how to have smarter conversations

Somewhere along the the line I decided that embracing "Smarter Conversations" was preferable to prematurely consigning my career to the dustbin of history. I just wrote down some random thoughts:

1. Understand why what you're offering to do for other people is interesting, important, meaningful etc then start telling people about it.
Think about this one. Hard. If you don't know, then how will other people know? Exactly. They won't.

2. Live like you know the difference between remarkable and unremarkable, like it matters to you.
The more "remarkable" matters to you, the more likely that it will appear in the product you're selling. The more likely other people will notice it.

3. Seek out the exceptional minds.
This is my basic mantra. It's a good one to have. Not everybody gets it. Their loss.

4. Start a blog.
Blogs are funny things. Say something smart, people pay attention. Say something dumb, you're ignored. We big media folk just can't seem to get our heads around that concept, for some reason. Regular blogging can help train you to better discern between smart and dumb. Makes it easier to extend this to the rest of one's business.

5. Ruthlessly avoid working for companies that "don't get it".
Yeah, you may have to turn down a few gigs, and that can really hurt when the rent is due. Still, anything that's easy to get isn't worth having.

6. Ruthlessly avoid working for companies that think they know better than you.
Luckily, if you get the whole "smarter conversations" thing, their "Yes, Buts" will just seem rather empty. Making them easier to "toss out like old furniture".

7. Be nice.
Smarter conversations are fuelled by goodwill. Lose it and die.

8. Be honest.
Again, smarter conversations are fuelled by goodwill etc.

9. Karma is key.
But you already know that. Or you're stupid. No middle ground on this one, sorry.

10. Listen.Tongues are dumber than brains, brains are dumber than ears etc.

want an advertising job

So you want a writing job in the advertising business. Here are my two cents:

1. Be good.
If you're good you can get any job you want, at any agency you want. If you're not, then you can't and you won't. It's a ruthlessly meritocratic business.

2. Getting good is mostly practice.
I wrote 12 ads yesterday. All good ones. Took me a couple of hours. I'm not some creative genius, I've just been doing it a while.

3. Work on the ideas, not the polishing.
Most books look the same (a "book" is your portfolio of work samples you send around the agencies when you're hustling for a job). Yawn. Snore. More yawns and snores. Highly professional, highly polished, and full of second-rate ideas. You don't notice how ineffective a marketing tool they are till there's a recession on and you REALLY NEED to find a job.

4. Seek out the exceptional minds, avoid everyone else.
Life is short. You don't want to end up in The Watercooler Gang.

5. Write like you mean the words.
"Being creative" is not the hardest thing in the profession. That's easy. Being able to write about the client's product with conviction, with passion, with genuine humanity is far harder. Most copywriters can't do it. If you can do it, there's always going to be a market for it. Be excited.
(read more here...)

6. Make the client think differently about his product.
This is the gold dust of the profession. This is what the client will really value over the long-haul. Hard as hell to do. It took me almost 10 years in the business before I made my first real intellectual breakthrough with Gerber Baby Foods. Now it's pretty much all I do. Everything else is secondary.

7. Awards are overrated.
They're fine for allowing a young rookie to get his or her name known in the business, but award juries are mostly biased, political, paranoid, incestuous, smug, nasty entities, a refuge for self-satisfied, backwards-looking mediocrity. Any business plan that includes their approval in the equation is highly flawed.

8. TV is still where the money is.
If you work in the mainstream of the business, your career will be rewarded in direct proportion to the number of TV spots you sell. Yes, there are exceptions, but they're rare. This sad little factoid has pretty much sealed the death warrant on the standard agency business plan, but hey, it's not my problem.

9. The business is in meltdown.
Everybody knows the "Job For Life" is dead, cold and buried. However, professionally you're still expected to behave like that isn't the case. There's a disconnect. It won't last forever. Smart clients know that agency business models generally suck and what's on offer is expensive for what you get. We live in interesting times.

10. Everything you read about the advertising business is wrong (including this).How do I know? Because there's a new game in town. A new creature has come down the pike which will change the business forever. I don't speak about it here, I save it for my clients. Rock on.

Tips to being creative

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.
2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.
3. Put the hours in.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
7. Keep your day job.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
14. Dying young is overrated.
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
16. The world is changing.
17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
19. Sing in your own voice.
20. The choice of media is irrelevant.
21. Selling out is harder than it looks.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.
24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
25. You have to find your own schtick.
26. Write from the heart.
27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
28. Power is never given. Power is taken.
29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.
30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.