Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club and now, Adhocnium, is always a fun person to shoot the breeze with, so you could imagine how pleased I was to welcome him on Vino Diaries last week. Never one to shy away from a good glass of red (in this case, Hitching Post’s Generation Red, a tasty blend that was featured in the movie Sideways) Chris kept me on my toes with a conversation that spanned an impressive number of topics in a short time (including brief discussion of the Great Depression).
Topping our list, naturally, was his new consultancy, AdHocnium, a “un-agency” representing a loosely-joined (but thoroughly vetted) network of seasoned practitioners with proven social media know-how. The twist? Instead of hiring them on to work as full-time staffers, AdHocnium allows them to maintain independence as “creative catalysts,” enabling brands to tap this collective talent pool in a flexible way.
Starting up any kind of marketing services venture in a downturn is a challenge, but Chris says Adhocnium fills what he sees as a gap in the marketplace – true social media prowess and talent – with what he believes is an iteration on what the agency model of the future will look like.
According to Chris, “all these people added 10,000 friends on Facebook, and they’re saying they’re social media consultants, and they’re not. They used to do, like crochet beforehand – which is great, but this doesn’t mean they should be advising multi-billion brands on strategy.”
A fair point. While it’s true you may not need decades of marketing experience to come up with a great idea, the trick for brands today is establishing a system for filtering through the noise and distilling a strategy that maps back to true business objectives. For a fee (listed, refreshingly so, on Adhocnium’s site) brands can access seasoned “filters” like Brian Solis, Neville Hobson and Tom Foremski , a mix of veterans with multiple perspectives, to impart their wisdom by the hour or via intense day or multi-day engagements.
It will be interesting to see how the unagency model fares, and whether other agencies take a page from this book to innovate on their own service delivery models. Grab a glass of red and tune in to the full interview here.