Introduction

For the past few years, the needs of creative professionals have had decreasing attention from hardware and software providers, as if faster hardware and the occasional update of key applications were the only needs a designer could have. Yes, I know: some market niches such as digital video have been very active; also, MacOS X is offering some interesting new features for the creative markets, (though most of them still lack support by major applications.) But by and large, creative professionals have not had much to be excited about in terms of technology.

In some respect, this should be a boon rather than a problem: we all need mature tools and a predictable work environment. But things are not quite as simple: while creative tools and processes have barely evolved over the last few years, media technology is undergoing profound changes. Web services and on-line applications are becoming part of the mature media environment, and very diverse forms of content and technologies are increasingly interlinked. There are profound changes underway, but the attention given to the impact of these mutations for creative professionals is minimal.

This could become a problem, however: individual creativity is the driving force behind content, media and communication, and it is in turn driving technology. Have we developed ourselves into a corner? Have the current tools really reached maturity to a point where they cannot be significantly improved any more?

The answer to this last question is probably both yes and no. If one adopts a short-term view, the current crop of applications for creative markets are highly competent, albeit complex programs. But what about the mid-term outlook?

The problem may lie with the tool paradigm in itself. Perhaps it is not simply about providing software applications with more options - making things more complex is usually not very hard. Perhaps we need to take one additional step and try to understand where the overall media and content environment is going. Only once this has matured sufficiently can we expect to stabilize the tools we are using.

Back to the future - or forward to the past?

It is quite interesting to have a closer look at where we come from - and where we are going. When desktop tools started to replace traditional work methods for creative professionals and designers in the late eighties, they were indeed revolutionary, giving individuals the capacity to produce work that previously required millions of investment and a specialized operator. The results of this tool revolution were electrifying, and completely redefined the production reality for most media products.

Unfortunately in parallel, the entire media landscape (in the largest sense of the word) has become much more complex. We have media which didn’t exist before; we are confronted with some channels that are beginning to overlap and fuse, others which are increasingly fragmented. And finally, we have completely new fields of creativity, such as video games, and powerful new information carriers such as DVDs.

Yet we are trying to cope with this new environment in exactly the same way in which we managed the relatively simply challenges of desktop publishing and digital imaging, by inventing a specialized tool for every task. But is this really enough?

For several years now, the most prominent development efforts in the field have been centered on the (considerable) problems of managing the ever-increasing data-load, and the diversity of output channels. Content management systems, development platforms for web-services, cross-media publishing solutions and digital asset management systems are necessary tools - and they are usually as complex as they are expensive and difficult to implement. They are, very simply put, corporate answers to corporate problems.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying these systems aren’t necessary - I’m just questioning whether they answer all the questions and problems of the creative workflow. The salient question is of course: are we locking ourselves into the same corner where we started two decades ago? With complex and expensive systems, which need millions of investment and highly specialized operators?

Apart from pure print design, any worthwhile creative project nowadays seems to require a team of five to ten trained specialists, including user interface designers, programmers, project managers and so forth. How optimized is this process - and how much room does it really leave for creativity? Can it really not be improved upon - or are we just too lazy to rethink things from the ground up?

Serving the market - or leading it

For years, the creative markets have been driven by technology companies, who were inventing concepts and tools before the potential user at large even realized that there was a need for them. The Macintosh, PostScript, PageMaker, Illustrator and Photoshop were brilliantly in advance on their market.

Today things seem to have changed. Most technology providers have moved from leading the market to serving it. To a certain extent, this is of course quite normal: if you have an installed base, you better keep it happy, and that takes time and resources. But it surely doesn’t mean that nothing can be invented any more.

Whether we like it or not, we may have to start rethinking the creative work environment. Not to come up with yet elaborate application, but in order to understand where we are headed, and to be able to prepare the future. We need innovation - not just simply new tools or new functionality.

Innovation is hard, and it takes commitment and deep understanding of a market and it’s needs. Genuine innovators anticipate. They do not serve the recognized needs but lead the market.

How do we get there?

There is nothing to be invented any more? We beg to differ. Pfeiffer Consulting has embarked on an international study of creative markets (more about this in our next trend report), and while it is too early to draw conclusions, on thing is certain: we are not in a stabilized technology environment where nothing can evolve any more.

We will need a bit of humility and patience, however, because the answers aren’t necessarily simple, and the solutions may not be what we think. But we cannot afford not to ask these questions.

Sure it is hard to invent, and the bigger a company gets, the harder it is. But does that mean it can’t be done? It all depends which approach you take…

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What do you think? Please give us your feedback.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

November 19, 2002
©2002 Pfeiffer Consulting