Sorry, You Can’t Read Or Write

I can’t and neither can you (most likely).

Here’s the drill. Virtually everything you do or rely on these days is controlled by computer code. You phone, your car, your house, your relationships, your business, your leisure time, even the blueberries you buy in summer.

Oh, and, yes, all of the advertising and marketing you do for your clients.

So, when I say you can’t read or write I mean…

You Don’t Know What Code Is (And, Of Course, You Can’t Write It)

Look, I get it. My companies published early stage websites in the 1990’s = New Jersey Online (for Advance Publications) and websites for Microsoft and Nabisco (ala Journal Square Interactive). I was also the founder and CEO of ActiveBuddy which did natural language years ahead of Apple’s Siri and my agency dove head first into all things digital.

BUT… I am code  illiterate and it held me back. 

If you are deep into managing the growth of an advertising agency, it is time to get with the program.

What Must Advertising Agency Management Do?

I am not about to tell you to go to Code Academy and sign up for a class (although, actually, you should).

What I am going to tell you is that you have to read the latest issue of Businessweek. You have to at least get up to speed about what code is.

Bloomberg Businessweek today released The Code Issue, a special double issue containing a single essay by writer and programmer Paul Ford.

Recognizing that the world now belongs to people who code, and those who don’t understand it will be left behind, the issue is devoted to demystifying code and the culture of the people who make it. Ford’s 38,000-word essay “What Is Code?” lives cross-platform in print, on the Bloomberg Business website, mobile, Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, and at the upcoming Bloomberg Technology Conference: Code and the Corner Office.

And, if you don’t like reading 38,000-word articles, watch this Charlie Rose interview with the article’s author and Businessweek editor.

On “Charlie Rose,” a conversation about this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek magazine which asks “What is Code?” We are joined by Josh Tyrangiel, the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, and Paul Ford, a journalist and programmer, and the author of this piece. (Source: Bloomberg)