November 2009
31 posts
October 2009
46 posts
Don't make connections. Make friends.
Today I was let go, laid off, reorganized, whatever you want to call it. In advertising or any business for that matter this stuff happens and I’m joining the legion of unemployed talent. Thankfully I was prepared and I constantly update my book. I try out new book formats, make spec ads, tweak the ones I have and obsess and obsess and obsess. That’s just the way I am.
I was expecting to get home and send my book out to the places I admire, maybe post a message on linkedin and find my own freelance. But I was wrong. I’ve realized this network of friends — people in the business — some of which I’ve never even met face to face, not just offering their sympathy but offering options. One after the other, giving advice, lending workspace and helping out with leads. I knew through involvement with AAF and Art+Copy Club that I had a network, but what I didn’t know was that I had so many people that would be so supportive.
So the morale of the story is be nice. Do more than have a rolodex. Form relationships because it’s those relationships that will take you the places you want to go.
Thanks to all my friends.
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The laziest agency ever invented. →
thedenveregotist.com
Look, I’m cool with crowdsourcing. It can solve a lot of problems we have in the world. If you get the right problem with the right people in the right crowdsourcing community it’s possible a brilliant idea will bubble to the surface. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. Plus, the benefits of connection with the brand are undeniable. But sometimes the shit just doesn’t work. If you count elections as a low form of crowdsourcing, and I do, then crowdsourcing is the reason we had Bush for 8 years. (I know there are more holes in this statement than a cable-knit sweater but my fingers were itching to write it.) Or, look at wikipedia, the biggest crowdsourcing community on the web where facts are blurred every day.
There’s a point where crowdsourcing is just pure laziness. “Give me money and I’ll exploit a group of strangers absolutely not invested in your problem to solve it.” It’s a slippery slope to companies and agencies not thinking for themselves when they’re actually the best equipped to solve their own problems. They know the problem deeper than what a brief can explain, they know the factors, they know the history and their heart is genuinely in it. Those are things a crowdsourcing group don’t have and those are things that can often attribute to a creative solution. Again, It’s happened in the past and it’ll happen again.
Sometimes, I think companies are better off going with an Agency Nil model. But then again, there’s a time and a place for that too.
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CONFESSIONS OF A MAD MAN!
Lots of comments on my “Important questions for aspiring Mad Men” post of yesterday. Apart from a stroll down memory lane and reminisces about great bars and restaurants, many of which no longer exist, the big question raised was, was the work better, and did we have more fun doing it? Yes, I think the work was better, and I know that will raise a shitstorm from young fucktards who think creating stuff for digital, viral, WOM, CGC, and whatever else is flavor of the month is harder and requires a greater range of skills. To which I answer, you are probably right, but that’s not the fucking point… It’s still all about ideas and great content… Not fucking execution. There seems to be a great deal of confusion on this. Do it on the back of an envelope (or better yet, a cocktail napkin) before you spend fucking hours tarting it up in Photoshop and Illustrator, or whatever you create incredibly finished layouts in these days. If it doesn’t work on the cocktail napkin, it certainly wont work on your 42 inch monitor. So, order another drink and start over. Which brings me to part two of the question. Yes we drank, smoked and fucked our brains out… Some of us still do, well, the drinking and smoking bit! And yes, we had to deal with arseholes on both the client and agency side. But what we did, we actually believed in and fought tooth and nail to get it through, and if you worked in the right shop, management supported you. Today, everyone is fucking terrified, all the time. With a couple of notable agency exceptions, no one fights for anything, everyone fucking caves. And they don’t even have the balls to go out and get fucked up after they do. You can read a lot more on this and how things used to be in my next fucking opus… “Confessions of a Mad Man!” Yes, the title is an homage to David. And yes it will be full of drink, sex, drugs and rock&roll… ‘Cos it’s my memoirs… Stick that in your gnarly old pipe and smoke it!
” —Ad Scam. George Parker. http://adscam.typepad.com/