Recently in Aquent Category

A few weeks ago I logged in to my first webinar ... a really informative session hosted by Adobe as part of their Creative Festival.

It was a really interesting experience, seeing hundreds of "user names" appear down the left hand side of my computer screen and knowing that literally hundreds of people were taking part in the webinar with me. Aside from a few sound and image delay issues I really enjoyed it. But at the end of the session I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. I just got back on with my work. Sure I could have posted some comments to an on line forum or blog, but to me it's not the same as walking out of a seminar and mingling with other delegates over a drink or biscuit and having a good old de-brief!

This has prompted me to ask what the new preference is in terms of being informed and educated? Do you prefer sitting at your desk, in your office, or at home and seeing an industry guru on your computer screen? Or would you rather attend a conference seeing the guru in his or her element, surrounded by a crowd of like-minded people that you can interact with during and after the event?

Interestingly, Microsoft is combining both options at the upcoming ReMIX 09 on June 11th in Sydney, which Aquent is sponsoring.

Not only will the event be held at Sydney's Star City, but some of the content and sessions will be broadcast on the REMIX Online site as well. (By the way, if you would like to attend ReMIX 2009 at Aquent's discounted price (AUD$149.00), check out the ReMIX link and type in the special code "syd0xdis149" when registering online). When you register, ensure that you DO NOT tick ReMIX AUD$199.00 inc GST. Simply write the "syd0xdis149" ticket code in the field provided.

This promises to be a highly informative web industry event in Australia for designers and developers seeking to be on the cutting edge.

No doubt Microsoft will have some nice drinks and buiscuits available at the breaks ... So see you there!

Image courtesy of: sridgway

OK. I knew that Aquent had several offices in Greater China, but, frankly, I get so focused on the things I'm doing right here in my own reality tunnel that it sort of slipped my mind. That is, until the friendly robotic spiders at Google reminded me with an alert announcing that Aquent had appointed a new manager for Beijing.

First of all, congratulations, Douglas MacDonald, whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting. Second of all, it's a given that we're going to "act locally," though we are also capable of acting globally (the web is "worldwide" after all), but how are we supposed to "think globally"?

Do you work or have you worked for a global organization? How did you maintain a sense of your globalness? On the other hand, did you need to? If you don't interact with your colleagues in Malaysia or Praque, do you have to keep them in mind?

The concepts of time-shifting and place-shifting (originally called "space" shifting) come from the realm of consumer electronics. The classic time-shifting device is TiVo, which allows you to "shift" the time of your favorite TV programs to a time of your choosing.

On place-shifting front, Sony, HAVA, and Sling Media, among others, have devices which allow you to change the "place" where you consume media by sending TV shows to your PC, for example. You could also think of the iPod/iPhone as doing the same thing with your music and videos. Indeed, one denizen of the interweb, Nari Kannan, postulates that the ability to shift time and/or place is an essential element of technical innovation.

Kannan goes on to say, "Placeshifting in the larger context with the widespread adoption of the Internet enabled Outsourcing and Offshoring! Work is not tethered to one location anymore." We find the same idea expressed thusly in this article on the future of electronic design, "The Internet dissolves international boundaries, creating a time- and place-shifting global village of design and engineering."

At this stage of the game, any work whose end-product is an electronic file (which could be a text document or a feature film) requires solely that collaborators be connected electronically, not that they be spatially proximate to one another. In fact, the only complication introduced by the fact that the end-product takes a more material form, a chair, for example, is that the collaborators must each on their end be connected to some physical transport system such as that run by FedEx or UPS.

Given the boundary-less world of cyber-enabled work, to what extent are we still bound by geography when it comes to landing gigs or hiring people, especially since anyone can post a resume or portfolio online or advertise a job opening and it can be found by anyone with access to the web from anywhere on Earth?

When it comes to actually getting hired or hiring I believe that the only thing making physical presence in a particular geographic location necessary is trust (or, more accurately, the lack thereof). As atavastic or primitive as it may be, the most basic form of trust still rests in seeing someone with our own eyes, shaking their hand, and sizing them up by talking to them, asking them questions, and gauging their responses.

