FreeLists / webproducers / [webproducers] Re: Jeff Dachis: Big Ideas sans Implementation

[Barney Lehrer <webmaster@xxxxxxxx>]

It's about time somebody said the truth, even it that truth was rarely
heard during the "golden years"!! Thanks Michael.



Saturday, September 6, 2003, 7:42:37 PM, you wrote:

> --- Michael Randazzo <randazzm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Digital Media: The Big Ideas w/Jeff Dachis

> This is a very timely topic, just yesterday I discovered an old issue of the 
> Silicon Alley
> Reporter and it was hard not to laugh when reading it. It was full of 
> profiles of rising stars
> like Jeff for whom the spotlight has gone out. Silicon Alley in the 90s was 
> very much a place
> where style was more important than substance, and Jeff lead the pack. This 
> wouldn't have been so
> bad if we were in an industry that created fashion where style is all 
> important, but folks like
> Jeff were selling the idea of a "business revolution". What that revolution 
> was we will never know
> because unlike those silly Marxists they never quite spelled out what the 
> revolution was other
> than to say "I was into the web before you and I GET IT". 

> As a mailing list which is focused on project management it's important that 
> we discourage people
> like Jeff from acting nostalgic. The problem with that entire era was that 
> folks like Jeff used
> buzzwords and hype to sell things to clients that they just didn't need. What 
> was even more sad
> were the clients themselves who acting out of fear (or a following a heard 
> mindset) followed Jeff
> off the cliff with their budgets. 

> As a project manager I think the one thing that I've learned from folks like 
> Jeff is that it's so
> very important to keep away from the buzz. In fact if I find a client using a 
> techie term as
> "something our project needs" I always make it a point to review what the 
> buzzword in question
> means and what it's really used for, or if it has any use. Even if your 
> selling creative work and
> not technology, while it's alright to be sexy you have to have something to 
> back it up with.

> The other core lesson that was learned from Jeff is that having a bigger 
> company isn't as
> important as having a profitable one. At the time Razorfish was one of the 
> firms that would keep
> adding employees in some sort of strange arms race - it didn't seem to matter 
> that the company
> wasn't making money, but look 1000 people work here! Of course the painful 
> side of this was when
> so many of the folks lost their jobs, and also for the folks that lost so 
> much value in their IRA
> or 401k plan. 

> Now that the new century is under way and it's time to think about rebuilding 
> NYC, my hopes for
> this industry is that we build something that has some value to our clients. 
> So while I'm not
> going to go and see Jeff talk about his "big ideas", I hope that the people 
> who go to see him
> speak won't let him get away with acting like he is some sort of visionary. I 
> hope he gets asked
> some very hard questions, and I also hope for his sake that he has the 
> honesty not to do a spin
> job and admit to the public that he in fact didn't get it. It would be very 
> sad if he was allowed
> to go on stage and continue his masquerade as if the bubble never burst. 

> Jeff was right, the internet and the web aren't a fad, however his business 
> and creative approach
> to it were very much a passing phase. I can see by the subject line of the 
> lecture that Jeff
> hasn't learned much from the crash; yes he may have had "big ideas" but very 
> little to back them
> up with. While it's unfair to blame the sins of an entire decade on him, it 
> wouldn't hurt if he
> had a bit more modesty and perhaps titled the lecture "a few things we all 
> learned the hard way".

> Michael


> =====
> Michael James Pinto | http://www.vm.com

> Join my mailing list on the arts and technology:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EIA_list

> "I wish my life was a DVR so I could fast foward through the sucky parts and 
> replay the cool bits." MJP
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