Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comedians, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Management, Perspective, Planners, Planning, Prejudice, Relevance, Resonance, Standards
Many years ago, I wrote a training guide called, How to ask questions without being a bitch.
It happened because a junior account service colleague at Wieden didn’t know how to get clients to acknowledge her and the questions she had.
This was not because she wasn’t good, but because of gender stereotypes.
Well recently, I had a similar experience, except this time it was a brilliant strategist that a mutual friend of ours had introduced me to.
In my time in LA, I’ve met a whole host of strategists and – as I wrote a while back – many have left me feeling indifferent.
But not this person.
She was more than one of the good ones, she was one of the best.
Sharp as hell.
Unique – yet well thought out – perspectives.
A genuine love of being creative in interesting ways.
Anyway, as we were talking, I said I’d be really interested in hearing – or reading – her perspective on the future of storytelling. For some reason, she said yes and a few weeks I received a great paper with a great perspective.
Except there was one thing I didn’t like.
“The surprising part of this was the fact that my mentor, a white man, erudite and well-known in his profession, cared about my opinion. To give you some background – I’m in my 30s, a mixed bag of races, city kid, raised by a single mom type through and through. I’m a decade into my career and this was the first time I was asked to share my perspective by someone that, for all intents and purposes, matters.”
I hate it.
I hate that this was the first time she felt she was asked for her opinion.
I hate it for the shit she has obviously had to put up with in her life.
I hate the baggage that has weighed her down.
I hate the low expectations she had been forced to endure.
I hate the bosses she’s had that have told her to follow orders rather than encourage her to find her own voice.
And while she finished her paper with a resolve to not let this shit quieten her ever again, I’m still angry that a great talent has had to put up with shit designed to keep her down rather than lift her up, which is why I ask her – and any other planner who relates to this situation – to embrace my paraphrasing of the advice comedian Michelle Wolf received when she was about to take the stage at the White House Correspondence’s dinner, at the top of this page.
Burn it all down.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Innovation, Standards
I’ve written a lot about the one dimensional view adland has towards who they regard as creative and creativity as a whole – except when it’s Cannes time of course – but I was recently reminded how this view remains by a recent purchase of a guitar effect pedal.
No, seriously.
I don’t mean it purely because this pedal can create infinite sustain for any musical instrument – though that is very impressive – I mean it because it was created by 3 young, Latvian electronic students who are also amateurs musicians.
Now I don’t know much about Latvia, but I don’t think ‘music technology leader’ immediately springs to mind and yet, their product has taken away all the attention from the big, established players at all the music shows it has been featured at.
What they did is – for me – an example of where creativity is at its most exciting as well as it’s most powerful … and yet so much of adland would dismiss their efforts as not only do they only value creativity in the context of art and copy, but only regard people who sit in the creative department as being creative.
Don’t get me wrong, the people in there have a very special and valuable talent … but that doesn’t mean they are the only ones who are creative and can solve commercial problems for clients.
As I said once before, it’s funny that the only people who refer to themselves as ‘creative’, are those who reside in ad agencies.
Writers don’t.
Musicians don’t.
Artists don’t.
Film makers don’t.
And Latvian electronic students – who also play musical instruments – don’t.
To be fair, many of the great creatives I’ve worked with don’t refer to themselves in such a singular way, especially as they have many ways of expressing their talent but sadly, due to the way agencies make money and clients determine good work, they are constrained in their creative expression to only doing work that fits with ‘traditional’ marketing channels. [read: the stuff that is measurable so clients feel OK paying for it]
This is annoying for many reasons, but mainly for the fact our industries future isn’t going to get better if the powers-that-be continue to think the best way to make money is to charge for process management rather than charging a premium for solving problems in the most imaginative, powerful and meaningful of ways.
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As you mull that over, I have some good news for you …
It’s a long weekend here so you are free from me until Tuesday.
Now while I know you will prefer that to the ad industry sorting itself out, the fact is if we an an industry leant back into the value of creativity rather than advertising [even though we often call advertising creativity – which it is, but you know what I mean], then I am sure it would make every day feel a bit more like a holiday than a job …. which is one of the ways we actually get to the work we all strive to make.
And with that, I’m off … ta-ra.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, America, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Innocence, Insight
So recently, for reasons I don’t quite understand, the Screen Writers Guild of America and a division of the US Government asked me to give a presentation on how writers can attract foreign investment.
My entire deck is the picture at the top of this post.
After I explained what I was talking about – which was basically this [especially #8] – we watched the documentary, ‘Exporting Raymond’ which, for me, is still one of the best documentaries anyone looking to work overseas can watch to understand the differences in culture, on both a macro and micro scale.
Actually, it’s worth watching even if you’re not going overseas … or if you’ve been there, done that – especially if it was Russia or China – so to give you a taste, the trailer is below.
Apparently it went down so well they are trying to get the star of the film, Phil Rosenthal, to come to an event where I will interview him.
WTF?!
I was going to write that if this happens, Mr Rosenthal is going to realise working in Russia was no where near as hellish as being interviewed by me and then I discovered he’s worth $200 million, so my concern for his wellbeing kind of went out the window.
That said, as much as I experienced a lot of weird things in China, being asked to do this talk – and the possible subsequent Q&A – is right up there in terms of madness.
