In it, he names Ottawa as the number one creative city in Canada, based on technology in the region, the ability to attract “creative” workers (i.e. knowledge workers) qualified workers (i.e. workers with a B.A. or above), and “tolerance,” which incorporates measures of gay & lesbian communities, visible minorities and what Florida calls the “integration index.”

These findings have ignited a lot of discussion both from people who agree with Florida, and from those who are surprised to see the words “Ottawa” and “creative” together in the same sentence.

First of all, creativity is a loaded word. Say it around the advertising / marketing industry, designers will think you’re talking about them. To most, creativity means art, culture, innovation and general thinking-outside-the-boxedness. However, in this context, Florida defines creativity as such:

Creativity is an act of self-expression resulting in new forms, new techniques and/or new concepts.

Fair enough, but he also defines creative workers as:

Creativity-oriented occupations are high autonomy jobs where workers are paid to think (e.g., artists, doctors, nurses, senior managers, architects).

In this definition, artists and nurses are both considered “creatives.” Certainly some level of creativity is required is all of these jobs, this definition seems to apply more to knowledge workers than “creative workers.” There is a disconnect here – creative workers under these definitions do not necessarily “create.” In many cases, they just think.

The biggest issue I have with Florida’s research is that Ottawa as a government town automatically skews this index without actually seeing the benefit of being a creative city. The government is by far the dominant sector in the region, and most of these workers are knowledge workers, or by Florida’s definition, “creative workers.” As someone who has lived in Ottawa for his entire professional life, I can tell you with 100% certainty that while very knowledgable, government workers are not there to be creative, regardless of how you define or measure it.

Surprisingly, Florida ranks Ottawa’s bohemian index (the percentage of artistic workers) as quite high. This is quite different from another study published about 10 years ago, which ranked the index well below Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. I can say from first-hand experience that Ottawa’s performing and visual arts have grown considerably in the past decade, but I find it hard to believe that it has exceeded these cities by that wide of a margin in its growth.

The other aspect that Florida misses is that not all creativity is created equal. It’s possible that Calgary’s bohemian index is higher than Toronto’s (and it is) – but it would be hard to argue that Calgary is creating better theatre, art and music. Quite simply, the bohemian index treats all artists as equals, which tells us nothing about the quality of a region’s culture. Nobody benefits from bad theatre.

In terms of “tolerance,” that’s the one metric I buy. While Ottawa doesn’t have a huge population of visible minorities or immigrants compared to Toronto, it is less segregated, and more integrated. As the nation’s capital, I think equal opportunity here is widely accepted as a way of life.

So, is Ottawa Canada’s most creative city? If we look at it in terms of its arts, its design community, its restaurants or even its local business, it would be hard to argue that we even begin to compete against a city like Vancouver or Montreal. But, if you follow Florida’s broad definition of creativity in an economic context, there’s not much to argue with. We do have a lot of knowledge workers, a fair number of tech firms and a lot of tolerance.

That said, if we’re going to use what happens in the cubicles of the Federal Government and Kanata business parks as our benchmarks for being a creative city, it’s hard to believe we’re ever going to grow into the world-class destination that you would expect Canada’s most creative city to be. Instead, we need to focus on fostering the real indicators of creativity, like the arts, new media and small businesses that are pushing boundaries in innovative ways. Anything beyond that is just counting suits.

Humans aren’t born opinionated. We’ve been taught to be like this. We’ve been told all our life that we should respect other people’s opinions. This notion is the epitome of bullshit, and has led to the state of discourse that we find ourselves mired in every day.

The internet and social media have their share of blame. The technological evolution of the past ten years gave everyone with access to a $100 phone and a data plan the ability to broadcast their voice to the world. It gave everyone access to all of the world’s knowledge in their pants – no longer does an argument have to last any longer than it takes to load Wikipedia.

But this false sense of knowledge fed by disembodied facts, this false sense of importance fed by Klout score and Twitter followers has given rise to a world where people view it as their right to have their opinion listened to, regardless of whether they know anything about the subject or not. Understanding is not a prerequisite to opinion. In fact, having an opinion is so easy with the glut of random data that we have access to, not having an opinion on any subject is seen as a weakness.

