Inspiration
Why in the world are we in the business we are in?
I’m sure that in most cases we don’t want to pose this as a question to our spouses or significant others. I’m not sure what response you might get but I try to avoid opening that door.
I doubt that a desire for a predictable, pre-planned, organized tomorrow is driving it. Try to remember the last time that happened.
Financial security certainly can’t be the reason we entered it. If that were our goal, we would have been a banker. Or a lawyer. Or a dentist. Just like our fathers told us to do.
How about the opportunity to be the one at the top of a hierarchical ladder and dictating what flows downhill to the workers? Well, that may be true in the mega-agencies that are run like a corporation, but not in the environment that most of us are in.
Ah, maybe it was the glamour of the business that attracted us. Great opportunities to travel, wine and dine at the best restaurants, visit those magnificent resorts for a client’s sales meeting. Once experienced, however, you long for your home, your bed, a casual dinner with your family, and yes, your dog at your feet. Forget the pipe and slippers. That was 1956.
Maybe it’s the lure of dazzling our clients with magical campaigns that bring applause, toasting with fine wine and shouts of “You da Man” (or women as the case may be). Well, that doesn’t really happen. If the campaign actually brings results, we get to keep our day job.
You know what? I’m getting paranoid just writing this. How do I explain to my children, friends and potential employees why I do what I do?
I am perusing this issue in a first class seat, drinking the airline’s free scotch, on my way to Pebble Beach for a client meeting and reading Golf Magazine on how to actually put the *##* ball in the fairway off the first tee.
Sure. In reality, it is Sunday afternoon and I’m trying to get caught up from last week and prepare for this coming week. But during a brief moment of staring into the back yard, I actually did ask myself the question. Why did I get into this business and why am I still here?
Here’s how I answered it. And then I typed it for our web site since the dog wasn’t listening.
We stay in this business because we love the challenge. It is truly that simple.
Where else can you daily be with people who are genuinely talented and sometimes brilliant? People who will challenge your thinking and force you to go continuously to the well for sharper, more focused and more intelligent ideas. I love the inventiveness and personality and passion and drive of the people in this business.
Where else can a relatively small company use its collective thinking to actually move the business of a giant corporation? It’s not about David slaying Goliath. It’s about moving the Big Guy in a direction that makes all of us better and more successful. And man, when it works, it is so rewarding.
Where else can you be in a business that changes daily. Not annually, not quarterly, not monthly or weekly, but daily. (I guess you could be on the floor of the Stock Exchange but those people are truly nuts.) Look at the world of communications today. Look at its incredible complexity and constant swirl of change. Our consumers now decide how, when and where they will receive our message, and then they can frame it with their opinions and send it to the world. We have moved from driving the bus to trying to keep up with it.
Where else can you be in a business where the younger associates mentor the older ones? Really. That’s true. We older folks can bring the experience, the intuition and the business skills to the table. But, we have to lean on and learn from the ones who truly interact in today’s world of communications. And you know what? It’s great fun and it beats the hell out of rocking on the front porch.
And where else can you go home each and every night knowing specifically how you’ve contributed? We’re not small parts in a big machine where we’re not noticed until that machine breaks down. We are individuals who are recognized as such and we’re in an environment where brilliant ideas can come from anyone. I’ve seen it happen too often.
So, why are we in the business we’re in? It’s fun, it’s challenging, it demands intellect and ingenuity and creativity, it’s personal and it’s unique. If you do it well, it is immensely satisfying. And if you see other people do it well under your watch, it is even more satisfying.
So when you do get to go home, you don’t kick the dog, you tell him what your day was all about. He’s still not listening, but who cares?
— John Ketchum
Communication demands balance. In our world of the Internet, Blackberries, Blogs and Social Sites, it’s become comfortably easy to tip the scales towards communication through the written word. No actual human conversation involved. We’ve become accustomed to “conversation” through email, videos and posted comments.
At no other time in history has there been the instantaneous ability to gather information and opinions. But think back to the last time that someone spoke to you with so much emotion that you sat straight up in your chair, how you began to truly understand the message through various inflections as they spoke, and what their eyes told you more than your laptop screen ever will.
Technology is great. I love having a world of information at my fingertips. I play on Google Earth to see parts of the world I long-ago visited and those places that I dream of experiencing. I develop documents using the most intelligent software, templates and information found on the Internet. I blog to learn something new about a topic that has my full interest. My Blackberry constantly keeps me aware of issues before I begin my morning commute. My home answering machine has been my friend on several occasions when I am in the middle of great conversation and food with my family and friends.
