much bigger organisations: from Coca-Cola through to Department of Health, WWF to HSBC.

Working with them, we see how hard change is. The barriers to change are significant.

Even our most pioneering clients find it hard to transition to a social online world. They must bring their legal people along on the journey, their HR folk, their customer service people, their product managers (funnily enough, sometimes the hardest to convince - can be harder than legal). It's not easy.

So what they tend to do is invest in both advancement across the board - where we train their whole press team, their whole marketing organisation, create policies for all employees, encourage participation broadly - and invest in advancement in concentrated ways. During our time working with them both BMW and Channel 4 have created dedicated roles to address social media.

This isn't saying 'oh my, if we hire this one egg-headed Facebook fiend all of our woes will fly away'.

This is saying 'one way to make these changes might be to create an internal expert and ambassador that has the time and space to focus on this and get results by working with their colleagues'.

Although I wasn't involved in BHCC's thinking on the matter, I'd guess this was part of their plan. Not to silo and ghettoize Social Media, but to appoint a gardener-in-chief to help others with their nurturing and growing.

Again, I buy that as a citizen.

5. Supporting change within the council

In my contact with the council I have found that they understand the possibilities of the social web, and have the appetite to harness them as much as any of our clients.

These are the people I have personally met and talked with that seem to get the opportunity that social media presents them to engage and do the Council's work better:

• Council leader Mary Mears (who mentioned her 'much more au fait' colleague Counciller Ayas Fallon-Khan, who is I have heard a big digital advocate)
• John Shewell, Head of Corporate Communications
• Jake Barlow, Head of Marketing
• Yvette Bordley, Senior Marketing Officer
• then Acting Chief Executive Alex Bailey
• Anthony Zacharzewski, Acting Director of Strategy & Governance

If these guys, a tiny cross-section representing the leadership and the communications team, can lead the vanguard and help their organisation listen and engage and empower other parts of the council to also move with the times, then I buy that.

More importantly, we should support them. Change is horrifically hard. Change inside public organisations is generally thought to be even harder. More power to their digital elbows I say.

Our public servants are trying to move with the times. I want to help them with that.

6. To rise above the one-eyed perspective of The Argus

My intent has been to keep this as positive as possible. As a supplier to the council I am very badly placed to provide a credible riposte to one of their challengers. I also believe in the role and duty of the media to interrogate society's organisations and keep us all on our toes. We need more of that - not less.

But I wanted more from The Argus on this story, especially given that their Web Editor Jo Waddsworth has done such good work bringing their content to social spaces...

You'd have thought it would be hypocritical to criticise the very same investment of resources and decision-making, but not this time. Irritating and disappointing, given this context.

Some kinda positive summary :-)

This matters.

Brighton has an incredible opportunity. It has a magnificent digitally-enhanced future available to it. Let's pull together and have a group hug and get behind it. If the City Council are up for it, it's one more force for good, and one less barrier in the way.

SUPERRRRR CITY.

Some NixonMcInnes news: Chairman Burden and C4 cool job

Feeling the need to point out two interestingish nuggets of news for those that don't subscribe to our company blog.

1. Chairman Burden
Like Chairman Mao, except from Lewes, it's actually pretty big news for us that we've appointed our long-time business coach Peter Burden as chairman of NixonMcInnes.
Pete is fantastic, and different, and has been vital to lots of good things that have happened in the last 2 or 3 years. He's humble to the point of secretive, and when you actually look at his track record (which he only really let on to us in the last few months, i kid you not) it's pretty cool - including playing a key role in the setting up of BBC News Online.
This is part of a range of actions we're taking to accelerate the pace of development at NM HQ, along with developing a new management team and redefining our vision, mission and business strategy. Please note: this stuff isn't about growth in size - we don't care about being big, or even much bigger at all than we are now: this is about growth in cleverness, resilience and impact, that's what we care about (most of the time - the grass is, of course, always greener and one can easily slip into thinking about world domination from time to time... :). Full blog post.

2. Channel 4 Digital Publicity Manager
We're working with Channel 4 in assisting with their mission to lead their industry in embracing online, specifically to begin with helping them work on how that evolves their team structures and skills.
As a clear signal of how seriously they take their mission the guys there are currently looking for a smart, switched-on digital PR person to help co-ordinate cross-departmental activities that push the channel into the digital age.
A seriously cool job for one of your mates or contacts who works in communications and has a digital bent. Check it.

