A Call for Generalists

May 20, 2009 | Author: Tim Williams

While Ignition is known to be a strong advocate for specialization, there is nonetheless an important role for individuals inside the agency who are generalists – even inside specialist agencies.

While the exploding media universe calls for very specific skill sets when it comes to execution, knowing whether or not to recommend a specific channel in the first place is the job of a generalist; someone who knows enough about all of the options and possibilities to recommend the right one.

Generalists know a little about a lot; specialists know a lot about a little.

The people at your firm who must play the role of skilled generalists are those advising the client on the front lines – brand strategists, brand managers, channel planners, and content development (creative) professionals.

In today's multichannel universe, the generalist must know the basics of:

Offline + Online
Paid + Non-Paid
Mass + One-to-One

If this sounds like a big job it's because it is. Someone like a brand strategist must know enough about all of these potential marketing solutions to recommend them. Ignition has written many times about the need to fully integrate offline and online marketing within the agency. Some progressive firms have done the same with paid and non-paid. Cleveland's Liggett-Stashower, who for many years had a reputation that was equally strong in both PR and advertising, made the bold decision to erase the line between these two disciplines so they could do an even better job of being channel-agnostic in their work with clients.

Enter the specialists

Alongside a small group of generalists is a somewhat larger group of specialists – professionals skilled in executing the recommended solutions. This isn't to say that an agency must physically employ all these specialists; sometimes it's more effective and efficient to use specialist business partners, especially when it comes to very highly-specialized work. In fact, the more specialized the work, the more sense it makes to go outside. Just as a television production project would rely on outside specialists for things like lighting and makeup, a digital production project would rely on specialist programmers and coders.

Complimentary roles

Here's how to think about the interrelated functions of generalists and specialists:

Abolish the silos?

It's fashionable to talk about the evil of "silos" but that really misses the point. It's actually desirable and even necessary to have "silos" of specialists in marketing communications firms at certain points in the process. It's impossible to have literally everyone in the firm fully briefed, fully involved, and fully integrated into every function and discipline. If you think there are too many meetings with too many people now, imagine a business model where everyone does everything. It's just nonsense.

Instead of misdirecting your energy to "knocking down the silos" make deliberate decisions about who in your organization needs to be a generalist and who needs to be specialist. You need both, and both need to be great at their jobs.