The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

The story.
The design.
The details.
The feeling.
The editing.
The clarity.
The craft.
The point of view.

Ask anyone who has worked with me and it’s fair to say, they’re going to say I’m a fucking nightmare about it.

Part of it is because I believe it’s a sign of respect towards whoever we’re presenting too.
Part of it is because I believe it’s a sign of respect to the work you’ve developed and crafted.
And part of it is because I believe it’s a demonstration of the standards you hold, value and expect from whoever you work with.

I appreciate it’s not the most ‘efficient’ approach, but there are moments in a process, where ‘efficiency’ should never be the objective, because it either encourages – or invites – lazy thinking and/or lazy application.

This does not mean I don’t care about brand guidelines or toolboxes, I do … however far too often, they’re developed with the sole goal of enabling the ‘lowest form of consistency’ throughout an organization, as opposed to delivering the highest. Of course, this approach is not limited to simply brand guideline development … the same can be said for things like ‘brand experience’ and ‘brand transformation’ … where the language implies ‘executing excellence’ but the reality is often just playing ‘catch up’ to competitors who have been doing the basics better for years.

Look, on one level I get it … especially in big companies, where it’s bloody hard to make everything work seamlessly to a unified level … however if a companies ambition is to identify the ‘minimum standard they can get away with’, then surely that raises questions regarding the standards of the organisation, the people they hire and the aspirations – not to mention, taste – of the company leadership.

Now you may be thinking, “that’s a big call based on how a company creates presentations”, but for me this stuff matters and I’m over people saying it doesn’t.

That’s its ‘overkill’. Fuck off …

Put simply, ‘good in, encourages good out’. It really is that simple … and if you can’t be bothered to do that for a client, why do you think they would want to do good things with you?

And please don’t give me ‘but the content is all that matters’ argument.

Maybe in a Hollywood movie that works … but in real life, how you present is as important as what you present.

Not because ‘pretty wins’, but because design helps convey an argument in a way that can be more powerful felt.

And understood.

And remembered.

Now I completely appreciate not every presentation requires this level of craft and consideration, however at the very least they should all feel people have given a shit about its development. That they’ve sweated over the details. That they want the recipient to feel seen, challenged, understood and helped.

But that’s not happening nearly enough these days.

A creative director at Wieden – the wonderful Paul Stechschulte – once gave me a brilliant piece of advice about presentations.

He said, there’s only two reasons to ever have one: To convert or to conflict.

You’re either there to convert an idea/decision into action, or you’re there to conflict the recipient so they don’t choose or make the wrong idea/decision.

That’s it.

But too often, the goal of a presentation is to have another presentation. To kick the can further down the road. To give permission for people to not make a decision while looking like they’re being productive.

Look, I get some things take time but a lot of this is because too many companies only empower their people to say ‘no’, so the result is nothing gets made and so the focus of the endless presentations ends up being whether the ‘minimum standard guidelines’ have been adhered to, as opposed to can we create a compelling argument that demands they say ‘yes’.

Which leads to the point of this post …

TL;DR Why I will never work for Morgan Stanley. And why I’ve never been so happy about it.

View this post on Instagram