Google: Spock in a James T Kirk world

I thought the Google entry into the general media world was approached by the Googlers I met as a bit too simple a process. Almost a foregone conclusion that the agency world and advertisers would jump on the Google express.

I was interested to read the mediapost piece  on the dMark founders' separation. It appears that there is a disconnect at Google on the other side of the equation as well. When I talked with some folks at Google about the agency relationship and that they would not want to insert technology between them and their clients, or rely too much on Google's technology, they did not agree. Well, it would appear that there was an internal discussion going on about the same thing:

'...the two companies apparently differed over the need for a "human touch" in the sales process.'

You can not automate good relationships. Further, sometimes, against all logic, people do not move based only on the numbers. The human touch, direct and personal, will trump automated email, IMs and algorithms every day (this was not as evident in search because humans could not do what algorithms could). I see this being adopted at Google more now than just a year ago. The difficulty they will have is that the next steps in the growth - off line - will be much more challenging, and face a broader range of competition than their search engine efforts. The human touch will be key to making it work for them.