3.5 thoughts from #99conf

I've been planning to write up a long and enormously insightful post based on my experiences at 99u earlier this month. But time is getting away from me. So in lieu of that, here are a few thoughts and stories from my notebook. Basically a teaser for something much better that may never happen.

1. My super power is experimentation. This surprised the hell out of me. So many people I respect - clients, creative teams, account people - have told me my enthusiasm for advertising is why they trust me with their brand. And yes, energy was high on the list. But in the end, the SYPartners superpower test revealed that the biggest benefit I bring to a team is the willingness to throw ideas on the wall without worrying if each one is a guaranteed success.

2. The single most creative thing you can do is change the question. I have heard this thought before. But it was good to hear it repeated by people like Shane Snow. If you keep asking the same questions, you just get incremental improvements on old processes and tired ideas. But if you change the question at the outset, you’ll get lateral jumps into whole new approaches.

3. Anil Dash said the key to promoting diversity is to share your origin story. Not sure how mine will help. But here goes. I was working in a startup agency as its sole copywriter, PR person and sometime-account guy. And at the age of 22, I had no compass for knowing what good work was. My dad, who ran marketing at a big company, introduced me to the president of his agency, Dave Reece. Now, I’m the client’s kid, remember? Reece had every reason to butter me up. But instead he did the nicest thing anyone could have done. He told me my portfolio sucked and I had to swallow my pride and either go back to school or find some creative mentors I could trust. I followed his advice and headed off to Creative Circus. A couple years later, I graduated and came back to thank Reece. But he didn’t respond. And shortly afterwards I found out why. He’d gotten a brain tumor. He died soon afterwards, at the age of 46. Dave impacted a lot of people in Denver, and he’ll never know just how much my thirty-minute talk with him changed the direction of my life.

Bonus thought: Rohan Gunatillake can solve his “annoying voice” problem by getting Kelly McGonigal to read the audio on his mindfulness app. Trust me on this one, folks. I’ve done a lot of radio. It’s going to work.

Three ways to get your first creative job in advertising

[Ed. - I wrote the guts of this post at the same time I was working on Our Answers to Your Job Questions with Carmel. The two posts seemed redundant, so I shelved this one. I recently discovered it sitting around and decided to publish it. Enjoy.]

"I want to get into the creative side of the advertising business, but don't have a clue what to do. Help."

I have heard some variation of this question least four dozen times. My answer has become so pat it is more like a speech. Here it is:

"The calculation is simple. Great personality plus great book equals job. But I feel your pain. You can't get a job without a book and you can't start on your book without a job. You're stuck in a chicken versus egg scenario. What are you going to do?

First, look around you. Every single designer, art director and copywriter you see has found a way to break out of the loop. So take heart. It can be done.

There are all sorts of ways to make it happen. Be lucky. Have the right parents. Be named David Droga. But in general, I've seen three successful, repeatable strategies that anyone can use. And here they are:

First, try to get a job as an account coordinator. That's not to say that being an account coordinator is any easier than being a junior creative. It's not. At all. But the financial barrier to entry is lower. Ten bucks to print resumes versus several hundred dollars to shoot spec ads, buy layout software, and assemble a book. If you can land a job on the account side, you'll be able to spend a couple years learning how to work hard, speak intelligently and sell great advertising. And you'll be in an environment where you can get ahold of briefs, printers, software and most importantly, mentorship. Work on your book at night and on weekends. After a couple years, you can have a surprise epiphany. "I want to be a creative!" And you'll have the tools and the personal network you need to make that happen.

Second, you could go to ad school. The real benefit of Creative Circus or Miami Ad School isn't only a great portfolio. It's access to a giant network of working professionals all over the world. This is a foolproof method. It is also time-consuming and expensive.

The third strategy is the cheapest and fastest, but also the most bruising. It requires you to be fearless and persistent. Take your crappy samples and show them to everyone you can. Even people who you feel might be more junior or less talented than you. Explain that you do not expect a job, just some advice. You will get lots of conflicting comments and you will hear things that hurt your feelings. Don't let it get to you. Instead, go away and work to make everything better. Try new colors, new layouts, new headlines, new media, new everything. You must demonstrate that you are taking the advice you are getting seriously. Within two months, come back to everyone (yes, everyone) and ask to show your book again. Then ask them if there is anyone else they know who would be willing to give you even more advice. Repeat this process. A lot. With each round of showings, your book should get 25% better and your circle of contacts 50% wider. Eventually, you will be in the right place at the right time."

