Something is shifting and I think it’s just the current incarnation of the shift that’s been in progress for a long time, but it’s getting faster, and spreading wider.

9 years ago when I started Anchor Advisors, Ltd. I noticed how easy it has become to start a business.  You go to VistaPrint and choose a business card, find a template for a Web site that looks good with the card you choose and you are in business. Total cost, 10 hours of my time, $0.  The friction, or barriers to entry for creating credible collateral were very low.  Once the business got going, I eventually designed a card, and got a professional Web site, but why invest the money until you know it’s a going concern?  The production value of the templated solutions was “good enough” to get started with, and it took no time or money to execute.

Then came Blogs, and YouTube, then Facebook and now Twitter.  More and more of what we read and look at is created by amateurs.  The production value of most of the blogs that I read is low, they are produced by their owners with little or no help from “professionals”.  The production quality of the most popular videos on the Internet is basic.  We don’t have our blog posts edited by professional writers, we don’t have our tweets crafted by a copywriter.  More and more creative content is being made in some form of DIY manner.

And the tools to do that are expanding as well; the Flip camera makes video easy to shoot and even edit.  You can edit your photos using online tools without even buying expensive photo editing software.  OK, nothing makes writing easier, good writing is still hard, but at least Twitter has forced us to keep it short!

Phil Johnson posted an article on the AdAge Small Agency blog about this trend and how it’s forced him to create a whole new department in his agency that’s focused on lower budget, quicker turnaround, higher volume content to feed social media.

Is this the erosion of the creative class?  Have creatives lost their place as the crafters of communication and design?  No, there will always be a need for elegance, effective design and well written copy.  However, there is also a tolerance, even an appreciation for the unproduced, unvarnished, amateur production as well.  Lowering the bar has resulted in an explosion of content being created, and much of it is DIY.

The really excellent design is going to be reserved for only those projects with large impact and budget.  Company identities for successful going concerns, packaging for consumer products, annual reports, etc. will always deserve the value of a professional design.  It might even be valued more as it “stands out” from the crowd of amateur produced stuff we look at all day.

But there is also going to be more and more content created by amateurs, and the are going to want their stuff to look and sound good.  Teaching basic design and writing principals to the masses represents a huge opportunity.  Creating tools to enable easy, high quality DIY content is another.

It’s a brave new world and I don’t think the trend is going backwards any time soon.

How do you see this trend impacting your business?

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Brad Farris is a small business advisor with Anchor Advisors, Ltd. in Chicago, Il. Since 2001 Anchor Advisors has been helping creative professional firms to grow, by helping them clarify their purpose, get the most from their people, keep their eye on key performance measures, and implement consistent processes.