Of course, people nowadays will readily work with someone they have never physically met. Why? Because trust functions as a currency that can be passed from one individual to another through an introduction, a recommendation, or a referral. The same technology that enables time- or place-shifted collaboration has encouraged the growth of globe-spanning trust networks, which may in the end turn out to be its most revolutionary effect.

People can make a career out of being trusted (Brogan calls these folk "trust agents"). My question to you is: Do you see us here at Aquent as trust agents? If so, how may we assist you?

Image Courtesy of Kevin Krejci.

This post was written by Aquent's Alex "Dr. Love" Weaver. This is a picture of him.

With Valentine's Day hard upon us, I couldn't help but sit back and reflect on all the great matches that Aquent has made since its inception back in 1986. I'm not one to boast, but it seems that a broad swath of companies are just now trying to bust the marketing moves we made popular over the years.

Now I don't want to pat Aquent's collective back here, but if I did, I would probably talk about how Match.com and their "Love. Guaranteed." slogan is a total rip-off of the "Work. Guaranteed." ad campaign we were on about back in '89.

Then I would point a finger at Axe's "Dark Temptation" commercial and remind our loyal readers of the "Temp Temptation" fragrance we released back in 1996 to commemorate our 150,000th placement (though instead of Mr. Chocolate, our poster boy looked like this).

Finally, I would really, really have to thank Joaquin Phoenix's latest personal branding exploit for shedding light on what we've known all along: when you're the bomb at what you do, you don't need to do it any differently.

I would, but I won't.

If you're gonna be in the Los Angeles area in a couple weeks and have a geeky streak, I highly encourage you to attend "The World of User Experience," an event Aquent is putting on Friday, February 27, 2009, from 6:30pm - 10:00pm at the GRNAPPLETREE Warehouse at 2324 E. Porter Avenue.

Boasting a prominent panel of guest speakers including Tim Richards of Razorfish, Stephen Ruiz of Rapp Collins (Stephen will also be DJing, fyi), and Josh Galban of Team One, this event will feature presentations on pushing experience design beyond the page, the importance of UX branding, and the tech of UX.

For the complete story, go here or contact Meri Gulyan in Aquent's Los Angeles office.

This post was written by Aquent's Alex Weaver. This is a picture of him.

Over the past couple weeks, the only thing that's been jammed down my throat more than the relentlessly ridiculous Snuggie ("The Blanket with Sleeves!") are the ever-demanding "25 Random Things" lists popping up all over Facebook (where, in case you didn't know, Aquent too has a page).

I've been wearing my bathrobe backwards for years now, so I've got the Snuggie thing on lock. What I haven't done is put together a "25 Random Things" list, so I thought I would do one for Aquent. Then it struck me that we've been around for 20 odd years and tens of thousands of people have participated in the Aquent story along the way. Thus, I decided to start with a mere "15 Random Things About Aquent" and invite y'all to add to it and pass it along. Here goes....

1. Aquent" is pronounced "ay-kwent."

2. Our company band, TNEUQA played at the House of Blues in Cambridge, MA.

3. Former Aquent talent Jim Infantino sang the national anthem to open a Red Sox game.

4. Al Gore spoke at Aquent's Cre8 conference in 2007.

5. Our bi-annual Talent parties are generally "themed," with recent themes including: Mustache Party, Aquent Prom, and Taco Truck Night.

6. Longtime Aquent employee Kim Schaefer was a featured voice in the original Grand Theft Auto. Ben Weaver, brother of Aquent employee Alex Weaver, was the voice of the pizza delivery guy in the "Liberty City" edition.

7. Our CMO was Aquent's first employee and our CFO was Aquent's first temp.

8. The Los Angeles Business Journal and the Boston Globe recently recognized our LA and Boston offices as "Best Places to Work."

9. For you parents out there, Aquent recently placed talent at the company that created Club Penguin.

10. Employees get free use of a waterfront beach house in Hawaii (after the house in Florida was wrecked by a hurricane).

11. Our creative director proposed to his wife online via an Aquent job posting.

12. We represent Gino Bona, the copywriter who won the NFL's 2007 "Write an ad for the Superbowl" contest. (View clip)

13. An Aquent talent designed the Massachusetts custom license plate featuring the "Right Whale."

14. Erin Bloom, Aquent's Director of PR, directed her junior high school's production of "Cats" after beating out Grammy-winning artist Pink (a.k.a Alecia Moore) for the lead. See for yourself.