The most frustrating part in all of this for me is the lack of regard for experts that this culture of opinion has created. It has become commonplace for the uninformed to argue with people who have studied a subject for years and dedicated their lives to it as if their opinion was just as valid. Look at any comment feed on any major newspaper if there’s any doubt in your mind as to whether or not I’m right.

“But Ryan,” you might say, if you know me at all or have read anything I’ve ever written. “You’re an opinionated asshole. Doesn’t this entire post make you a hypocrite?”

Maybe. But though I’m opinionated, there are a few rules I try to follow. First, I try to be knowledgable about anything I have strong opinions about. Second, I try not to have strong opinions on things I don’t know much about. Third, I accept that my opinions, however strong they may be, may be proven wrong, and are subject to change. Finally, I realize that not everyone needs to know my opinions on everything. I’ll give them if they’re asked, but some are better kept to myself.

Here’s the thing. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but not everyone’s opinion has the same value. Accept that fact, and if you find yourself defending a point of view that you fundamentally don’t understand, take a minute, and just stop talking. You’ll seem smarter in the end.

Why would you work on anything else but what actually matters?

This idea here, this obvious little notion is exactly what has been bothering me for a while now. For some reason that I can’t quite understand, I’ve started noticing an epidemic of people doing exactly this – toiling away at bureaucracy, following corporate guidelines, checking all the boxes – doing the bare minimum for the sake of saying you did it. To be honest, it’d been depressing the hell out of me.

You don’t have to look far to see it. I guarantee it’s running rampant in your industry, your neighbourhood or your community. It’s mediocrity – the rancid discharge of doing work that doesn’t matter. Now, I’m not talking about saving the whales or speaking for the trees. I’m just talking about doing something awesome, or at least aiming for it.

Every day, I see businesses that fill the niche of mediocrity, never really striving for more – just making enough money to continue the lifelong journey to the centre of the bell curve. Personally, I’ve never seen the appeal of running an overpriced restaurant with bad food and lousy service, or a design firm that cranks out garbage just because people will pay for it. If it’s your business, surely you’d be happier doing something good, wouldn’t you?

The harsh reality of life is that talent is not equally distributed, but that’s not the ultimate factor. I’ve known people who were incredibly talented and extremely lazy who failed, and people who were fair-to-middling in the talent department, but worked their ass off to succeed.

There’s my answer, I suppose. It’s easier to get by than it is to be awesome. It’s easier to not mess up a good thing than to try to make it better. It’s easier to be mediocre than to matter. Those are the people history will forget. Those who work a bit harder and aim at something a bit higher may not become household names, but at least they can go to their grave knowing that they at least tried to make things a little better.

When you’re a geek, there’s nothing quite like knowing that there are other people out there that “get” you. This project we worked on with Nick Iannitti at Ottawa Tourism is the kind of funny that will only appeal to you if you’re an internet nerd, but let’s face it. If you’re reading this, you probably are.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to one and all, and see you in the new year!

It’s not that I totally ignore the space now. I’m just much more judicious about what tools I try, use, review or even talk about. The litmus test is that they have to make my life easier. Otherwise, they’re just more noise.

A few months back, a guy named Mike Potter emailed me out of the blue and asked if he could show me a new social media tool that he was working on. He was a friend of a friend, so I met for a coffee, and he told me about Arkli, which he described as a “social campaign manager”.  Essentially, a tool that allows you to schedule entire social media campaigns, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube, in advance, and the invite others to schedule retweets, reposts and comments on that content – also in advance.

This is a thing that would make my life easier.

Since then, Arkli has grown and expanded, and just today announced that it now integrates with Mailchimp, so email marketing can be part of your pre-scheduled integrated campaigns.

Think about this. If you have an announcement, you can schedule an email campaign to your customers, set video explaining the announcement to launch at the same time as a blog post, followed by announcements to your personal and brand Facebook pages, Tweet it at various points during the day. Then, you can invite employees, friends, supporters or pre-briefed bloggers to add their tweets, blog posts, comments, and “likes” to the campaign before it launches.

For instance, Mike asked me if I could help him spread the word on this announcement last week, and all of my tweets and posts were set up then and just launched today so I could respect his embargo and have everything launch at the right time.  He set up all of the dominoes, and set a timer to knock them down.

