Excerpt form (Part 1) I predict an unexpected tsunami of work is on the way which the Interactive industry and infrastructure will not be prepared to handle.

I believe almost every agency today, which is fully committed to or just starting to dabble in digital media is struggling with delivering mistake free work on time with any consistency. I can’t tell you how many complaints I hear from clients about their respective agencies on this subject. One example of a woman who recently said to me about a small shop she was working with in Boston. “We loved those guys, they were very creative but they kept screwing things up and could not get the work out of the door”

Whoever can figure out how to scale efficiently, but still continue to evolve and improve the level of creativity and technical skills that the client is demanding will be in a great position to take market share from others. The traditional creative agency playing interactive, or the “creative only” digital shops will be the least likely to succeed in this scenario. To be successful agencies not only will have to fair well in the talent wars, they will have to perfect and automate the operational aspects of online marketing. This means they will need technology skills, delivery process expertise, and global distributed delivery capabilities and experience that they simply don’t have. In an earlier post “Can Interactive Agencies Scale?” I explored this subject in more detail, and one of the conclusions was that whether they could or not clients are demanding it.

The moment of truth is coming for many agencies, and it starts the second the client asks:

1. “Those are very creative ideas, but could you show me what you have actually produced?”
2. “Did you do that yourself?”
3. “How long did it take, and how much did it cost”
4. “Have you handled 20 or more of those projects per month for any one client, and can I talk to them to see if they are happy with your agency?”

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that at some point the bullshit runs out, and you need to show your client that you know how to do the work. Ideas are cheap, realizing those ideas is where the real magic happens.