DABBLING IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

This is Traffic Manager, an idea which has not yet been developed. It's a computer program that mimics what happens in an ad agency / design studio Traffic Manager's mind. It's designed to make decisions regarding scheduling and allocating jobs to graphic designers, copywriters, art directors, creative directors and all the other creative staff employed by advertising agencies. The intention is that it would handle the process of producing logo designs, brochures and any other creative work - completely automatically. However, it goes beyond the normal definition of Traffic (project management) to include things such as quoting, presentations and invoicing - the total process of producing commercial art, from start to finish.

This idea came about because I'd learned a lot about Traffic while working as head of the creative department at Ogilvy & Mather in Mauritius. Contrary to my expectations when arriving on the island, it was an extremely busy place, with very high volumes of work. The only way to cope with all of it, while at the same time maintaining high creative standards, was to handle traffic in a superior way. It worked, and we ended up dominating the very competitive advertising scene on the island.

On returning to South Africa, I was asked to analyse the Traffic system of a small Durban advertising agency and design company. The agency was in a very disorganised state - they'd lost most of their clients and were in the process of rebranding themselves, in a desperate bid to save the business.  I found that there were 69 jobs in the system,  in various states of completion... but the agency's owner wasn't aware of what was happening with any of them, if any

could be invoiced, or if there were any outstanding payments. And no-one in the agency knew what jobs they were supposed to be working on, on a day-to-day basis. It was one big mess. While trying to figure out what to do about it, I found myself thinking that things would be much simpler if, as a graphic designer, art director or copywriter, a message could just pop up on my screen telling me what I was supposed to be working on at that moment.

I got really interested in how this could come about. I thought and thought, and analysed and analysed over the course of several years. The result is the presentation above. I've had a look at a few automated systems, but none of them seem to go into the process in the same depth. None of them seem flexible enough to deal with the realities of high-volume scheduling. Crucially, none of them seem to understand what's neccessary from the point of view of the people who're actually doing the creative work...probably because they've been conceived by computer programmers, and not by an agency creative. I've seen at least one example where a much-lauded, present-generation system has failed to save a Cape Town ad agency from collapse.

The presentation above is the concept as I first came up with it 10 years ago. It's changed slightly in my mind, as I've learned more about the Internet, and the system's possible applications if hooked up to a website. But the core concept remains the same. I still don't know how to code it though (I'm a designer, not a programmer). So if any developers read this and find it interesting, please contact me.