[webproducers] Re: Jeff Dachis: Big Ideas sans Implementation
- From: Barney Lehrer <webmaster@xxxxxxxx>
- To: Michael James Pinto <webproducers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 07:48:47 -0400
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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