Notes and news, insights and inspiration from the autonomous collective mind of GS.

A smart designer I know sent this infographic around a couple of weeks ago, and I keep coming back to it. In addition to breaking down how agency parties are different from parties in the mainstream business sector, it provides a helpful reminder to all agency types that goes a little something like this: You are not the norm.

It can be easy to think that our familiarity with new tools and emerging technologies and platforms should extend to the audiences we serve, but the fact is that Joe Average just doesn’t want or need to be as engaged in those topics as the creatives, technophiles, and account folk that populate agencies. It’s a mistake – and a dangerous one – to assume that we accurately represent the interest level of non-agency audiences when considering how best to serve them, as the infographic below from the good folks at Heat makes all too clear.