People in advertising have almost infinite patience for passionate, hardworking, humble young creatives. But they won't waste time on anyone who comes off as lazy, helpless, or full of themselves. So work hard and don't be a jerk. That's my advice.

Our answers to your job questions

I co-wrote this article for The Denver Egotist. It includes nuggets such as:

In the longterm, is it better to work internally for a brand or work for an agency?

This depends a bit on the type of job you want. In general, agencies need flexible people, and great work for five brands shows a wider skill set than extensive work for just one.

How do I apply for a specific job when I don't know what, specifically, I want to do within an agency?

You don't. Do internships until you know. When you apply for a job, you need to believe in your heart that you want that job more than any other job in the world. (Or at least act like you do.)

Check it out.

Five things I think I think about books

1. Account people should carry books: Account people have a big role in strategizing, selling and even creating work. Yet agencies hire them based on their resumes. How stupid is that? If I was responsible for hiring account people - and I'm not - I would demand to see their books.

2. Copywriters need to show copy: When I graduated from the Creative Circus, my book was full of visual solutions. And creative directors asked me for examples of copy. And I thought, "Pft. Whatever. Old dude doesn't get it." Now I'm on the other side of the desk. And I have to ask to see copy. And I know the kids think I am hopelessly hopeless. But that's the way it goes. Yes, concept is king. But I don't know too many agencies in Denver who can afford to hire writers that can't write.

3. Books are really hard to put together: Not the first time I've said this. The coolest stuff out there is integrated and experiential. And it's really hard to communicate that in a fast, fun book. I have no good solution. But I share the pain.

4. Sometimes books don't tell you as much as you think they do: A friend of mine, a creative director at a well-known agency in Seattle, told me that there are two types of genius writers. The geniuses who come up with the first ad in a campaign and the geniuses who come up with the 50th. (Actually, he didn't phrase it that way. I brushed the quote up because I can't f'ing help myself.) Both skills are equally valuable. But they're different. It's hard to tell from a book who did what.

5. Books favor the occasionally great, not the consistently good: Your book may have five campaigns in it. I know people who have five A+ campaigns and pretty much everything else they've ever touched sucks. And I know people with B books, but everything they ever do is a B. Who do you hire?

[Ed. - I'm illustrating this post with a Facebook photo of me looking at portfolios at NDAC Connect. Crossposted on my blog and on Karsh Connect.]

Students inspire, amaze and scare the hell out of me

For more than a month, I have had Autumn Wallace's resume on my desk. She handed it to me at the NDAC's student job fair in March and I got the chance to talk with her briefly. Our conversation began like this:

Her: I want to use human-centered design to address the flaws in complex systems that have been overlooked by the modern world.

Me: Huh?

She took me through her book. It was unlike any book I've ever seen. And I've seen a kazillion. Autumn redesigned an ambulance ride from the patient's point of view. She redesigned shopping technology from a blind person's point of view. She redesigned a fruit brand from a community's point of view. By the end of our talk, two facts were blindingly obviously to me:

1. Autumn was doing what agencies in America ought to be doing. She was finding places where brands and consumers intersect and making them beautiful and efficient.

2. It would be a gamble to hire Autumn based on her book, because after looking at it I wasn't sure she was passionate about doing the tasks that junior designers are expected to do - logos, packaging, websites, and, frequently, shelf talkers and counter cards.

My usual gripe about junior designers and art directors is that their books lack ideas and inspiration. But Autumn's book had the opposite situation. (I can't bring myself to call it a problem.) It was nothing but vision. So at some point in the conversation, I said something like this:

Me: I don't want to kill the dream here. You are doing something wonderful at a high level. But at most agencies, your first assignment will probably be something like, "Design a website." If you're lucky. It might be, "Design a mirror cling." Are you sure you're ready for that, both skill-wise and emotionally?

She assured me she was raring to get going in the real world. And if I had an open job, I would like to think I'd have the courage to hire her. But I keep looking at her resume and feeling confused. And then inspired. And then sad. And then just sort of confused again.

