Rarely has an industry group generated as much interest and angst as the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA).

The organization was founded to address problems that are undoubtedly real. Interactive agencies today operate in a landscape where clients and educational institutions often have outdated practices and expectations. They use Request for Proposals (RFPs), curricula and legal agreements that do not reflect the complexities of digital development. In addition, almost every agency in the industry has its own processes, terminology and documentation.

SoDA has stepped in to provide standards that should protect agencies and reduce the chaos. The nascent organization has 50 members and the critical backing of Adobe.

So what's the catch? SoDA is an invite-only group, composed largely of elite, award-winning agencies. They choose who’s in and who’s out. While SoDA argues that a smaller organization is necessary, its structure seems to confirm every boy’s-club, popularity-contest stereotype in the industry. Worse still, some (but not all) of the agencies have used their membership for marketing purposes. This has left many firms outside of SoDA understandably suspicious of its intentions.

Paul Lewis, the likeable former CEO of AgencyNET, is the person tasked with allaying these concerns and pushing the organization forward. He passionately believes that SoDA has the right ingredients to advocate effectively for the industry. In the interview below, he outlines SoDA’s goals, methodology and vision.

CA: How did SoDA come into being?

Paul Lewis: A group of thirteen leading digital agency CEOs received invitations to come to South Beach to discuss the future of the digital marketing business over drinks.

There, we honestly began sharing information about the challenges in this industry and the need for best practices. There were profound problems that were not being addressed. There were common legal and process issues. People coming from design schools and traditional agency backgrounds didn't have many of the skill sets we needed. There were also challenges with the documentation of our industry, partly because nearly every agency uses different terminology for things.

We met a few more times and decided we could establish a trade group that could benefit the whole industry. So the rising tide could raise all boats.

CA: What is your mission?

Lewis: The Society of Digital Agencies serves as a voice for digital marketing professionals with a mission to advance the industry through best practices, education and advocacy. We’re trying to bring awareness to issues in the digital marketing industry that impact brand marketers, traditional agencies and other digital agencies.

For example, on the legal side most brands today have contracts that contain an indemnification clause. They want you to indemnify them if they have a lawsuit. This is a low-risk clause for a TV advertisement. But on the Internet, there are patents for all kinds of crazy things, and it’s hard to indemnify someone against things you’re not aware of. We’re trying to create education about this and other legal issues.

We also provide best practices. For example, we try to identify what should be in a Master Services Agreement (MSA). What is the best practice for an RFP or a Statement of Work. Many brands have the idea that if they send out dozens of requests to agencies, they’ll get the best response. However, agencies that provide detailed responses to RFPs make a substantial investment of time and resources. It’s not fair, from an agency standpoint, if they have little chance to win the work, unless the company is compensating each agency for their RFP time. Likewise, agencies are providing their highest value— ideas and experience. Requiring that all ideas become the property of the company whether or not they are selected for the project is asking something for nothing. So we want to educate companies about equitable ways to approach these problems while still meeting their goals of receiving diverse responses and the ability to execute ideas. For instance, they could start with a simple Request for Information and pick a small number of agencies for the RFP from that.

CA: What kind of materials will you produce?

Lewis: We’re working on elements such as RFPs, position papers on sequential liability and standards for all terminology. There will also be standards for documents like wireframes, MSAs, statements of work, letters of intent, client update briefs and process requirements documents.

Of course, we’re not trying to create an exact standard, but we will say that these are the elements that should be in this document, and here’s a sample document that contains all those elements. We don’t say this is the document you have to use.

We are also looking at the terminology within those documents. We are trying to define the names of documents, processes, roles, responsibilities and terminology for metrics and other things that can get very confusing.

CA: What’s your process for doing this?

Lewis: We’re taking advantage of the digital age and trying to crowdsource them. At SoDA, we organize special action teams to work on drafts of language or terminology. Our plan is to release them iteratively on our blog site to get feedback. I want to avoid preaching from the pulpit or walking down with the Ten Commandments. Our job is to provide ideas to discuss. The best way to create really polished perspectives is to get people together to talk about and comment on them.

The documents should also evolve. We don’t expect them to become a dusty archive. We need an approach that’s a lot more real-time. Our view is to let them be living, where people can constantly be adding and commenting on effectiveness, so we can keep them up to date.

CA: Because of your invite-only structure, many in the industry consider you elitist. What would you say to them?

Lewis: I’m glad you asked, because that is a challenge we face. The truthful answer is that there is not a conspiracy going on, we’re trying to grow slowly and carefully. In 18 months we are approaching close to 50 agencies. We started with thirteen, so we’ve tripled in size. We need to get the organizational infrastructure well founded to build upon what we’ve started and reach the goals that we envision. Our goal is not to be large, but to be effective through being a bit of a lighthouse, illuminating discussions and practices that can help the entire industry. Our community sites are free to join, and we have a number of events. Many of them are free or have very low costs to get people to come out and be part of this.

CA: There’s also a question about the types of agencies that are involved. It seems that the bulk of your members are creative boutiques. Many areas, like B2B and vertically-focused agencies, do not seem to be represented. Are you inclusive enough at this point to speak for everyone?

Lewis: With our member selection, we’re looking at areas of agencies that we may not be representing well. We look at different sizes of agencies and different fields. Are we doing B2B, healthcare, finance and new media? We also look at skill sets. Do we have search-focused agencies and people who are great with mobile, social networks and media? As a global organization, we also pay attention to geography to ensure we are representing areas and cultures from all over the world. There are a lot of criteria in bringing on other agencies. We want to have the widest perspective and most diversity to represent the industry to the best of our ability.

One hurdle for agencies is that we require our members to be actively involved. We require that senior executives come to a minimum of one meeting per year to work on and address issues. They also must serve on one of the committees. Some agencies are not willing to make that commitment. We’re looking for agencies whose executives believe passionately that the industry needs this and are willing to volunteer their time.

CA: When we can we expect to see more?

Lewis: A lot of our focus so far has been on listening. We did six or seven events last year, and this year we’ll be closer to ten or twelve. At the events we’re trying to bring in more viewpoints. We also have a lot of opinions we’re circulating within. Our goal is to take our time and do it right, but you’ll probably start to see one position paper a quarter, maybe more.

We really want to get the industry active in this. I wish people would stop thinking about whether they’re a member or non-member, or part of a traditional agency, digital agency or brand. I would love for people to become part of our community Web site and contribute their own ideas and opinions. As much as the industry is waiting with bated breath to see what we’re going to release, I’d prefer to see the industry come and participate. ca