Why hackers and marketers need each other more than ever
In a guest post from South by SouthWest Daniel Bluzer-Fry says as the world evolves marketers and hackers will need each other more than ever to stay relevant.
During The New Digital Age – a session at the SXSW interactive conference with Google’s Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen , director of Google Ideas – it was suggested most technical white-collar jobs will disappear in the near future thanks to the continual evolution of technology. The Googlers believe that it is creativity that will be key in giving people utility as labour, so even those who have historically been our most respected professionals appear at risk. For instance, if I were to ask you if you’d prefer a human surgeon or robot to do major surgery on you in ten years time … well, it’s hard not to think that the robot would be more accurate, reliable and expedient.
Bluzer-Fry
So in this brave new creative economy – this age of the hacker – what is it that marketers will be able to bring to the table? It was during a session called Beyond Technology: Designing for People (a session run by Microsoft Advertising VP Stephen Kim) that my thoughts on this truly calcified. Basically, in my mind, the most vital role of the marketing function is going to be set in innovating technology to address human needs.
There’s no doubt that Microsoft are doing brilliant work in this space. Microsoft is a company that seems genuinely committed to putting the needs of people at the heart of the technology they’re creating today. They are a company that realises understanding how people experience the world – understanding the influence that culture coupled with the influence of technology – is central to innovating products in meaningful ways.
Looking forward, one imagines that it will be the analytical yet divergent thinking marketers across the industry that will thrive, as not all technologists and hackers necessarily have the perspective – the guardrails so to speak – to ensure their passion and creativity is channeled into products that address legitimate needs in the lives of the people they hope to engage. And it’s not hard to see how this function will add true value to the creative process given that many of these brilliant hackers are concerned with the functional aspects of their creations and making money fro them, which leaves little room to focus on how to innovate their offering and effectively communicate it for their consumer targets.
So it’s business as usual for marketers as brand strategists – put consumers at the heart of your business. But be acutely aware that the world of your business is going to evolve in unimaginable ways.
What will the world look like in 15 years time? Well, there’s currently children in primary schools throughout the U.S. and UK who are beginning to learn how to code (it is after all, just another language that has been introduced to the curriculum). When these kids begin to hit the labor force … only time will tell how things will play out then.
It also would suggest that in light of the 2012 Gonski Report, we’ve really got to get moving on this stuff if as a nation we want to be a genuine contributor to this new creative economy.
Daniel Bluzer-Fry is a senior planner at The Lab, Melbourne. @thelabfeed
I can’t agree more Daniel, I think the rise of true innovation within a marketing environment will dramatically increase in the next 3 years or so.
If you don’t have innovative thinkers within an agency/company you won’t be nimble enough to benefit from the rapidly changing technologies in the near future.
We will continue to see an increase in companies partnering with startups to inject this type of innovative spark into their organisations.
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