This whole stupid article talks about how people are moving to downloading, and legal troubles, and blah blah blah.

I want to support (read BUY STUFF) from artists I can hang with–that doesn’t mean Twitter, or Facebook, or some other stupid thing. That can be a part of it, but I’m talking about artists who make music for me.

And I’m a pretty weird guy, but there are thousands of me. Not millions, thousands. Or maybe a few hundred. Enough to support some artists who get it.

Not enough to keep thousands of support staff productive.

But enough to keep artists productive.

Dear big TV networks, big book publishers, and really big anything,

We’re coming for you next.

Signed,
The internet.

This article isn’t exactly about being online, but rather about being creative.

I just finished reading an article by Alan D. Mutter calling on writers to collectively stand up and demand to be paid for work they have been doing for free or for cheap. He even provides a helpful spreadsheet full of numbers loosely based on an arbitrary rate of 4 times minimum wage in order to demonstrate what a freelance writer should be paid.

How can you possibly determine what a freelancer should be paid without any consideration for the demand of skillset of the freelancer?

Mr. Mutter makes an argument in the article that journalists, collectively, are holding themselves back from being fairly valued by working for rates that do not provide fair value or a living wage. It’s an argument I’ve seen a lot of professional photographers make over and over on the blogs and forums I’ve followed over the last few years.

There is this idea that somehow if all of the photographers (or journalists) of a particular caliber (or any caliber) get together and agree to charge a certain rate the buyers of journalism and photography will suddenly decide that those skills are more respected and more expensive.

I don’t see how that will ever work. The market sets the value of photography and writing, and the market decided long ago that free is good and 1995 magazine rates for unoriginal or uninspiring writing and photogaphy printed on poor quality paper and only available at a select number of specialty magazine stores is not gonna fly anymore.

You cannot subvert the supply and demand relationship by convincing suppliers to charge more, you’ll just invite a new supplier at the old price point.

In this case the price point being discussed is sometimes exposure.

Look, when most people come to me and asks me to work on their project for exposure, I’ll be the first guy to tell them exposure won’t buy me cheeseburgers. But that’s because I’m confident that they can’t find my skillset and experience for less than I charge. They might find someone who fits their project at a lower price point, maybe even the exposure price point, but if that works their project never required my skill level to begin with, or they are risking their project by using someone with a sub-par skill level.

That’s most people. But if a potential client who does consistently cool work that I want to do or the kind of work I might want to try but don’t have the complete skillset or experience to charge for–I’ll work for exposure, or a lower rate, or expenses. That’s the buyers risk.

I like working. I challenge myself all the time without potential for monetary award at all. I do that because it’s fun. Why wouldn’t I accept someone else’s challenge if it’s going to potentially gain me new clients, help someone else out, and/or improve my skill set while having fun? I’m not taking work away from someone else. If someone else was required or available that would provide a higher value to the project the buyer would go find someone else.

Finding that someone else could mean hiring an expensive person who can mitigate risk at a rate that limits potential profit, or it could mean hiring someone for ‘exposure’ that costs very little but comes with a high risk in relation to the skillset required to execute on a particular set of requirements.

The fact is, exposure works. New media is littered with creative people who are making and growing their careers built on giving stuff away for free. But you have to be exposing–and I’d argue not just exposing but actively hustling–something innovative and creative enough that someone somewhere sees the value in buying it.

If your skill level is such that no one wants to pay you a living wage for what you do, you gotta go do something else that you can get paid for or up your game. It’s not going to work just to tell everyone else who’ll work for cheaper to charge what you wish you were worth.

Mr. Mutter is correct when he ends his article by saying ‘Whatever you do, though, don’t sell yourself short, because journalists can’t protect society if they can’t protect their own careers.’

As creatives, we need to understand what we’re worth, but what we’re worth is exactly what someone will pay.

Writers, journalists, photographers, web developers — we fail when we let someone take advantage of us by accepting compensation that doesn’t align with our skillset. However, that’s an individual failure and not a failure that can be addressed by collectively deciding to charge more. That only works with a skillset in limited supply.

And let’s face it, mediocre writing and mediocre photography and mediocre web development is really easy to do, so there will always be someone willing to do it on the cheap–maybe even free.

Recently, I’ve been giving a lot of thought about the processes we lead clients through at my place of work when they come to us for online services. We are full service agency, and we have great experience in house in relation to branding, social media, design, and web development. My own role changes every day, but in general I’m the geek–the guy you go see to make your thingamajig digital.

Most of my current blog readers, I suspect, know me as a photographer, but the truth is I just goof with this stuff for fun. Get me going, and I am downright zealous about the power of online and democratized communications to change the world–I’ve seen it in my lifetime.

I started goofing around with this stuff when I was about 13. I used to go to the computer lab at Hampton High at noon hour and use the teacher’s computer, because it was the only one that had a modem. I would connect to local bulletin board systems that people had set up and argue and discuss things with people in online forums. At the time, greater Saint John had a pretty cool scene with maybe 20 systems running and a few hundred active users.

