July's Column By New Media Age Editor Mike Nutley
That this industry is maturing is self-evident. You can see it in the emphasis on return on investment; in the recognition that new media form additional channels for communication, rather than replacements; in the consolidation that's moving through sectors such as search engine optimisation and digital marketing agencies.
It equally become a truism that this maturing is a good thing, introducing much needed realism into the industry. But the process, combined with the continuing low esteem in which new media is held following the dotcom crash, is leading to a significant problem in recruiting and retaining staff for many companies, particularly those in the agency sector.
There's been a brain drain going on here for at least a year, as people originally drawn into the industry by the excitement of creating something new have found themselves circumscribed by the post-crash realism. A common complaint is that the industry isn't fun anymore, so many of the pioneers are leaving to find something else that gives them the buzz they got from working in new media in the late 1990s.
Partly this is to be expected. Just as entrepreneurs aren't always the best people to run the companies they've set up, the needs of an industry change as it develops. But in this case there are two problems. The first is that everyone who leaves the industry takes their knowledge away with them, leaving their successors to make their mistakes allover again. The second is that although new media is maturing, it's far from being mature. The books are still being written. So it seems dangerous to me to allow the pioneers of the industry to leave before their work is really complete.
And this latter problem is compounded by another that has only just come to light - the lack of enthusiasm among graduates for work in online advertising and marketing. As a result of the dotcom crash and the subsequent media dismissal of interactive media, students simply aren't looking for jobs in our industry. This hasn't been a significant problem up to now, as most agencies have been slimming down rather than staffing up. But I know a number of agency heads who are becoming increasingly concerned that, as the pioneers of the industry move on to new challenges, there aren't the people coming through with the new ideas required to drive both their businesses and the industry forward.
What makes this a matter of even greater concern is the question of timing. Talking to people at the New Media Age Effectiveness Awards last week, the consensus seemed to be that if things aren't actually improving, they certainly aren't getting any worse. What's more, the underlying indicators such as number of people online, number of broadband connections, amount of time spent online, and the number of people who are shopping online are all heading in the right direction. Recovery in the new media industry seems to be likely in the near future, but such a recovery could leave us without the creative staff needed to meet the needs of the clients turning to interactive media for the first time.
Of course, another aspect of the new media recovery will be the swing in media feeling, which is likely to begin as soon as a few high-profile Internet companies start to declare real profits. But that leaves us with an inevitable lag before graduates start to feel new media is worthy of their talents, and facing the future with our key resource in the hands of people who have demonstrated no understanding of the industry thus far.
This latter particularly seems a deeply uncomfortable position to me. Perhaps the time has come to be more proactive in the way we manage our image among those people on whom the future of our industry is going to depend.
Michael Nutley, Editor, New Media Age, http://www.nma.co.uk/