Cynergy – Different Blogingly

A new free web service and a lot of research into social marketing this week has got me thinking about ownership and authorship.

A couple of weeks ago the Cynergy studio was introduced to Spotify.com (thanks Dave) a free web service which allows you to listen to music from a massive database spanning decades, genres right up to recently released material. Our studio has always been proud of operating to the tune of a diverse, eclectic collection of music. We believe it enhances the exchange of opinion, ideas and creative expression of our individual and mutual personalities. The inclusion of spotify has just added range to this practice. The itunes database we collectively cultivated so proudly is in danger of becoming cobwebbed.

So how does this affect ownership? Since the late 70s I have collected music, on whichever formats were the current trend, even recently succumbing to MP3s has maintained a sense of the ‘collection’. But with a web service that offers most of my CD collection, the vinyl slowly warping in my loft and all the new music I haven’t got around to purchasing yet, who needs a collection? A broadband connection, a couple of decent speakers and you’d never need to visit a record store again, real or virtual.

There is obviously the factor of taking your music away from your computer but more importantly for me this service throws up interesting dilemma around ownership. The music I have hoarded over the years is precious to me, it is part of me. Is that to be reduced to a mere playlist, a set of data that merely links my email address to some files on a hard drive? Is that what I am to become?

These questions of ownership have coincided with a lot of recent work we are doing which highlights the developing role of the designer and creative agency in propagating ideas that live and survive rather than delivering stationary slabs of information which simply exist to communicate a linear message.

There is a natural urge within graphic designers and the agencies they work for to maintain a sense of authorship. Even the most altruistic of us struggle to suppress the desire to ‘do things their way’. In most cases a comfortable balance is found which draws upon the clients aspirations for their project and the agencies creative expertise, a healthy compromise is set on a need for each other to reach a worthwhile solution.

Hence a designers need for authorship is met and a clients problems are solved, everyone is happy, that is until we start including the end user (the projects primary audience) in the dissemination of the initiative.

Social marketing – using creative marketing for behavioural change – is becoming an increasingly common approach in the projects we are engaging with. Events in particular are by their nature inclusive of research, discussion and consideration of a target audience or encouragement of a specified act. This method of approach is however renowned with moving in directions previously unimagined. Once an individual or community is provided with the tools and information to self manage their issue how they use it is out of our control. If a social marketing initiative is successful designers may take credit for the initial idea, the client for the drive to solve a social/health problem, yet once in the public domain ownership is well beyond both our grasps.

So now I no longer own my music (or the music available for me to listen to), and the creative ideas that I formulate with great thought and care are up for grabs for anyone to mold to suit their needs. Maybe the focus on the structure and meaning behind an initiative will become increasingly important factor. Design that is solid, iconic and comfortably adaptable will be more prevalent.

Maybe their is some merit for clients and agencies alike in launching our ideas from the nest. Confident in our nurturing their strengths and proud in their ability to take flight and hopeful of their healthy growth and longevity.