Originally published by Imperica. I have decided to re-post it here as Imperica has announced it will be shutting down on 31 July 2020.
No, the title to this article is not link bait. It’s a fact. You’re probably in shock at that statement. Or angered by it. I understand that. Having spent the past 17 years or so being completely misunderstood by the creative industry, being told it’s time to throw away everything you’ve worked so hard to build might be a bitter pill to swallow. So ask yourself this: what does digital really mean in 2013? And when you say digital to someone, what do they think?
Do they say anything that’s on the internet? Or do they consider it to mean work that exists on the web? Possibly. But what if it isn’t, or you don’t work ‘online’? What if you work for a television company that delivers it’s content via fibre? What if you work for a newspaper that prints news but publishes to the web first?
Let’s step away for a second, and think about what digital actually is.
Digital is an adjective. Here’s the definition as we apply it today, although its etymology can be traced back to the 15th Century:
“1 Denoting a process or a device that operates by processing information that is supplied and stored in the form of a series of binary digits; 2 electronics denoting an electronic circuit that responds to and produces signals which at any given time are in one of two possible states.”
Source: Chambers Dictionary, 12th Edition
The lines between what we historically knew as the digital realm and what we considered to be old media, or analogue delivery, have well and truly blurred. Only a few industries cling on to the idea that there is an offline and an online state – and when applied to retail, for example, it’s to the consumer’s detriment that this concept persists. I even saw a company describe their software as available as a digital download. I haven’t ever seen an analogue one, have you?
More to the point, has anyone ever described themselves as an “analogue planner”, or “digital accountant”, or “old media mogul”?
No, because it sounds utterly ludicrous.
So why do we maintain that it should remain a prefix for job titles? Why is a digital copywriter a requirement, or my favourite piece of nonsense – a digital strategist? If you’re working in the creative industries and you describe yourself with a digital prefix then you’re a charlatan. Or a dinosaur. Possibly both.
When I’ve spoken to people about this, they often cite jobs that we know from online work as justification of a digital difference. UX is one such role. The idea that user experience is only something that requires thinking about for an online experience only needs to visit the Loch Ness Exhibition in the Scottish Highlands to know that’s not true.
There, the screen on which you watch videos related to a specific part of the exhibition is often in front of you. This causes people to immediately stop as they enter the room, while others back up behind them. The best exhibition rooms they offer have a screen that’s above the door you come in – people walk to the back of the room and turn, allowing others to come in.
Designers quite like to talk about using the word digital as a prefix. Does that mean they only design for screens? Or only for web-based work? I’m not convinced by their arguments that it helps with recruitment; the digital prefix needlessly pigeonholes.
Why are we wedded to the old way of talking about things?
The smartphone is driving the adoption of the always-on, hyper-connected consumer (or user, if you prefer). The concept of being offline dates your thinking; there is no place for people like you in this business anymore. Ditto brands.
Think about that for a second before you shout your expletives.
Let’s be clear… I’m not saying that anyone who was an art director, planner, strategist, copywriter, designer, journalist, or art buyer in the days before the internet is redundant – their skills are just as useful now as they ever were. But the idea that art directing an email takes any more skill than it does for a 6-page roll fold, or that writing a campaign line that activates through Facebook is any different from writing a campaign line that is delivered on packaging, I’m sorry but your argument is invalid.
It’s the same when you just use the other side of that coin. I have previously described myself as being ‘digital’. It caused me more problems than it solved.
The rules haven’t changed, really. Yes, there has been a period of adaptation, but like an economic recession’s effect on businesses it’s weeded out the chaff from the wheat. And there’s a simple reason for this. Digital is not just about media: it’s a channel, it’s a platform, and it’s a system. Very few things prior to the early nineties could be considered to cross this many domains.
It’s this malleability that allows retailers to offer Software as a Service, search engines to disrupt the media environment, and social networks with no discernible business model float on the stock exchange at valuations that made those old school, vertically-siloed networks weep. And while they cried, the n00bs of the digital revolution came along and overtook them. In some cases, they bought them. What’s certain now is that they did more than disrupt. They laid waste.
I’m one of those old school people. I started in print. However, I adapted quickly. I saw the potential and was willing to go with it, despite being a second-class citizen to some of the above-the-line agencies that held the brand equity and saw the interactive, new media types as mere production agencies. But some of those agencies – as well as established businesses – along with many of their established models, were slow-footed and failed to grasp that digital was more than a single channel, that platforms and networks would ultimately prevail. Even the modern browser will seem antiquated within my lifetime, I’m fairly certain. And it’ll be a good thing when that happens.
Just like the printing press led to books, pamphlets, newspapers, and so forth, digital is sinking its fangs into every aspect of our lives and before long the old days of analogue will be a museum artefact that we view through a set of connected contact lenses.
That’s if we aren’t sitting at home, pushing a button when a light comes on and being entertained by videos of cats. Of course, that’d never happen.
Disagree? Great. Let’s start the debate.