Advice to Next Creatives

[Ed. - I wrote this post several months ago, halfway through the first semester of Next. After I was finished with the post, I saw the brief for the third project. It specifically asked for print and poster executions, which rendered most of what I'd written irrelevant. Blog post, meet drafts file. Since we're about to begin another semester, I decided to dig up my post and publish it today. Enjoy.]

We're through two cycles of Next. I've showed up at both presentations, although both times I've been late and angry when I walked through the door. Gregg and Norm are two of Denver's best, most insightful, most ethical creative directors. And I should probably keep my mouth shut and let them do the critiquing. But, meh.

At your presentations, I've seen kazillions of good ideas. New business ideas. Marketing ideas. Technology ideas. What I haven't seen much of is good advertising.

Understand that I mean advertising in the broadest possible sense. I'm not boring enough to demand you all come to your presentations armed with print campaigns. But street teams, websites, guerrilla demonstrations, branded content, posters, short films, stickers. Anything.

As junior creatives, your first brief is unlikely to read, "Come up with some cool new technologies our client could develop." If you are lucky, it'll read, "Our client has decided to launch Initiative A. How do we publicize it to Target B?" (More likely, it'll read, "Please write a mirror cling that families with the existing brand campaign.")

Maybe you want jobs on the client side, in the marketing department. Or maybe you want to be planners. But assuming you want to be creatives, you need to anchor every campaign with at least one tangible piece of communication. Something that shows you can concept, write and design. (In addition to coming up with iPhone apps.)

For instance, Fallon London's Tate Modern work hinged on a marketing idea. But that didn't stop the agency from creating posters like the one that illustrates this post, which I hijacked from Creative Review.

To get a job, you're going to need more than ideas for new marketing initiatives. You're going to need communication skills. You're also going to need books that can ride by themselves, without explanation.

I would love to see some work that doesn't require a long commentary. And that's my unasked-for advice. Create a thing, and make that thing awesome. So awesome you can tack it to the wall. And walk away.

The difficulty of building a fresh book

I'm not the only one with questions about how to assemble a quick, cool hybrid digital and print book. Here's a quote from one of my friends, who asked to remain nameless, paraphrased because I didn't have a tape recorder handy:

Agencies keep claiming they want to see books with digital and integrated storytelling. But when I put that stuff in my book, they flip right past it. You shouldn't ask for it if you're not going to take the time to understand it.

How does one put a book together in the year 2008?

I'm a book junkie. Doesn't matter if I am happy where I am or not. I'm always replacing and reordering campaigns. Other people watch TV. Me, I look at my book and wonder how much it sucks.

Take the ad that illustrates this post. One of the last I wrote at TT&D. It's kind of cool. Especially for the alpha-mom target. Then again, it's just headline - photo - copy - logo. Couldn't it've been a little rougher around the edges? Should I put it in my book? And if so, what should I kill to make room for it?

But I digress.

Because what's really bugging me is how to display stuff like web banners, integrated storytelling, and nontraditional media.

Like the Regis stuff we did. I love the heck out of it. Because it wasn't just a print campaign. It was an attempt to build a relationship using a mixture of wild postings, SMS and student-generated content.

What does that look like in my book?

Or our new web banners for Denver Tourism. Some cool, fun rich media executions. But you really need to play with them to appreciate them.

When I got out of ad school in 2000, you could flip through my book in 60 seconds flat and decide whether you wanted to interview me. Now, it takes 60 seconds just to explain some of my work. ("See, when the page loads, it looks like this. But then when you roll over this banner, suddenly this other banner expands and becomes a game...")

I considered divvying things up. Print in a PDF, video as an Quicktime movie, sound as an .mp3, and digital on a website. But it felt clumsy. Worse, it lessens the power of the integrated campaigns I am proudest of.

I also considered abandoning my book altogether, and just posting my favorite stuff here on my blog. But I'm not sure that the world is ready for that sort of approach. I know that when Karsh looks for new creatives, we ask for physical books we can flip through and sort into Yes, Maybe and Hack piles.

I'm not the only one struggling with the issue of building the perfect portfolio. Astheria (via my fave anonymous ad geeks) did a non-scientific study which concluded that all online portfolios suck, always.

Sigh. Being good is hard enough. Do I still have to figure out how to prove it to complete strangers, too?