What I’m about to write will make you sick.
It might very well make you angry.
But there is something about Los Angeles I am finding hard to deal with.
Yes, I know it’s an amazing city and where I specifically live – Manhattan Beach – has a landscape that looks like this …
… and a local council who does this at Christmas …
… but the difference between Shanghai in terms of exposure to culture is very, very different.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s there … in many ways, there’s even more of it than in China … but the reality is LA is a series of small towns, 88 to be exact, so you have to actively go to different places to be immersed in the energy of culture whereas in Shanghai, the moment you stepped outside you were drowned in it.
In essence, where once I had to close my front door to stop the roar of culture enveloping me, in LA I have to open it to go find it.
And I’m finding that tough to deal with, because the energy I got from that madness in Shanghai literally energized me.
What makes this additionally difficult is because this is the first time I’ve worked in a place that isn’t in the heart of a city and so the people you tend to run into are either colleagues or people from the agencies around us … like MAL or 72.
Now I appreciate this is a first World problem and it’s not that hard to deal with, but when you are a single-minded believer that to do your job well, you need to be in the middle of cultural craziness – it means that for the first time, I have to actively make time to ensure I am in it.
More than that, I have to make time to make sure the people in my team have the time to stay in it.
Play. Explore. Learn.
And this leads me to the point I want to make.
In my short time in the US, it appears many agencies and clients value data more than culture.
Everything is talked about in terms of data points.
Strategy is created because of data points.
Work is tested for data points.
Now don’t get me wrong, data – if done properly and understood properly – is incredibly important.
More than that, it’s incredibly powerful.
And I’m fortunate I work with some people – and clients – who get that.
But putting aside a lot of what is out there is questionable or the interpretation of it is questionable … the reality is that this data only truly comes alive when it is injected and explored through the texture of culture.
What they think.
How they feel.
What they fear.
The stuff that elevates data from charts to creative opportunities.
The stuff that you only get by being in it, rather than reading it.
And that’s why it’s so important for us to be surrounded by the mess and noise of what is happening around us – not just in the spotlight, but also the shadows – because while it seems many think it is a waste-of-time, it’s the foundation for creating work that is born from the culture rather than is just a bad interpretation of it.