15. Our LA office keeps a running tally of their candy supply via resident Blogger, Propagandist, and Stuff Coordinator Tim Donnelly's blog.
    

So, what random Aquent-ness can you chip in?

Aquent and the AMA engaged the Dihedral Group to conduct a couple surveys asking marketers about salaries and hiring trends, as I mentioned in this post. Well, the findings have been analyzed, reflected upon, and transformed into a convenient white paper, "The Pragmatic Recession," which you can also find here, along with a recording of our recent webcast on digital marketing management.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this document, but one thing that jumped out at me was the following: When hiring new marketers, managers are less concerned about depth experience and much more concerned about finding people whose skill-sets match their needs. While this makes sense on the face of it, I can't help but remind folks that when you hire somebody and it doesn't work out, it's rarely about their skills. On the contrary, it's all about fit.

A random Google search brought me to this Wired article, "The See-Through CEO," from March 2007 (remember 2007?). Though it seems kind of old-hat now, the thrust of the article (is it strange to use "thrust" metaphorically in a corporate blog?) is summed up thusly, "Secrecy is dying. It's probably already dead." That is, trying to be stealthy about the real workings of your business is pointless because, the truth will out (on the interwebs).

The author suggests that the most adequate response to inescapable visibility is transparency:

All of which explains why the cult of transparency has so many high tech converts these days. Transparency is a judo move. Your customers are going to poke around in your business anyway, and your workers are going to blab about internal info - so why not make it work for you by turning everyone into a partner in the process and inviting them to do so?

This kind of got me thinking about transparency at Aquent and in our business more generally. For example, the way our business works is that we pay the talent less than the client pays us (if you didn't know that already, I'm sorry to just spring it on you). We generate the bill rate (what we charge our client) by adding a percentage of the pay rate (what the talent gets) to the pay rate. Now, depending on a number of factors, that percentage can range from 45% to 100%. The money we make comes from that split times the number of hours worked.

I'm assuming that, if you have worked through us or other staffing/temp agencies, you are aware of this set-up. My question is: How frequently have you been told specifically what we (or anyone) is charging the client?

My belief is that we should share this info for the same reason that companies should be transparent: People will find out anyway. (I know I did when I temped through MacTemps.)

What do you think?

Unless you spend your days managing a healthy portfolio, spending your inherited wealth, or begging on the streets, then you have to work and, specifically, you have to work for somebody. The question is, "Are you getting your money in lumpy chunks from various individuals or are you getting it in uniform amounts at regular intervals from the same person or organization?" In the first case, you are an "independent professional." In the second case, you're working for "The Man."

When MacTemps changed it's name to Aquent in 1999, becoming what we are today, we were pushing the idea of "Work 2.0." Related to what Daniel Pink in Fast Company called, "Free Agent Nation," the concept was that people could work happily and successfully as independent professionals or career freelancers. For a certain sector of the population - creative, technical, and other "knowledge" workers - working independently was not just an option, as it had always been, but was the future of work as such. (Indeed, in times like these, hiring freelancers becomes much more appealing to managers trying to do more with less, and working as a freelancer means you have more options and aren't tied to the fate of one particular company.)

The benefits of working independently are and were: 1) focus (doing only work you enjoy and are good at); 2) variety (you move from company to company/team to team/place to place); and 3) independence (as the name implies). The downsides are: 1) the hustle for gigs; 2) taking care of business (i.e., doing all the admin/businessy stuff that sucks to do); and 3) independence.

"Independence" shows up twice because it's a two-edged sword. On the one hand you are "free" of dependence on any single source of income (The Man) - if one client drops you, it's not the end of the world; if The Man drops you, you're out on the street. On the other hand, you have no one like The Man on whom you can depend to take care of business or create a kind of buffer for you to concentrate on your stuff.

This is the devil's bargain of working for The Man. The Man can take care of you, provide you with health benefits, a sales force, a staff, workspace, etc. so that you can do your thing. At the same time, if The Man decides from one day to the next that your services are no longer required, you're "set free," (actually, they say, "let go," which feels more like "freefall" than "freedom"). The source of security is the ultimate source of insecurity.

So, is it better to work independently and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to work for THE MAN? Tell me!

Image Courtesy of srqpix.