So last Thursday John Dodds took me to some advertising get-together in Shoreditch.
At first I thought this was very kind of him, however within 13 seconds of hearing the first speaker, I realised it was possibly the most evil act of revenge I’ve ever encountered.
I can’t remember the name of the first speaker – I can’t even remember the name of the event I was at – however for someone who had a pretty awesome premise behind his speech – he managed to create something so annoying that I literally hoped the small venue would catch fire and put me out of my misery.
And yet it could have been so different …
As I said, the first 13 seconds were promising.
He explained that he was going to talk about what he had had learnt by losing his company approx 600,000 pounds through bad decisions, experiments and projects … however once those 13 seconds were over, it went downhill faster than superman on steroids.
Apart from the fact he was trying desperately to appear funny, cool and blasé – which he wasn’t, on any level – he had filled his presentation with so many sound effects that you were left with the distinct impression he’d just discovered how to do those things in keynote and was determined to shove as many effects in each slide as was physically possible.
The end result was an annoying, disjointed and completely distracting presentation that meant you weren’t sure whether you were supposed to watch the screen or hear his rambling rubbish.
But it gets worse.
Much, much worse.
You see, while he had promised to explain the lessons he’d learnt from losing his company over half a million quid, all he actually ended up explaining was why you’d be better off trusting Bernie Madoff with your business decisions than him.
Seriously, it was that bad.
But what nearly pushed me to the edge of mass murder was the reaction from the audience.
In short, they seemed to like him.
LIKE HIM!
Seriously, their reaction almost single handily make me think this industry is doomed.
OK, so I was surrounded by a wonderful selection of Shoreditch’s finest … all tight trousers, NHS type specs and crazy hairstyles … but even so, I still thought they’d be able to tell the difference between [bad] entertainment and valuable insight.
Of course, being entertaining in a presentation is important, however it tends to be better if you have something valuable to say rather than just look like a bloke who is desperate to have friends. Mind you to be fair, even when he accidentally let something interesting out from his gob [Having a #1 app in the Apple store still lost them tens of thousands of pounds] no one tended to notice its importance because it appears commercial value played very little importance in their lives, even though that is exactly why companies hire them and their employers.
And that’s what bothered me so much, because at a time where companies are increasingly questioning the value of our business, this guy’s presentation premise had the potential to be really interesting and valuable but instead, he acted like ‘losing’ was a badge of honour but it isn’t – not by any stretch of the imagination – and anyone who celebrates failure for failures sake should be working with the Jackass boys, not the commercial creative industry.