The concept of ‘agency’ or the role of ‘agent’ has not changed much in 100 years. Particularly when it comes to the creative agency.

But there’s something a brewing in agency land.

Here’s the gig – if you wanna start a new marketing, PR or ad agency you get together with a couple of mates, find a client and serve them immaculately. To start with you pitch for smaller clients or smaller projects. ‘Cos there are only 2 of you and a dog at the firm. You make sure that they pay you regularly and efficiently so you can cover your bills.

After a couple of years developing a nice, niche reputation you go after more clients and gradually expand. Ten years later, if things go really well, you have more than a dozen clients and a team of 25 cool, young creative and account folk. Your agency even has a ‘genre’.

After 20 years you could have dozens of clients, 75 agency dudes and won some awards. You, the agency owner, start thinking about selling the outfit to WPP. What a journey.

If you’re a literary agent, artists agent or act on behalf of entrepreneurs (helping them raise money and connections) it takes even longer. Building an agency of scale takes forever.

Or maybe not. Perhaps agency land is a changing.

‘Agency 3.0′ turns the very concept of agency on its head. It rids ‘agencies’ of their core constraint right from the get go – people. ‘Agency 3.0′ starts out by hiring hundreds of freelancers and independent creatives on a Web platform – a collective. It’s agency staff huddle on the Web, not in a Regus office space.

On top of the Crowd of freelancers and consultants, Agency 3.0 places a small team of agency pro’s who manage clients, business development and project delivery.

Then this hybrid, cloud based, Expertsourced agency goes after clients and projects. Scaling through the Crowd – competing with larger agencies earlier. Resource unconstrained. With hundreds of creative and delivery folk at hand not a couple of mates. All making a bigger combined splash and more efficiently supporting larger, complex projects. Existing in the cloud – international from day one.

With the 3 C’s of Agency 3.0 constantly in play – ‘Crowds, clouds and creativity’. Delivering digital, social, viral campaigns and more – not just TV and newspaper slots.

Agency 3.0. The future of ‘agency’?