Things aren't good out there, are they?  No, they're not.

This has become abundantly clear in recent weeks as our email boxes have overflowed with offers and/or pleas for us to attend various conferences and events both in person and online.  Gone are the days of "Only Three Spots Left" a month before the event.  Just last week we received an email titled "Learn to talk to clients about money" from one of our favorite design magazines that seemed strangely familiar.  This stands to reason, since the title and contents were exactly the same as an email sent 13 days earlier by the same company.



The text in the first email blatantly stated that space was limited, implying we'd better hurry if we wanted a spot.  The second email similarly urged us to register now since space is still limited.  Because perhaps we'd forgotten...

We get lots of great comments and feedback about our brand when people encounter it.  Sometimes it's a reference to how cool or unique it is, sometimes it's a comment about the fact that a brand like ours would never get through the approvals process at a company such as theirs.  Occasionally we get questions, too.  The number one most asked question? 

What's your tagline?

We don't have one.  And for the moment that's just fine - our name, visuals, positioning, and attitude give us everything we need for now.  If that changes we've got the ability to respond without needing to rip into other aspects of our brand.  In fact, we used to have a tagline, but as our business expanded it no longer suited our needs... which is pretty sad, because our tagline truly added value for us by reinforcing are straight-forward approach and explaining what we did at the same time.  The old tagline?

We name stuff.

RIP, old friend.  You served us well.

I played around with some concepts that might help position us aggressively in the branding marketplace but my team informed me that perhaps I was going a little too far out on the edge with my personal favorite.  Which is...

Stokefire: Brands In Heat

I love it.  I'm not sure if I love it in spite of or because of its blatant bad taste.  Probably "because of."

Maybe not the best slogan for an agency employing one's mother-in-law, however.  Even a mother-in-law as cool as mine.  Rather than using it as a tagline I think I may just make a ringer-tee with the slogan for family, friends, and clients that aren't likely to go all litigious on us.  If you are in any of the above three groups (or would be interested in potentially purchasing said slogan tee) let me know of your interest and it'll be a lot more likely to happen.

In the mean time?  No tagline. 

Really.  I mean it.

After being prodded by a few of my peers I've got to make a quick appeal - if only just to see what happens.

crowdSPRING is pretty awesome, but isn't quite right for the level of brand development that professional organizations need.  That's one of the reasons why Stokefire stepped in and has begun utilizing crowdSPRING's service and offering to manage the crowd sourcing process.  We're getting great feedback... but the solution doesn't scale well, and the technical tools needed to manage the process efficiently aren't there yet.

The philosophy we bring to the table is one that I think organizations like crowdSPRING, Kluster, and GeniusRocket understand, but haven't been able to fully support. 

Among many concerns, the current implementation of crowdsourcing balances on the fact that the client knows what they're looking for and how to communicate and interact with the designers.  The creative brief is written by the client, and the creative community either has to follow it or risk being thrown out of the process by breaking the rules. 

The unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of clients don't know what they're looking for, what they need, or how to communicate it.  Any creative brief based on the client's understanding of what can be done with their own brand is likely to be dangerously inaccurate, short-sighted, or at least one-sided.  Crowdsourcing as practiced today can't rectify this. 

To compare... We hire a plumber to stop a leak.  Rarely do we suggest that he might be able to save money if he used chewing gum instead of putty... yet when it comes to creative tasks via crowdsourcing the client is effectively doing just that - demanding things that no experienced professional would ever agree to provide.  Creatives that don't know any better will submit ideas that meet the client's stated need (thus not serving him well) and creatives that submit ideas that actually serve him well will be ignored because they miss the stated objective.  How is that helpful to anyone?

Here are a few reasons you might want to jump in and help fund the project...

We intend to work with groups like the AIGA and other organizations representing the creative community to understand their concerns and ensure that options are available that honor their key concerns.  People shouldn't have to work on spec - and our system will afford both designers and clients the flexibility to accomodate that.

