Since it is the beginning of the year, why don’t we time warp back fifteen years to January 1, 1997.
Sony introduced the first commercial digital camera, The Mavica. It used floppy disks to store images. Mark Zuckerberg was twelve. We were four years away from the first IPod, two years away from Blackberry, ten years from the IPhone. Amazon was two. Google would not start for a year and a half. Oh yeah, and blogs were called weblogs.
Almost everything we take for granted today was either not created yet or just in its infancy. This in a mere fifteen years. If the tech wave were a teenager, she would not be able to drive yet, but would be able to Skype with anyone on the planet – for free. Just some perspective on how far and fast we have come. What do we believe impossible or unthinkable today that will be a given fifteen years from now?
Technology is a great equalizer. Every creative business has benefitted. The cost of creation has plummeted and is, in many instances, rapidly approaching zero. The only obstacle to creation is our own self-limitation. And yet more and more creative business owners use technology to shift responsibility for their art to their clients. If it costs nothing to give more, then why not? An average photographer delivering 500, 600, a 1,000 images for a client to choose from. A videographer posting multiple videos within 12 hours of an event. Graphic designers delivering designs in a matter of days, even hours. Interior designers and architects providing multiple choices for just about everything they are thinking of.
The argument goes, if I can provide a wider range of choice for my client, isn’t that better for everyone? Uh, no. Your clients pay your for your art, your artistry, your opinion. There is a fine line between authentic presentation and copping out. What if every image cost you a $100 to show your client? How many would you show then? What would you show? How about if you had to hand draw each rendering? When I ask photographers how many images they believe are important, that they are proud of, after a shoot, the number is always (yes, always) lower than the number they actually deliver. When I ask why they would put out sub-par work, the answer is because they feel like that is what their clients want. Such is the price of technology if you let it be. Your choice.
Unless you impose a cost to the next image, drawing, rendering, design, video, etc. that you deliver, you will feel compelled to deliver more and more. And make no mistake, there is a price. If you deliver something you are not convinced is of your highest quality simply because it does not cost you anything to do so, how can your client value the work you are truly proud of. What you are doing is introducing noise while you are trying to sing your song. As you debase the value of your art, you will be paid only for the cost of its creation, a number that technology is helping to bring to zero. Much better to use technology to tell your story, not the other way around and enjoy the ride on where it will take us next.
{ 5 comments }
There’s more to the issue, too: certain customers know that they can go to someone else who will crank out, let’s say, a bundle of free printable stationery for their readers and clients every week, or the designer who will provide countless computer-generated layouts and ideas that they share with the world wide web. For nothing. Why would a bride or groom go to an artisanal stationer who hand crafts and maybe charges a bit more for this unique touch when they can print out their stationery for free? We would certainly opt for the creative approach with something that’s handmade, but many opt for the simple {more is more} choice.
While clearly a practice that some artists seem to enjoy, they can actually take away from those who do spend hours and hours toiling over the perfect hand-crafted or hand-painted stationery prototype perfect for their client or or the designer who sits down scribbling ideas, brainstorming, pulling inspiration, taking in nature or a museum, or doing whatever it takes to create a design that gels with their client.
The good thing is that while it might be a way to draw in clients, most truly want that experience {or so we hope}. Something that’s created just for them and not a click-to-create design that the world can also print. We hope that as technology continues to rapidly grow those who value quality, artisans, and originality will value those who treasure their work even more.
Great post, Sean!
Very good post & lots of truth. Thanks Sean!
Well said. This is about how a vendor defines his value to a client. By doing a photo dump of all his pictures, the photographer is basically telling the client that his value is strictly in taking the photos and handing them over, that he has no interest (or ability) to review them and select the best images. He’s making his service into a commodity. It’s the equivalent of an artist delivering 30 paintings to a gallery owner and saying, “here’s all of them. I’m sure some are better than others, but I can’t tell which; you decide which ones to display.”
sobering. so very sobering. the reason for this is fear and i would rather close my doors and eat ramen then have a creative business based off of fear. 2012 will be different. thank you for the sober reminder, i’m printing this off and posting it on my wall.
Fascinating idea.
The value is in the personal story, the voice, the experience brought to bear on the client’s project.
Creative output, be it art or article, has the intrinsic value of its base materials – base value. Some clients just want to match a couch, or trigger a search engine algorithm; for them, practically anything will satisfy their requirements (and these who view production as interchangeable are almost always vaguely dissatisfied with results they could not articulate in the first place).
Creators are not interchangeable machines – it is precisely their experience that creates value above base materials and labor.
This reminds me of a situation when a customer complained about price to a plumber, and demanded an itemized bill. This was on the bill:
New Bolt: $1
Labor: $2
Knowing where to apply it: $97
You get what you pay for. In some cases, years of experience, education, costly trial and error, lack of wasted resources, and getting it right the first time. Not to mention overhead and the existence of other paying customers who also need your time.
Thanks for a great post, I’ll be sure to recall it next time I get the urge to passively aggressively detach and lay it on the client’s shoulders, thinking I’m above accountability for their suboptimal results!