With the abundant doom-and-gloom forecast for the advertising business, perhaps “they” look only at the big shops. What about the small and medium shops? Marc Brownstein describes how big-time marketeers reconsidering their spend are moving dollars to smaller shops.

Hire the best talent. … Bring in the best talent out there, and make sure they are a cultural fit. You don’t want them bringing any bad habits from the big shops with them.

Why? Why are big advertisers looking for smaller, independent shops to partner? Why is Frito-Lay heading off from parent company PepsiCo’s holding company Omnicom for indepedent Strawberry Frog? According to Mr. Brownstein, smaller shops “are more nimble,” and “can attract better talent these days” since they “don’t have cultures that are tied to Wall Street’s quarterly demands.”

We agree. That’s People Power. Office space, computers, desks, dogs, video game consoles, coffee, beer … they’re all for not if you don’t have the right people in place. Smaller agencies need recruiting strategy more than any to attract folks away from the big shops’ gravitational pull. They need to define differentiators that will constitute their positioning that matters to the people they want to attract. Do you have what good people want? Are you a desirable employer agency? Consider these top considerations of candidates:

• Kind of work
• Quality of life
• Leadership

What is your agency’s profile? How well articulated is your profile? How is your profile reaching prospective candidates? How well are new hires’ expectations satisfied six months after they start? A year later?

read more | digg story

I recently met an information architect whose pet-peeve was design work being described as “cool.” Truly, “cool” is a cop-out. It’s 2007–and design for design sake is so 1990-something. Arbitrary hiring decisions are last decade, too. Does your hiring process net you as much as your design process nets your clients?

Design work is more than cool. Making things look good is fine, but design works. Good design creates resonating experiences, makes products and information usable, and drives business success. Good design adds value.

Trite? Great. Good to hear. I hope your clients get it, too. For when design embraces strategy, aligns with business goals, and strives to understand the context it affects, it becomes valuable. And, of course, valuable is better than cool.

Once you or your firm has embraced strategy, the more likely process has met the same embrace to allow proper execution. Process is that thoughtful compilation of methods which allow for easier, effective way to improve, refine, critique, and measure impact.

You Are What You Hire
On the other hand, can you say the same about your hiring practices? Are the careers of the people you expect to carry out strategic, thoughtful effort borne on the same care you afford your client work? Are you benefitting from a strategic hiring effort?

If those you hire must possess the creative energy that will, in turn, become your organization’s creative energy; if your people will create the solutions that will be the solutions you provide your client, does it make sense to employ a process to select your hires? Rather than pursue the candidate who shows “cool” work, consider these questions:

• What makes the staff addition valuable?
• What are you trying to accomplish with the hire?
• What capabilities do you expect? How will you measure them?
• Prior performance or future potential?

Tit for Tat
It is the beloved cliché: your people are your most critical asset. Well, they are. The business of conceptualizing and ideation, where answers don’t already exist on a shelf or in an equation, is all about the creator. Even in the collaborative setting, the individual exerts energy on that collaboration. As your clients are challenged and rewarded for their investments into the design and creative process, consider what you want to reap from your hiring process–maximize it and you will realize maximum practice building.