As creatives ourselves we understand how creative projects flow, and will build the system to allow for iterative design rather than the current "my idea, my design, my money" model that everyone is using.  The power of crowds isn't in the sheer number of submissions, it's in the crowd's ability to produce a promising concept, and have it recognized and refined by countless other creatives. 

Recent high-profile crowdsourcing projects have shown the current model doesn't scale well.  A $300 project may be fairly easy to manage, but when you get into more attractive design budgets over about $5,000 the sheer volume of submissions becomes unmanageable.  We've cracked this nut in a way that not only solves the problem, but gives valuable guidance to those producing the work.  (Today when there are many designs submitted most never get more than a low resolution peek from the client.  Our system gets every design analyzed without making the client go crazy or blind.)

We also resolve the client education issue mentioned at the beginning of this post, we help art directors to refine their craft (and get paid for doing so), we have ways to attract A-list designers to participate, we can make outright copying of published work seriously difficult and unappealing, we match up the job with people qualified to do it, we help designers to improve the quality of their work over time, and even give real-world agencies a way to participate as both client and creative, making the whole solution much less threatening to old-school players.

With funding we could make it happen - or we could partner with an existing provider that really wants to get it right.  Without funding?  Well... that's where we are today.  With a crowdsourcing solution that's busted.

If you're a VC or angel with connections in the cloud computing or web services space and you're interested... drop us a note. 

In the meantime... I gotta go brand stuff, sans crowd.

And thanks to JD (most recently) and the rest of you for needling me enough to actually write this.  Let's see what happens... 

 

So I'm sitting at my desk and a tweet comes across telling me that a "Company Slogan needs a name."  Not sure how to interpret that... So I check it out. 

Apparently one of the crowdsourcing companies out there has an automated broadcast that just says "[Fill in the blank] needs a name" and this was just an instance of a client asking for something that wasn't anticipated.  (They already had the name - they needed a tagline.  Mystery solved.  Except I get a bit more confused when I look into it...

I haven't used this particular crowdsourcing service, so I'm not sure what questions they ask of their clients.  This particular client offered a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that was communicated thusly:

Our Unique Selling Proposition is “The Absolute Unquestioned Leader in Quality. Lowest Price and Responsiveness”

And therein lies the problem with crowdsourcing as it is performed today. 

Business owners and marketers are often the people least qualified to communicate what makes their solution unique.  In most cases USP translates into "whatever we think the clients need to hear to be compelled to buy our stuff."  Why else would anyone ever describe quality, low price, and service as unique?  Everyone says they offer high quality and low prices with great service. 

Google today lists 43 million hits for the combination of three words.  The first link is to a Marketingprofs article titled "Quality, Service, Price: Meaningless Claims That Can Drive Customers Away."  That's a pretty clear sign this is the wrong direction to go, right? 

So, let's assume that we have a couple hundred people ready to help this company out.  Each of them spends ten minutes developing concepts.  That's more than 33 hours of time (already an issue for many that follow and rail against crowdsourcing) applied to a task that has almost no chance of helping the client.  It's the latter part that gets my blood boiling. 

Crowdsourcing suppliers should have some level of responsibility for the projects that they allow on their systems, and legally they do.  I'm pretty sure if someone requested a logo that directly copies the Nike Swoosh they'd be shut down by the sites that offer the service.  Similarly, if someone directly asked for "a completely useless name or logo that had no value whatsoever" the providers would step in and stop the debacle since it demeans the service. So why, when a client asks for something that any responsible or experienced marketer would see was folly, would the provider not step in to set things right?

Making it worse in this case is the client's closing clarification. "We are looking for a slogan that states this in a strong way and will stand out."

The reasons why crowdsourcing sucks as it exists today are many, but very few of them have anything to do with the core concept itself.  A great idea poorly executed is still a great idea. 

Crowdsourcing providers... Step up.  Take some responsibility for the work being requested on your systems.  This is one issue that you can solve without investing in technology.  One person with a degree in marketing sitting in a chair reviewing projects as they come in... that's enough to fix this.  So why isn't anyone doing it?

