Agency On Record

The Covington Catholic High School story reveals how bad Twitter is for journalism. And when journalism is harmed, everybody suffers. Mike and Jason just want to stop doing episodes about Twitter's negative effects on society.

Cable TV still is the dominant way most people get their media, but statistics show a large trend of both people leaving cable for streaming services and entire generations not even knowing what cable is in the first place. What does this mean for media and the marketers vying for audience attention? Mike and Jason just wish TV was a punchline again so that they could leave their houses.

We look back at the past year at Maark and the past year of Agency on Record and what's on the horizon for both in 2019. Mike and Jason just want to eggnog their way through the next two weeks.

We talk to senior producer and longest-running Maark employee Mark Van Der Hyde about balancing work projects and personal projects. Mike and Jason just want to surround themselves with people who do interesting things.

We welcome Christopher Link, the head of content at John Hancock Investments, to discuss how he built a team of writers into a formidably strategic asset for the company, one that does everything from protecting the brand story to making digital transformation possible. Mike and Jason just want writers to be cool again.

Sometimes it happens. Agencies have to fire clients. It hurts financially. It makes us sad. It goes against everything that makes us a service company. But it can protect the agency—its goals, its employees, its quality of work, and its culture. Mike and Jason just want us all to reenact Hands Across America every other Saturday.

How do you manage a tech project? Mike invites senior producer, Simone Ovsey, to the AoR podcast to talk about managing projects at Maark, and how to be successful when you are tasked with all the complexities of digital delivery. We talk about the pitching and requirements process, design, HANDOFF, development, and QA. Mike just appreciates that Simone found a way to bring JSON into the show.

Jason wrote a blog post about this very topic, and posted it here: https://www.maark.com/articles/serious-about-story/

For a while there, it looked like corporate websites were becoming less relevant, but today they're the hub of all digital activities, complete with a complex, multi-system back-end, highly competitive customer experiences, and a need for a clear strategy and strong story. Mike and Jason just want to Squarespace you up an enterprise dot com right quick.

A lot of stats thrown around at the beginning of this 'cast, with some vagueness over which is bigger, sports or video games (see below). Either way, it's pretty apparent the gaming industry will win that competition, if it hasn't already. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-28-global-gaming-revenue-on-par-with-sports-following-2017-estimates https://seekingalpha.com/article/4184342-video-games-taking-will-esports-become-larger-sports https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/

Collaboration has become a feel-good word and a general goal in corporate culture, but the truth is, collaboration (as corporately defined) is the worst way to get anything good done. Plus, you're probably not really collaborating anyway. Mike and Jason just want to be left alone in their offices with meals left outside their doors.

If your management consultant can't build a world-class digital experience, you shouldn't be listening to them. No matter how much data they have. Jason and Mike just want to sell a six-month PowerPoint project for $300,000.

From burning socks on one side of the political spectrum to celebrating the morality of a multinational corporation on the other, the reception to Nike's Colin Kaepernick campaign has been weird, with both sides seemingly missing the real implications of this marketing strategy. Either way, we might be at a real watershed moment for branding. Mike and Jason just want to know what their vintage Nike Solo Flights (with tag still on) are worth now...had they kept them.

In this episode we dig through our phones mining for meaning in a sea of meaningless apps. Has the mobile app revolution really changed the way we live, or just the way we chat? Mike and Jason just want to figure out if Google's really stealing Jason's travel pins.

Radiolab Episode Post No Evil referenced in this podcast.

We referenced a lot of articles in this ep: Apple CEO Tim Cook on keeping humanity in playlists (???). Forbes says people are listening to music more than ever...32 hours a week! Business intelligence says the music industry is setting records with $43B in revenue last year, with the artists who make it getting a paltry 12%...and only if they hustle.

Rich's blog post referenced in the show: https://www.maark.com/articles/agile-square-peg-in-circular-world/

Maark's 5 Act Framework: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b59uj4w0v8fkoli/maark-5act-framework.pdf?dl=0 Jason's blog post on business stories: https://www.maark.com/articles/thats-not-a-story/

We've had thousands of years of practice at making good content. Why did we chuck it all out the window for the Internet? Mike and Jason just want an RSS feed full of blog posts on their Google Reader page.

For more on "experience-first" IT, take a look at Mike's recent post on the topic over at the Maark blog: https://www.maark.com/articles/digital-cio-mastering-the-nuance-of-digital-delivery/