There are no shortage of shiny new objects, but social media tools that actually save you time and make your job easier are few and far between. That fact is going to separate a lot of startups from the rest of the field in the coming years.

You can try out the Arkli Social Campaign Manager at www.arkli.com.

(Full disclosure: My agency, Northern Army, is helping Arkli develop its communication strategy.)

One commercial that falls into the last category – is for Kay Jewellers.  If you haven’t seen it, please allow me a moment to set the scene for you:

We open on a cabin in the woods at night. There is a storm in the air. As we see inside the cabin, two lovers on a romantic retreat, look out the window at the rain.  The man half of the couple expounds: “In all the years we’ve been coming here, I’ve never seen a storm like this.”

As a thunderclap rings out through the air, the woman, frightened, instinctively buries her head in the chest of her manly companion as if she were a chihuahua. Laughing, the manly companion (who, I should mention here, looks as if he is planning to add her to his collection of decorative rugs made out of human flesh) says, in the most condescending tone ever committed to digital audio, “Don’t worry – I’m here. AND I ALWAYS WILL BE.” [emphasis mine.]

After the sales pitch ends, she looks him in the eye, and responds, “Don’t let go [dramatic pause]… ever.”

Also, there’s something about a necklace in there.

Now, I hate this commercial – this much is true. But my hatred is nothing compared to the seething vitriol it produces in my sweet and lovely girlfriend, which is why I have to think that either there was not a single woman in the room when this spot was conceived, or those women were too busy being scared by thunder to realize what a condescending piece of crap it is.

Commercial stereotypes are the laziest form of “creative” under the sun, and that goes for the bumbling dad who can’t cook dinner without burning it as much as it goes for the wilting flower of a fiancé who needs a big strong man to protect her from loud noises.

At this point, I think that this spot (and frankly, almost every other commercial they air regularly) has built up so much negativity, that if I ever presented my sweet and lovely girlfriend with a box from Kay’s, I’m afraid it would be thrown in my face.

Though in fairness, I wouldn’t be able to resist saying the line from the commercial, so I would probably have it coming.

The reasons? Well, a few things, but mainly it’s that my return on blogging was getting lower, and as a result I decided to cut back the time I spent on it. So, to say that I wasn’t blogging because I was too busy isn’t particularly accurate, but because I was busy, I didn’t make time for it.

The thing is, I’ve noticed that after almost a year off from blogging, I’ve missed something important that blogging gave me – an outlet that forced me to continually keep on top of trends and made me constantly think about marketing and synthesize those thoughts. In short, blogging made me smarter.

So, now with a new look to the site, I’m planning to make more time for blogging in 2011. I still plan to stick to the tenet of only posting when I have something to say, but I can at the least say that I’ll post more often than never.  Hopefully the quality won’t go downhill as a result.

• Right out of university, think “career” not “job.” You’ll be tempted to go for the highest paying job right out of school, but look farther than salary when you’re considering where to work.  Your first few years out of school is a time to invest in your experience.  You can come out of it with a few bucks more, or you can come out of it with a marketable skill set that can ultimately earn you more.  If it’s between a job that doesn’t pay well but offers a lot of experience and a job that pays more but makes you a glorified file clerk, take the lower pay.  It doesn’t seem like it, but you’ll be that much closer to that big paycheque.
• Experience trumps education. Almost everyone that night asked me if they should take a PR certificate.  My answer?  Those programs are often very good, but they’ll set you back two to three years, and ten to fifteen grand without guaranteeing you anything.  Education is important, but if you already have a degree, commit to learning on your own.  Read voraciously, and do everything you can to get more experience – volunteer, intern, or start something of your own.  Personally, I would hire someone who has actual experience over someone with a few more years of college any day.
• If you can’t write, you’re useless to me. Blunt, perhaps, but it’s the truth.  If you’re starting out in PR, you should be writing as much as you possibly can, whether it’s in a personal journal, a novel or a blog.  You need to learn how to write like a journalist, like an advertiser, like a CEO and like an engineer.  A good PR writer has no writing style – he or she can adapt to the situation seamlessly.  The only way to get there is through practice.  As my thesis advisor was fond of saying “the first million words is the hardest.”
• Network. Find out the events that are going on and go to them.  Find out who’s an expert on what you’re interested in and follow them.  Meet people, but don’t do it looking for a job – do it to learn.
• Don’t stop learning. 90% of the job of working at an agency is the ability to learn.  When I was starting out, I had to go from being an expert on export tariffs to hospital staffing to carpet off-gassing emissions in a single day.  You need to take subjects you know nothing about and become an expert on them quickly, and the only way to do that is to be good at learning.