Do crowdsourcing providers have an obligation not to allow their clients to get ripped off, or are they merely inverse flea-markets where buyers say what they want and everyone else tries to fit the description - even if the want is completely illogical or useless?

Incidentally... Where can I buy a lamp made out of matchsticks?

Let's hear it for home pages.

A while back we were reviewing the existing home page for a prospective client and I asked what the purpose of the page was.  His response was that it had to make all the points necessary to attract the interest of anyone who could possibly become a client.  The number of points?  Well... the page had about a dozen.

If you're reading this and you are a branding professional you probably just imploded.

For me the implosion somehow immediately resulted in my thinking of an obscure animated film by the similarly obscure Harry Nilsson.  One quote in particular came to mind:

"A point in every direction is the same as no point at all."

The story is about a round-headed boy in a world where by law everyone and everything had to have a physical point.  And thus everyone else has pointy heads except him. 

Yes, it's a little odd.  We'll get to that in a moment.

Perhaps unintentionally, the quote exposes a truth about developing a compelling identity.  If you try to be appealing to everyone you end up being completely unremarkable.  Physically speaking you become indistinct, smooth, and forgettable.  Anything on which people could focus just becomes a blur.  The moment you pick a direction and go (thus establishing your point) both you and the people you hope to attract can begin relating to each other. 

I said "unintentionally" because as it turns out, Nilsson came up with this whole concept in a way that didn't have much to do with branding. Here's what he said about how he came up with the concept:

"I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, 'Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it.'"

Ahem.

Say "no" to drugs, kids. 

Hey gang.  About three weeks worth of updates to make and about five minutes to do it in...

A few goings on of note:

1. We've gone social!  Check out @Thingnamer, @Stokefire, and our shiny new Facebook Page (We could do with a fan or two.)
   
2. Stokefire signed our first social media client, so we're no longer purely old school. We're even looking at bringing on a social media consultant and providing social media management tools to address the new demand for low-cost marketing options that can be run in-house.
   
3. iMAGINE Alexandria (a past Stokefire client, and one on which I serve as a board member now) is going to get some more ink.  This time in the Washington Post.  Should be out this Thursday.  The pattern is developing... once again I play the role of the bald-headed goof in the photo shoot.
   
4. Another Stokefire client - Wordnik.com got ink in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.  Very cool.  Go check out the site if you like words.  They've got lots of them - it's like a living dictionary. 
   
5. Still another Stokefire client (launched just a few months ago) is experiencing such rapid growth that his suppliers are calling and asking how the heck he's doing it. Seriously, this company is gaining customers so fast that we're pretty sure he's setting growth records in his industry.  When we get the confirmed figures we'll post more.  
6. What? Another client finished up?  Yep.  AAOE.net (we didn't name 'em, but they still rock) launched a conference campaign we developed that has gotten unsolicited feedback that it's the best in 17 years.  It would be longer, but that's how long the commenter had been in the industry... We're shooting for 18 next year.
   
7. We're finishing up projects for a technology company, a staffing franchise, and a loan provider.  More details on those as they come out of the gate.
8. We're going to be featured today in a crowdSPRING interview by one of the founders.  Seems we've been pretty active in the crowdsourcing community and he figured it was time to check us out.  Thanks Ross! 
   
9. We've had some inquiries by a couple VCs that could lead to us actually getting the crowdsourcing solution we've been asking for... because we'd be building it. Here's to hoping crowdSPRING, GeniusRocket, and/or Kluster end up getting to where we need them to go so we don't have to.
10. Oh... we're not sure, but we think we may just be the most experienced director of crowdsourced branding projects. If you think we're wrong please let me know.
    