Making connections is what we’re all about in the marketing business. We connect with humans through all of the advertising channels known to man. But in keeping up with new technology, are we losing the ability to humanly connect with others?
Some of LKM’s most impactful creative messages originated through conversations with people that develop and sell the products we market. A nugget of information has revealed itself through listening to factory floor associates and sales people on the retail floor. And there is nothing more invigorating as participating in a strategic session with the people I work with when an idea is about to take flight. And there is no real substitute for human interaction.
Don’t lose your ability or your need to humanly connect with others. Sit down with your associates instead of writing emails. Drive to your client’s office and talk, really talk, with your clients. And spend some time with your mentor or friends at lunch talking about people and issues that matter. Laugh and actually have someone laugh with you.
And let your answering machine do its job.
— Donna Forbes
The Good Ol’ Days Are Here: Take a Look!
Remember Megatrends? It was the groundbreaking trend book of the eighties, a series of underpinnings, you might call them, for understanding what was happening around us with a serious nod to the changes in technology. My favorite one was “high tech versus high touch.” The authors asserted that as technology became more pronounced in our lives, we’d also turn to opportunities where a live person was more valuable or to interiors that were especially comfortable or homey. High touch could be described a number of ways, but essentially, it stood for human-based comfort.
I still believe in the ying and yang of trendwatching. Today’s high tech/high touch premise still plays out in some ways. In the eighties, we never envisioned cell phones with email and video capabilities… or that today’s computer customer service personnel might answer our calls from India.
I say that today’s megatrend is “global versus local.”
Take a look at what’s happening right here in North Carolina. Manufacturing for our furniture industry is primarily based in China. Yet the growth of artisan crafts people is at an all-time high. In our outreach to journalists all over the country, we promote the “work of the hands”, the authentic travel experience someone can have as they take classes at Penland or Brasstown in our mountains or visit one of the 90 potters now living and working in Seagrove, just miles away from High Point, the furniture capital of the world.
In Charlotte, Executive Chef Tom Condron offers an Asian-style bento box appetizer at his fine dining restaurant, Upstream. Interestingly, many of the ingredients are sourced from local purveyors and perhaps even delivered by that farmer – or his wife – just hours before the chef washes and uses them to make the dish.
You can probably think of examples just like this in your neighborhood and sphere of work. While “going global” offers the opportunity to see black on the bottom line, it also comes with a certain amount of guilt, misgiving and immense change. “Local” on the other hand, offers a unique chance to see something miraculous happen in your own backyard. A chance for entrepreneurs, dreamers and the risk-averse to try something new. In North Carolina, that translates into tobacco farmers trying their hands at European-style grapes or growing truffles out where their families used to go hunting. It’s an artist you grew up with coming home from New York and making sales for the first time at a nearby gallery. Or maybe it’s laying the fireplace in your home with stone from the creek down the road or buying a handcrafted quilt from the shop down the street.
It’s enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck as you connect with the good feeling that comes from putting money back into the economy. YOUR economy. You smile with wonder… and have an intense desire to find out if that local wine is any good. Bottom’s up.
— Susan Dosier
Go to school. Every day.
An idea doesn’t care where it comes from. All output is dependent on the inputs. Rededicate yourself daily to taking in as much as you can from a broad range of interests, including ones outside your standard frame of reference.
Every so often, try reading something that really challenges the limits of either your standard paradigms or cognitive abilities. Give your mind time to wander – and unfamiliar places to wander into &ndash and you’ll bring more focus to your task.
Forget being fearless.
Fearlessness isn’t necessary. Fear is part of any birth. Admit it. Then get over it. All innovators risk ridicule and worse. Even small innovations are met with a Greek chorus of naysayers, but Prometheus still brings fire to the world. And occasionally gets his liver pecked out in the process. Settle for being a courageous thinker. Courage is acting in spite of your fears.
Analyze this.
Analysis is, scientifically speaking, breaking things down into their constituent parts. Analyzing an innovation isn’t like explaining why a joke is funny. It’s more like breaking down the visual, non-visual and verbal cues, the timing, the brand vernacular, to discover what makes an idea tick. Bet you find, at bottom, something that makes people tick.
Synthesize that.
And scientifically speaking, synthesis is putting disparate things together. After all, what is a mash-up but the intersection of disparate web sites? By all means, ask: What is this like? But also ask: What is this not like?
— Steve Lasch
