Roughly three years ago we discovered an increasingly prominent trend in our experience with clients - generally speaking they were in a noticeable state of panic regarding all things Internet. Frustrated panic, to be exact. And any service we attempted to offer was simply like adding gasoline to a bonfire. It made for a good show but didn't really leave clients in any significant state of assurance.
At that time our consulting services primarily included website design and application development (read about our history here). We weren't attempting to solve meta-problems or create high-level strategy, but in order to offer clients real help, we were forced to delve into real symptoms in order to develop real solutions.
Symptom 1:
It's all about marketing. But once you “market” you're not sure what you get in the end.
A small, 20+ year-old business is experiencing nominal-to-downward growth. When they look around at their competitors (online of course) they discover shiny new websites, e-commerce stores, funny words like 'twitter' and a whole world of things they don't understand. Panic sets in.
They call their marketing agency and 'demand’ to get ahead of the competition—at any cost. "You've come to the right place." says the marketing agency, which goes on to talk about Social Media, Analytics, Viral Marketing, User-Generated Content, Authenticity and a whole slew of collateral they will implement to give the business an online presence that's current and ahead of the competition. The problem is—amidst all the marketing-interactive-digital-speak—the small business still doesn't understand what any of these things mean. They don't understand what they'll get if they move forward. And they're not really sure the marketing company does either. But that's all just a fleeting nudge of conscious they quickly push aside, because what they do know is that they don't understand any of this...and that must mean their business has fallen behind. They must catch up.
Symptom 2:
You have to manage you personal online identity. And it's not working.
A twenty-something well versed in the world of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is at a coffee shop updating her personal profile. Low and behold it turns out a “friend” has published some undignified photos from the previous Friday night. The photos themselves are fine, but the fact they were 'tagged' with her name—and then simultaneously broadcast to all her personal and professional digital friends—spells disaster for her reputation. Panic sets in.
The next three hours are spent removing tags, contacting friends, and attempting all forms of digital damage control and retaliation. Blogging on her public website about the experience and how she mastered a recovery is at the top of her feats. In a final fit of exhaustion, however, she 'tweets' about the situation and how her "moronic, technology-backwards work associates" will never see the photos anyway. She forgot, though, that twitter feeds are globally published and searchable. But she is reminded the next morning when her boss requests her presence in his office. Even more panic ensues.
Symptom 3:
The Internet 'effect' doesn't seem to be quite what you were expecting (or promised).
A non-profit religious organization is looking for a way to attract and communicate to the younger generation. Recognizing that technology—and especially the Internet—is something people use for all their interpersonal communication and socializing, the religious organization employs a hip, young graphic designer and website developer to get them up to speed. Quickly things start to happen. People are having candid discussions in their online forums and suggesting all kinds of ways to improve the organization. Users are posting candid pictures on the public website. People are signing up for online virtual gatherings. And the organization's leader has over 1,000 followers on his Twitter feed!
The problem is the organization's leadership team is concerned about the kinds of conversation happening on the website. So they employ a new staff member to manage the communication, which immediately generates outrage and scolding about censorship and religious control. And the organization's leader seems to be developing a kind of identity crisis and some inappropriate relationships with all the personal attention via Twitter. Panic sets in among the staff. You get the point.
At the intersection point of Internet Technology, Business, and Culture there is a vacuum of Knowledge. Not the kind of lowercase "k" knowledge we often confuse with facts and data. We’re talking about capital “K” Knowledge that has substance, meaning and can be called "true". The kind of Knowledge that explains Cause & Effect and allows individuals and organizations to act and behave with responsibility because they believe and know and understand.
As the familiar examples above loosely demonstrate, where there is absence of meaning and understanding...there is panic. Because whether we like it or not, these things have power, force, and effects that touch individuals, institutions and all our conceptions of community and the individual.
The mission of WOLVERINE is to discover and contribute new Knowledge at the point of intersection between Internet Technology, Business, and Culture.
WOLVERINE, a Design Consultancy, is a small firm with a critical thinking process that creates meaning, understanding, solutions, and capital “K” Knowledge that addresses unique questions about all things Internet. This framework is called "Philosophy + Internet".
The "Internet" part is obvious. "Philosophy" is our attempt to describe the rigor and structure of thinking we implement in order to produce a discipline. It's how we theorize, research and discover Cause & Effect. It’s also what separates us from the pack. In order to offer our clients understanding and problem solving, we don't dig deep into our file cabinets of experience to find a similar solution from our past (although we could). We have a process. A method. It's both a tool and system, so we're more flexible, robust, and diligent in our consulting. After all, what good are solutions if you don't understand the problem you're trying to solve?
Black Tonic is a software as a service solution that provides the simplest means of managing and delivering presentations on the fly. In a nutshell, Black Tonic allows individuals to dynamically control content on a web page in real-time by synchronizing browsers.
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