Undercomplicating the digital world

My god the world of digital is complicated. And it gets more complicated by the day. It’s a transmedia, omni-channel, integrated, interactive, big data, newsjacking, growth hacking, programmatic, immersive, media-agnostic, selfie-obsessed headache. There, I said it. And I reckon many of you out there in marketing land feel the same. But none of us want to admit it.

But for my mind it’s all our own fault. You see, we grown up humans in the professional world do this peculiar thing. We overcomplicate everything.

And we do it for good reason.

When we make a topic or subject seem complicated, it allows us to present ourselves as specialists, as educated, as knowledgeable, as valuable.

And it also allows us to make others feel insecure, uncertain and beholding to our superior capabilities.

Don’t believe me? Just read any letter by a lawyer or an accountant.

Two worlds that have progressively overcomplicated their industries to the level of incomprehensibility.

Yet our perception of their services has us paying over the odds for what is effectively academic knowledge.

I read Ha-Joon Chang’s book ‘Economics: The User’s Guide’ recently and came across this paragraph:

“Economics is not alone in appearing to be more difficult to outsiders than it really is. In any profession that involves some technical competence?—?be it economics, plumbing or medicine?—?jargons that facilitate communication within the profession make its communication with outsiders more difficult. A little more cynically, all technical professions have an incentive to make themselves look more complicated than they really are so that they can justify the high fees their members charge for their services.”

I’ve been worrying for a while now that digital is going the same way.

At its worst, it is a world full of increasingly self-important overcomplicators, overcharging and under delivering to a confused and frustrated client base.

But I for one, and my colleagues for two, really don’t want to be that kind of company.

You see, we’re an agency first and foremost, and the best that an agency can be is a great problem solver for its clients. I believe that’s true in any field.

So here’s the big thing I’m passionate about, and always have been…

Undercomplication.

With our skills and our experience we undercomplicate the digital world for businesss and brands.

I like the way that sounds.

How do we do that you ask? Do you really want to know? If I write it all down I’ll just seem to be the kind of person I character assassinated a few sentences ago.

But I’ll try and undercomplicate it so it seems accessible.

Our experienced strategic, creative and technical people work together to identify your needs and provide complete solutions.

Nice, approachable people, who work well together.

Happy, skilled, experienced people who love their work and want to do a good and successful job for you and your company.

I sometimes find it overwhelming, the sheer breadth of skills and services we offer our clients as a digital agency. But I’m equally overwhelmed when we either deliver a pitch or a full strategic solution to a client. I see how, collectively (and I involve the client in that collective), we take a complex set of problems and deliver a simple, focused solution. And that process of undercomplication is a wonderful thing to behold.

I’m hoping that word, undercomplication, will stick. It’s something almost every industry could do with adopting?—?I could easily see it as the title of the next Malcolm Gladwell book.

I hope it does stick. Maybe then, when I use it, people won’t look at me like I’m an idiot and say ‘that’s not even a real word.