[webproducers] Jeff Dachis: Big Ideas sans Implementation

--- 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:
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"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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