"Don't mention the economy"

Image: frankfarm

We had a discussion about recession, downturn and the likely affects on digital agencies a while ago when the sub-prime thing kicked off.

The consensus then was that we'd all be OK :)

The real-world ramifications of those early signs of a changing economy, back then, are now starting to bite.

And I'm now thinking that a 'it won't affect us' or a 'let's not talk ourselves into a downturn' is a non-view, an irresponsible burying-head-in sand and for me personally would be an avoidance of a responsibility that I have as an employer of great people.

From today's FT: 'Dollar plunges to record low'

The dollar plummeted to record lows and the price of gold touched $1,000 on Thursday as retail sales figures confirmed that the US is in recession and concern intensified about spreading distress in the hedge fund sector.

At our board meeting in forty minutes time I am going to suggest that we as a company take a view, and plan for it.

That view will be flexible, it will evolve according to what we see and feel and hear, and we will not allow it to stifle our growth if smart growth (vs. bloat) is possible and sensible.

That view will inform our decision making around people, clients, services we offer, investments we make and whatever happens we definitely won't stop 'marketing'.

Lastly, that view will also affect my personal planning. I've been tempted in recent times by the lure of consumer credit - all friendly and fluffy and 'take it, no please take it' in good times, and somewhat darker, I'd guess, when their (the lenders) situations worsen. I plan to get my financial house in order. And if it never materialises, great. But if it does, I'll be ready.

I better go buy some tinned food and bottled water too, and maybe build an air raid shelter in me back garden.

When munter monsters make purdy sweet love

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Microsoft Corp. made an unsolicited $44.6 billion cash and stock bid for Yahoo on Friday, a deal that could shake up the competitive and lucrative market for Internet search.

It's like the last half an hour in the local disco... the desperate and unloved grab one another, standards decay in favour of the nearest willing victim.

I always preferred the maxim 'go ugly early' myself (until I met my wife of course).

And isn't it fascinating how the old MS vs Yahoo question has come to this - a potential M&A. Back then none of us planned for Google.

Darwin all over again: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Both MSFT and Yahoo! have so much to offer, yet without a clear strategy and at such scale they both seem to be floundering at the moment - evolution is hard, so hard. As many have written before me, both are also staffed by many wonderful, bright, committed people.

But as organisations they're kinda like outsiders that became insiders: born of the digital age and now, slow and laden, committed to yesterday - to proprietary software; to advertising eyeballs and portal strategies; losing to an unstoppable G force.

We keenly anticipate Umair's 'lulz!!!!!!!!!'.

Sorrell says 2009 is the bogey year

As talk of a recession heightens, Sir Martin Sorrell said today that this year is set to be a good one for the advertising industry and it is 2009 that is of concern.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003681315

Why the downturn is good news

Prophet Haque is being proven right and becomes the poster boy of the 'Macropocalypse'.
He called it.
(And tonight, Tom and I go to pay homage.)

Clearly, we're in a downturn.
This impending change has been on my agenda for a short while but I'm no finance maven.

So what happens now for our microclimates of digital innovation, and agency land, as the macro environment shifts and compresses?

Well I think it gets back to good old Darwinian principles:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

It's so not the end of the world.

In fact, I relish times like these.

It's a different challenge, and if you like:

• competition,
• radical change, and
• participating vs. observing,

..like I do, then I think it's going to be cool fun and seriously educational for all of us on the journey.

For agency world:

• Measurability sees digital marketing weather storm best (but not necesarily fine and dandy)
• Measuring services & products go up in value and importance
• Clients upskill in making sense of measurement data they already have
• The talent crisis levels off for some agencies as top performers bail out of 'good times' old skool agencies and look for new challenges
• The bigger bloated agencies cull dead wood staff and clients (as Ged rightly said)
• Enlightened traditional agencies use these times to reconfigure to offer better value to their clients (they 'adapt to survive')
• Major agency networks batten down the hatches and slow acquisitions (or do they speed up buying new adaptive players - dunno - comments please?)
• Everyone in marketing swaps the pithy truism about 'companies do best are ones that continue to market in downturn'

For start ups:

• The too many startups chasing too few ad dollars get weeded out
• VCs become more selective
• Startups get real again, tiny teams and real revenues over Calacanis logic
• Innovation thrives on constraints, which helps focus, vs. abundance, which distracts