Q. What page should I direct search traffic to in order to get the highest conversion rate?
A. No clue.

Q. What time of day will get the best open rate on my email marketing campaign?
A. Dunno.

A big part of any consulting-style job, be it advertising, PR, business process or any other role in which the central function is to incite action across a broad group of people, is answering questions. To be successful, you need to be part futurist, part expert and part hand holder and teller that everything’s going to be okay-er.  But the reality of this type of work – especially that which deals with newer or unproven media or channels – is that sometimes the answer to the question the client is asking is “I have no idea.”

But that’s not much comfort to clients.

So, we answer the question based on our experiences, our intuition, our understanding of media and consumers, and we guess… just a little bit.  But more and more, the guesswork is coming out of the profession.  We have access to analytics, measurement systems and tracking that communicators have never before had access to, and for the most part, they’re inexpensive and easy to integrate. We can tell where our best-converting sales leads are coming from, what types of posts have the best engagement, and when the best time to send out our email communications is – all from easily collected real-time data.

So why are we still guessing?

Part of the reason is that advertising people have always been regarded in part as soothsayers. It was this confidence in our knowledge of the medium, the message and the huddled masses yearning to be sold to that garnered multi-million dollar ad budgets. Conversely, it’s the expertise and ego that got CMOs through the ranks to where they are today.  So where is the incentive for anyone in this equation to ever utter the phrase “I don’t know?”

As a society, we’ve always had an odd fascination with mediums and psychics who pretend to be able to see the future, telling us, to our amazement, what would happen to us, would we find love, how we would die. Of course, these were all parlour tricks based on intuition and a controlled situation. And that’s exactly what we’re doing when we predict what colour “buy” button will perform best, or where to put the call to action on the landing page. Our experience, knowledge and understanding of the media combines with our intuition to make an educated guess, but that’s usually all it is.

If, on the other hand, both the client and the agency embraces the fact that they don’t know the answer – that’s when real answers can be found.  We can A/B test copy to see which performs best.  We can analyze data to deduce why people are coming to our site.  We can built multiple landing pages for multiple keywords and choose the one to go with based only on which one makes the client more money.

Of course, it’s impossible to test everything, which is why we rely on experts in the first place.  If you’re Google, you’ll test 42 shades of blue to determine what colour your background should be, but that’s impractical at best, and an impediment to creative thinking at worst.  Instead, look to solve problems by focusing on the most probable solutions (based on intuition), and determining which one works the best (based on numbers).  It’s not as sexy as a crystal ball, but it’s certainly better for business.

photo credit: Frogman!

Of course, it wasn’t the tools that made the difference.  It was the understanding of the consumer that ultimately led to an organizational shift, and a fairly major change in how they communicate with their consumers.  It was the exercise of communicating in a more real way, more regularly, and allowing the people they’ve been talking to to talk back.

The reality is, for all the talk about social media – there’s really no such thing.  There is only communication, and while our academic pursuit of what we call social media has certainly advanced the practice of communication as a whole, social media is nothing but a buzzword, a marketing ploy, a big ol’ bottle of snake oil that a slick-talking sideshow act is selling for a dollar to cure what ails you.

This isn’t to take away from any agency that has a real social media expertise (as opposed to a 20-year old intern who knows all about this Facebook thing) – the agency of the future will understand those channels as well as the agencies of the past understood television and print.  The successful agencies will understand how to make all of these media work together to achieve a goal.  Sadly, a number of agencies will achieve a temporary success tricking clients into thinking they understand these technologies and communities, but that gold rush is running out.

If you want to communicate effectively, you need to use the channels that your consumers use – that’s marketing 101.  If that means Facebook, Twitter, blogs, or some obscure web application, then that’s what you should use, but it all needs to be part of an integrated approach with a real goal in mind.  There’s nothing wrong with playing with new tech, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that it’s a strategy.

photo credit: webtreats