I developed my first website in 1996. It was a monthly literary thing that published the poetry and short stories I was writing along with some other friends and people I communicated with online. It wasn’t exactly a hit, but I learned a few things and I had a few visitors. I built other sites growing up, and in 2001 I went to work full time as a web developer at Media Planet.

I’ve seen a lot of changes in the few years, and lately social media is all the buzz, but to those that have been keeping up social media is just the logical extension of what people have always wanted to do online — share and connect. Give and get.

But this isn’t about me and my growing long in the tooth. It was with those changes and experience in mind that I set down to encapsulate what were, for me, the absolutes. Like a lot of creatives, developers, and agencies, I struggle with our reactiveness–order taking–instead of giving a beginning point, because–at least in our geographic market–a whole strategy for being or marketing or engaging online seems to be sorely lacking, and I think it’s vital to being a successful company or organization or–at leat for those entering the workforce–a successful person.

I came up with these 16 things I know to be true for any client that wants help, whether it’s with Twitter or Facebook or Youtube or building a website or online advertising or whatever it might be that happens in my world–because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what the channel is. A year from now the channel will have changed–maybe it’ll be Bummpy or Flitker or Dumpdoodler or whatever it is. I wanted to propose some ideas of what I know to be true about companies and organizations just being online.

(I claimed all those site names first!)

I’m going to give these to some other people where I work, and I’m sure on some points there will be disagreement and debate. I’m hoping that here, on this blog, there might also be some disagreement and debate. Please, if you work in this industry, I’d really dig it if you carefully considered these points and provided some feedback.

I’m open to being wrong, and I really hope there are more thoughts I haven’t put here that people can add. But I’m not open to doing things half-cocked anymore. A complete approach to an online presence is the only approach that will work. I’m tired of seeing hundreds of hours spent on developing elaborate site maps and then struggling to fill them with content, or seeing organizations spending oodles of money on a social media strategy without having any human resources willing and able to be social.

So here are my 16 theses.

1. You do not need a website. You need a web presence.

2. Your website must be the hub of your web presence.

3. A web presence consists of an eco-system of web properties on which you may assert varying levels of influence.

4. The ‘you’ we are talking about is a human. On the web, the construct of the company only serves as a way of identifying humans with like minded goals or ideals.

5. Companies and organizations do not have missions or visions, and they do not have a voice. An effective web presence facilitates the exchange of human interactions.

6. Set your humans free. The humans in your company are your company on the web. If they are not on the web, your organization cannot be effective on the web.

7. If you have nothing to say, we can’t help you.

8. If you have something to say, your web presence is always a good place to say it. That is not to suggest it is the only place or the best place, but only that it is always a good place.

9. If you decide to say something using web tools available to you, say it in a conversational tone. Anything else makes me think you’re hiding something.

10. People will only care about what you have to say if you are giving them something. You must give an opportunity to learn, connect, feel, or trade. Some combination of the four is preferable.
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11. How you say something is what you say. The visual impression of your website will forever color what you have to say.

12. The structure of your web presence should be such that it facilitates giving, but if necessary it is better to give without a structure than to create a structure without giving. Creating content is always more important than creating structure.

13. It is more useful to create a structure for existing content than to create a structure to be filled with yet-to-be-created content. Start with giving.

14. If you don’t know what to give, start with listening. People will tell you what to give if you make yourself available.

15. If you want us to help you create a successful web presence, and then walk away, your web presence will fail. If you start giving, your giving will become so successful it will require new and better ways of giving. This is the most important point.

16. The stakes are high, but the risk of not having a web presence that is giving and engaged with your market community are higher.

Your thoughts?

I have a bunch of older junk store film cameras (and also some really nice film cameras) collecting dust around my studio office. Today, I picked up an old Polaroid SX-70 sitting on a ledge, haphazardly pointed it and pushed the shutter button. To my surprise, it made it’s usual focus noise, whirred, and kicked out a piece of Polaroid 600.

I have Polaroid film left? Indeed! It’s probably been in the camera since the 1970’s, and I suspect that is why the images, taken through the frost covered windows of my home studio and office, turned out so poorly.

Almost undoubtedly, given what Polaroid 600 is going for on eBay and such, this will be the last Polaroid brand 600 film I’ll ever shoot.

It was as interesting and exciting as ever. The experience of shooting these 2 frames today would’ve led me out to purchase some more Polaroid if it was available.

Lucky for me, some people started a project called The Impossible Project to bring Polaroid film back, and they’ve got an agreement in place to bring some Polaroid films back to market. They’re supposed to be delivering an update on their progress in manufacturing and distributing the film on February 22nd. I’ll be curious to follow their progress.

In the meantime, here’s the last 2 Polaroid 600 frames my Polaroid SX-70.

(and yes… I realize the SX-70 is supposed to be loaded with Polaroid 667 instead of 600)