On the Job Day 1: First Impressions

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Today was my first day at Buchanan&associates, a Columbus, Ohio, advertising agency. I am spending the week in residence thanks to Texas Tech University's College of Mass Communications Partners in Scholars program.

The program sends academics back into industry so that they can bring more real world to the classroom.

Although I am exhausted from the trip and the switch to eastern time, it was a very energizing day.

It is refreshing to have a new perspective on some of my ideas. I really enjoyed presenting some of our work, and I designed two new studies on the side today (remembering them until I get home is another matter).

In a plug for my hosts, the agency seems to be a great place to work, and their intense focus on strategy is inspiring. The entire organization seems to have bought into many of the things that we try to teach undergraduates.

It's also pretty awesome to have an engaged audience. Unlike the disinterested classroom, everyone at my talk seemed genuinely interested in how the ideas could help them do their jobs.
If our students were as interested in what we teach, the classroom would be a lot more enjoyable.

Industry, Academics Still Not Talking

I am increasingly frustrated by the chasm between academic research about the media and industry research about the media.

The chasm is in readership, not interest or topic. We could learn a lot from each other, but we don't. We cannot learn from industry because their research is proprietary, and, frankly, they won't share.

Why they chose not to learn from us is another matter.

Reading today's Daily News from Advertising Age, there is an interesting story on video game advertising.

One of the subheadlines reads, "Interactivity, motion work best."

Yup. I could have told them that. I've done a little bit of research on video games, and I've done quite a bit on various forms of media. These two principles are pretty much gimmes. Obviously people more senior than me have done far more research.

But it has been my experience that industry does not pick up the phone. They do not pick up the journals. They just reinvent the wheel. And although we can be eggheads in our ivory tower, we have the added benefit of time and perspective.

We can take the time to build theory. We can look at the bigger picture. This is seldom the case in industry, where researchers have to satisfy this client on this day.

There are so few actual obstacles that preclude working together, yet so many seem to remain nonetheless.