11. Stokefire is beginning the gradual transition from a consultancy to an agency model.  Most folks who know us know that we've been doing a lot more than naming stuff for the last year and change. That's led to the development of partnerships and internal capabilities that have just reached a level I'd call mind-blowing.  (Stokefire backed by an astoundingly good creative department with more than 100 people?  Yep.  It looks like it may just happen.  And soon.)
12. Stokefire HQ is up to three FT employees, with a satellite office in New Hampshire and consultants sprinkled across the continental US.  If things continue as they are today we should be adding more soon.  Welcome aboard, Eric L. Frost!  He's our new account director.  If you're a client, prospective client, or past client chances are good you'll be hearing from him very soon.  
13. We're just starting an informal search for a kickass creative director that can embrace our vision and stand up to... well... me.  Quite frankly the salary will be lousy, but we do provide full healthcare and some other nifty benefits (PTO, free sodas/coffee, nice computers, flexible hours, 1 block from the Potomac in Old Town Alexandria...).  And since Stokefire is preparing to rule the world you'll have that going for you.  Other positions also to be considered.
    

That's it. 

So... yeah.  Nothing much to speak of. 

Next update sooner than the last.

Nancy Belmont and I were interviewed by Missy Frederick at the Washington Business Journal earlier this week.  Great things are coming from the non-profit and the article gives a peek into what's coming.  Look for more in the near future from our all-star communications team.  (They're so good that in less than two hours they were able to convince me - a social media Luddite - that social media tools are the perfect way to start communicating with our target audience. More on the team members to come soon.)  Heck, the entire organization is pretty damn talented.  I'm honored to be a part of it.

Incidentally, the communications team (and just about everyone else, too) is looking for volunteers to help us spread the word and turn this into a powerful force for commercial creativity.  Interested?  Tweet me @thingnamer!  (See, I'm down with social networking!)  If you've got talent and time then chances are good we're interested.

I'm on record as supporting crowdsourcing as a solution to branding, though I tend to rant a bit about the ways in which people are trying to get the job done. 

Stokefire tried an experiment with naming and crowdsourcing and got pretty horrid results from the activity about a year ago.  A relatively new site called NameThis.com is gaining some notoriety as a source for cheap names.  Using the crowdsourcing model a creative brief is given and some basic guidelines provided so that creatives can submit ideas.  Someone then goes through and evaluates the ideas based on the original criteria and the winner and runners up are given a small cash payout.  They also reward reviewers for accurately identifying top candidates.  How do they do it?  Some proprietary programming and hidden math. 

Yay Math!

So, do we at Stokefire think this is the most awful, unethical, evil thing ever to happen to naming? 

No. 

Do we find it threatening?  Hell yes. 

In its current format the solution isn't very compelling and we can position ourselves effectively against it using the same tired arguments everyone uses against crowdsourcing, but eventually the technology will be there to make this sort of solution really work.  What happens when you start getting award-winning authors, big-name strategists, and perhaps even entire branding firms putting ideas on the system?  What happens when a system is put in place that trains creatives and art directors and clients in how to get a brilliant brand?  What happens?  The current model for branding will die a painful death.  That's what we find threatening.

But it's a good threat.  It shows that the creative industry is trying to adapt and grow. 

Designers seem to be the folks that are most dead-set against crowdsourcing.  Many have told me that I can't possibly understand until my industry is invaded by the 'cancer.'  Well, that's happened.  Stokefire is still breathing and adapting.  We're even trying to find ways to help crowdsourcing to evolve so that it answers the concerns of clients and designers. 

What's the point in pointing out the lack of effectiveness and that sitting on the sidelines as someone else comes along and solves all the problems?  Namethis.com has huge inadequacies, but someone is going to solve them.  Same with crowdSPRING.  And every other system that leverages the power of crowds. 

Imagine a system where the very best designers are creating teams on the fly to do groundbreaking work.  Screw all this popularity contest voting.  Imagine a solution where designs are evaluated by their ability to add value to a brand, where reviewers are given incentives to not just rate ideas, but to help the designers improve on execution as well.  Where the concerns being raised today are all resolved.  Fraud? Addressed.  Too many participants?  Addressed?  Spec work? Addressed.  Client interaction?  Addressed.  It can happen.

I may be stoned on caffeine, but I think I can just make out the world that will follow the agency model.  It's a world where you can be guaranteed to get the right creatives on your project because there aren't walls and doors between agencies anymore.  It's a world where great ideas can be identified and brought forward whether they were developed by a high-school sophomore or forty-year design veteran. 

