Over recent years the advertising industry, and its periphery partners have called for professionals with a diverse set of skills. Only years ago Agencies like Ogilvy & Mather were calling for media planners, art directors, account executives and, of course, interns. Now we find agencies like DDB Seattle calling for interactive producers, technical directors, and ‘HTML/Flash/ActionScript Gurus.’ Not only are today’s available jobs more diverse, they are more digitalcentric.

DDB Seattle’s search for an interactive producer outlines skills found in a renaissance man of today’s digital world. Someone who divides their free time sifting through an overflow of RSS feeds from ThinkGeek.com, Wired Magazine and SlashDot.com. Their Queen Ann apartment decor is a mesh of wires pinned on the wall and tucked behind the couch from one Mac to another. The newest piece of artwork as a visitor breaches the threshold is a poster of the hottest vector illustration. Nothing of this apartment knows the necktie or dress shoe, but an abundance of doodles tacked on the wall and a Wii controller still warm do define.

This ambitious soul learned how to program in the attic of his parents’ house at the age of nine and soon after learned how to make his little sister into the neighbor’s pet hamster Willie in Photoshop. He knows not of inches and miles but only pixels and picas. Urges to argue the pros and cons of liquid versus fixed layouts for Webpages after the fullest amount of microbrews, though few partake. This man of almost too many talents has been surrounded by media and digital avenues since the dawn of his own era and has no escape from the grapples of his never-ending blog reading and posting. Caring more about which has more hits, Google or Facebook, than which has a larger audience, The New York Times or CNN, he knows the effectiveness of advertising in each.

These attic heroes of right this second are leading the industry, rather industries; kicking the status quo out the door and setting an ever-changing one that the ‘monoliths’ of yesterday cant keep up with. These radicals are monoliths in their own right. They are looked up to by all those aspiring and awarded by all those knowing. They in the true realm of advertising are the idea giants taking the world to awe inspiring moments leaving us all with our fingers crossed in hope that there will be more.

Agencies seeking this unthinkable talent in ideas and practice are not the ‘monoliths’ of the industry, rather the ‘innovators.’ Those who understand on their own where brands live and don’t live, how they interact and more importantly are interacted with. They are the innovators for exactly this reason. They understand that advertising is at a time of innovation and experimentation, not just in idea form or solely the medium, rather their beautiful alliance. Agencies no longer search for the top media junkie but lust after the digital junkie. They now nip at the heels of students and their ceaseless innovation and do all they can to get their hands on them the moment they cross the threshold into the world.