For others:

• Pressure on classical print advertising (against more measurable digital forms) sees some major print brands go under, starved of all revenue streams

I'm well up for a downturn.
Personally I feel it will encourage me to be really clear in my own head and to my clients about the value that we add to their businesses. I think it provides a knife of focus to cut through the clutter of 'we should be doing this stuff...shouldn't we..?'. It boils down to a yes or a no, with our job being to prove the yes.
It will encourage all of our businesses to get sharper and smarter at how we do stuff.
It will weed out weaker competitors - particularly the bloated, less adaptive, and play directly to the strengths of Brighton's digital community of nimble smart middle- and small-sized agencies.

Adapt or die - am I right or wrong?

Kwiqq, head of sales position

Kwiqq is a company formed by some lovely guys and doing stuff in a cool hot area (heard of online social networks?).

They're looking for a Head of Sales:

As Kwiqq is growing rather kwiqqly we are carving out new roles for individuals to join us. We are now looking for head of sales Ideally with experience in working at a web agency, Web 2.0 products (B2B) or social networking sales.

The primary responsibility of the Head of Sales is to drive revenue by selling Kwiqq solutions to Bluechips and SMEs. You’ll help to shape the next-generation of Social Networking product while building the growing our customer base. You’ll also promote and manage senior-level relationships to ensure that your customers’ needs and requirements are met.

If you're right for the role have a chat with Raj and the guys, they're executing (rather than just talking) and will make it.

Macropocalypse: head for the hills, mo fos

If you don't know Umair Haque's work, you're probably not as enlightened (and confused/intimidated) as you should be.

Suffice to say that he is a legend in my eyes.
When Tom and I walked out of Umair's talk at FOWA London 07 earlier this year we were both humbled back into our smalltown shoes. The man is a prophet.

And whilst his thinking in new school, enlightened, 2.0, 3.0, you-put-a-number-and-a-.0-on-the-end, his credentials are old school: London Business School; economics and all that brainy stuff.

Worryingly for me, you, our various families and the rest of the world, Umair's on a bit of a downer at the moment. He's calling it the Macropocalypse - the collapse and implosion of the macro climate, the financial systems, the economic models and tenets that our societies operate on.

It's scary. He says he re-read what he's been writing lately and felt sick. I feel sick by proxy.

I suggest we all bulk buy tinned beans and bottled water, create shelters in our gardens and prepare for the beginning of the end.
The Macropocalypse is coming.

I've burnt today, now for tomorrow...

I wrote about burning yesterday's IT infrastructure a while ago. It wasn't genius stuff, but I meant it.
It pained me to be developing IT bloat around our small, nimble web business. We believe in webapps ergo we use them, no?

Anyhoo. I fucking went and did it, and now I'm in all kinds of shit.

So I have a shiny new macbook pro thing.
Haven't had a Mac for about 11 years, so that's scary and new. Amazing the fear of the new and unknown. It'd be fun and curious and new if it was a plaything for home, but it's not - it's my primary business tool, my work in a box.

Switched mail to be picked up and sent out via gmail - just looking at that as my now main email account scares the bejeesus out of my comfy outlook-oriented brain.

Switched calendar to google calendar and that's the biggest concern i have. My diary is a mo fo - it's very jam packed and rules my life and so influences those that I work with most closely. Yet I've moved from a compatible solution where everyone could see and share my diary easily, being that we all used outlook, to running off on my own-ski... i hope we can find ways to make it work, which i think we probably can, but it's not certain and the last thing we need in our outrageously busy team is extra hassle from a poncy director with misplaced ideals and bad technology issues. Hmmm.

Anyway, I'm not going to stop here.
I heard on the grapevine that Graeme Sutherland has some badass voip phone and where he lays his voip hat is his home, kinda thing. so he plugs it in to the internet and landline calls are routed to him. That should be the final piece of the jigsaw.
Then I should - theoretically - be able to carry out my business from wherever, whenever.

There's something more fundamental behind all of this.
I really believe in the world is flat. I do really believe that we can be freer that we are and are indoctrinated that we should be. Steve's going to the states with his family soon and will work a couple of weeks from there, and holiday for a couple more. We have great long-term freelancers boshing work out for us in France and Czech. I want to see more of the world as my little family become ready, and I want to mobilise both locally and immediately, and globally in the longer-term.

We'll see.