Living overseas. The gift that keeps on giving.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, America, Attitude & Aptitude, BBH, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Comment, Communication Strategy, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Cynic, Din Tai Fung, Experience, Family, Food For Thought, Freddie, Honesty, Innovation, Insight, Management, Marketing, Perspective, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Standards
Many years ago I worked with a Swedish planner called Fredrik Sarnblad.
I loved him.
I loved him for many reasons …
His brain.
His humour.
His creativity.
His friendship.
His unsatisfiable appetite.
We went through all manner of trials and tribulations together … from highs of convincing work to send us to Bali for a week so we could work on the SONY pitch strategy in peace [which, thank god, we won] to lows of being in Thailand with a client who spent all their time trying to undermine us in front of their colleagues. [which we, read: me, didn’t react to very well]
And while we’ve not worked together for over 11 years, Freddie was always more than an ex-colleague, but a real friend … exemplified by the fact that when we saw each other in Boston a few weeks ago – after almost 6 years apart – it was like nothing had changed.
My relationship with Freddie is different to that of many of my other friends.
One of those reasons is I’ve never made a highly inappropriate blog about the way they dress.
The other is that I can have really personal and emotional conversations about life with him.
That’s not to say I can’t with my other mates, it’s just I rarely do … but with Freddie, we always did and do. Talking about subject many people find uncomfortable but are true for all of us.
The reason this can happen is that Freddie is both self aware and in touch with who he is.
He doesn’t shy away from the big conversations because he knows that’s where life resides … the real stuff, not the things we use to distract us from dealing with the real stuff.
One of the things we talked about recently was happiness.
Initially it was in the context of family but it quickly evolved to the job we are paid to do.
Creativity.
We talked about what makes us happy, what frustrates us and what we can do to make things better … more fun … more interesting and exciting. We even talked about how we can work together again.
Well that conversation must have had a real impact on Freddie because weeks later, he quit his job and started his own agency.
To be honest, I think that’s a bit extreme … all he had to do was say he didn’t want to work with me again … but I’m super happy and excited for him.
I’ve written many times why everyone should experience starting their own business, but in Freddie’s case it’s a little different.
Don’t get me wrong, it will be amazing for him – but the real value will come from the companies that use him because he’ll not only make them better, he’ll make them discover what they are capable of being.
So congratulations my dear Freddie, I look forward to one day being one of your shitkickers …
Knock them dead …
You can find out what he’s doing and how he’s doing it here.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Corporate Evil, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Friendship, Human Goodness, Innovation, Insight, Perspective, Technology
Moore’s law – created by Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel – states that computer power will double every two years at the same cost.
Since he said this in the later 60’s, he’s been proven right, but having listened to a professor of computer engineering on the radio last night, it appears it’s coming to an end.
The reason I am saying this is because to prove his point, the Professor said 3 things that have blown my mind.
1. The iPhone has 4 billion transistors in it. FOUR BILLION.
2. There are now more transistors in the World than their are leaves on all the trees across the entire planet.
3. Some transistors are so small – separated by a distance of just 14 nanometres (nm) – that they are invisible. And when I say invisible, I mean it because they are smaller than the wavelengths of light human eyes and microscopes use.
What I loved about the talk the Professor gave wasn’t just his ability to articulate the incredible journey of innovation that the tech industry has been on for almost 50 years … nor was it his view that this rate of innovation was going to be impossible to maintain given the micro scale the industry is already operating at … it was that he felt this obsession with precision was stopping craftsmanship to flourish.
Now I must admit, my initial view was getting 4 billion transistors into an iPhone would be the ultimate demonstration of craftsmanship, but no … this Professor was saying that in our quest to automate our lives, we are doing it at the expense of celebrating and expanding human skills.
For him, craftsmanship is when a human manufactures a product by hand … they use dedicated human reasoning to work out the kinks during production to make a high-quality, functioning piece.
These pieces attract and inspire those around them, attracting more people to both value the products and want to create the products, helping humanity both evolve and appreciate what we are capable of creating and becoming.
Now of course we could say computers have done a similar thing, but this Professor was saying ‘perfect precision’ was overshadowing ‘human precision’ and while there will always be a need for technology to do heavy lifting for us, humanity is at its best when it is can satisfy and appreciate what we as a species can do and right now, we are outsourcing that to technology.
It’s an interesting argument – especially when you think of what so much of this new era of tech is being used to do from a human interaction perspective – but ultimately I believe the argument is that if we don’t get back to teaching tech what to value, then tech will start teaching us.
It already is.
In their quest to get AI accepted in households, many companies are building applications to cater for the lowest common denominator of needs. The low hanging fruit, as it were. Now that would be fine if they then evolved their offering, but as this is a fierce, commercial race, I am pretty sure most companies will end up focusing on trying to automate as many simple tasks as possible in a bid to show their ‘usefulness’ which means over time, they are educating us to value speed over quality, convenience over experiences, virtual over reality and information over understanding.
Some might think that is OK, but as Andy said in a comment a few weeks ago, the implication are frightening …
“The fucked thing about all this tech assistance isnt that its making us lazy, its that its making us selfish and dismissing anyone or anything that doesnt do what we want immediately. The arts are going to be fucked over by this shit till people work it out and by then it will be too late or they just wont care.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love tech.
I love what it does and I love what it has allowed us to do.
And it goes without saying I love that it has helped me satisfy my love of gadgetry.
But if this is all at the cost of humanities appreciation of humanity, that’s quite a price to pay which is why if the end of Moore’s law means we get to teach values to tech rather than have tech teach us our values, then I for one am all for it.