I want that world to be here.  Just thinking about it gets my pulse rate up.  It will be incredibly painful for most professionals working in the creative space as it comes into being, but once it is here it has the potential to create the next renaissance. 

Do I want Namethis.com to go away?  Nope.  I want more of them.  I want to be a part of the team that looks at the gap between what they're doing now and where they need to be and helps 'em get over. 

I challenge creatives to give me a single argument about why crowdsourcing can't work.  I will go out on a limb and say that no matter what your single issue is I can come up with a solution that addresses your concern.  (I may create entirely new problems in the process, but that's an issue for another day.)

So, let's hear it.  Tell me why it won't work or what isn't fair and I'll show you why it will or how to make it so.  Or I'll do my best, anyhow. 

Bring it.

One of the knocks I have heard about crowdsourcing is that the buyers are not savvy enough to recognize good (or bad) work, and even if they are they are not willing to risk upsetting the designers working without a paycheck by telling the bad ones that they really shouldn't be doing what they are doing.

In a crowdsourced design project for a major publisher I just saw this as a comment from the person managing the project for the publishing house to a designer that had submitted many different ideas:



The commenter went on to identify ways that the designer could improve her work if she so chose.  (I edited out the name and follow-on comments.)

While harsh, I actually think this sort of feedback helps to make crowdsourcing credible.  The designs being submitted were exactly as described, and in this medium there is no better way to explain what was wrong.  There's a point at which a design is so bad that it can't be fixed - but just saying "No, not good enough" doesn't help the designer understand where they went wrong.  The commenter couldn't have helped them to fix the fact that they're new to design, shouldn't have to explain why putting outlines and shadows on a handwritten font over a cluttered background doesn't work, and doesn't have a responsibility to identify what the focus of the piece should be. 

But the commenter took the time to at least explain what was wrong so that the designer wouldn't keep submitting designs that never reached the required level. 

Mark my words, people.  Crowdsourcing is going to work, and it will work not because the designers are getting better, but because the buyers are getting more savvy.  Sure, the demanding ones with no taste and no ability to explain what they're looking for will always be around, but the buyers like this publisher are going to help change the game.  Eventually designers will gravitate to those buyers who communicate well, leaving the clueless ones to deal with the well-intentioned, though inexperienced designers like the one receiving the comments above.

Sadly, though, the unseasoned, unexceptional, unfocused work will still have a market. 

Which, come to think of it, isn't a lot different than what we have today on the open market.  Spec-work or not, every designer out there knows of other designers that have no talent and yet are somehow able to keep getting contracts.  (And if you are a designer and you don't know anyone like that then I may have some rather unpleasant news for you...)

We're workin' on it, how about you?

In addition to placing a creative director on all crowdsourced projects we've added a pool of money to reward great work.  We know it doesn't solve everything, but we see it as a good second step.  (In the first day we already identified one designer that has at least gotten a piece of the money pie.)

For clients with limited budgets we just haven't found a better solution.  No professional design shop we've talked with is willing to take on the small projects at rates these clients can afford (typically less than $2,000 for a complete design solution.) And in this rough economy we are hearing from designers that our solution, while not perfect, certainly helps them prioritize work.  They know they'll get good feedback, and if the idea has promise they'll have help refining it and positioning it for the client. Any designer that spends substantial time working with the director is guaranteed a payday, even if it is a small one. 

Add in the fact that designers that work with us on crowdsourcing projects can pick up side gigs from us (thanks izzitgraphics!) and are under consideration for permanent positions, and we think we're doing a pretty damn good job of making crowdsourcing work.  Our most recent crowdsourced project resulted in the designer getting paid for two different logos and a brochure for different clients. 

As Stokefire prepares to open offices in New York and the UK we think that getting exposed to top freelancers in each area is one of the keys to a smooth launch.  If you think we're wrong, or that we could be doing it better... tell us so - and tell us what we can do to make it work.

Alright, I think I'm done with the soapbox.  Here's the project description on crowdSPRING - and a link should you want to participate: