Don’t let yourself be labeled
Yesterday I ran into old colleague, now an art director at another agency. Here’s how he greeted me. “Hey, I heard you’re no longer creative. You’ve gone 100 percent digital and social.”
Now, I am under the impression that if you lose 30 pounds you may no longer be fat. Or that if you convert to Judaism you may no longer be Catholic. Or that if you have a sex change you may no longer be the same gender you used to be.
But I had no idea that if you went all digital and social that it meant giving up your creativity. Heck, for a moment I had actually believed that digital and social was the new creative.
Sure it’s possible, maybe even likely, that my encounterist employed the word as a noun rather than an adjective. But it was, nevertheless, a reminder that in our business we continue to apply restrictive labels far too liberally. Labels that affect how we think of each other.
Want a creative idea? You go to the “creatives.” Need a digital creative idea? Seek out the “digital creatives.” If it’s a social media idea you’re after, well then, find yourself a social media person.
We do the same with companies. If you’re an ad agency, you can’t be a digital agency. If you’re a digital agency, you can’t be very good at branding. If you’re a digital production company you can’t do digital strategy.
Certainly there are times when specialization, either as a company or an individual, positions us more strongly or enables us to differentiate ourselves in competitive pitches.
But in general labels holds us back. Worse yet, they become self-fulfilling. It’s hard to grow if you’re nothing but a boutique. Tough to get invited into the creative brainstorming if you’re merely the strategist. Challenging to win a digital client if you’re a traditional agency.
If I were to be labeled anything my preference would be someone who defies labels. Is that possible?
Creativity is on the decline just when we need it most
This is bad news. We have just entered the age of crowdsourcing, consumer generated content, and plethora social media tools and technology that enable consumers and spectators to become creators and broadcasters and it turns out this transformational moment coincides with a measurable decline in creativity.
You know what that means? I do. If there aren’t already enough bad TV spots on air, heinous videos on YouTube and insufferable online ads popping up to take over our screens we can now expect the next generation to produce even more. Egads, the last thing we need is less creativity just when we’ve all become content creators.
But according to Newsweek – and some real research – this is exactly what’s happening. IQ scores are up. Creativity is down.
The findings are based on tests that have been in use for over 50 years. Pioneered by E. Paul Torrance in 1958, the evaluation system, while not perfect, has accurately predicted kids’ creative accomplishments as adults with enough reliability to remain the de facto standard to this day.
Historically those who’ve done well as children have grown up to become entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, software developers, and, of course, creative directors. Between 1958 and 1990 creativity scores went up; but for the last 18 years they’ve inched downward year after year.
No one knows why this is happening, exactly, but if you have kids in public school, especially those that emphasize standardized testing, you know that we’re not doing much to encourage creativity and problem solving compared to the efforts put into rote memorization.
Interestingly the solution isn’t about teaching more music or art or creative writing necessarily. It’s about problem solving. Neuroscience now informs us that the relationship between the left side of the brain (concentrating on facts and what you know) and the right side (scanning distant memories for relevance) is what yields that aha sensation. And there are exercises and educational approaches that can both stimulate and encourage that catalytic moment.
What should educators and parents do?
1. Emphasize project-based learning. Develop curricula that call for fact finding, idea generation, solution evaluation and implementation.
2. Encourage role playing at a young age. Seeing alternative views and perspectives helps creativity.
3. Don’t answer your kids’ questions; make them explore possible answers on their own.
4. Mate with an opposite: families that celebrate uniqueness enhance flexibility and adaptability.
5. Diligently practice creative activities and problem solving.
Got any other ideas? Besides turning the schools over to Tim Brown and Sir Ken? Please share.
It’s SxSW panel submission time
I just got my SxSWi panel submission in under the wire. Was on vacation so totally forgot. Won’t have any idea whether it has a chance or not until September. But here it is. If you read stuff here regularly, you won’t be too surprised. Following the SxSW submission guidelines there’s the title (limited to eight words; agree mine still needs work); description (1500 characters max, though I’ve fattened it up a little bit for this blog post; who it’s intended for; the five questions it will answer; and why I’m qualified to participate (that was the really hard part.)
Title:
New Models Prove That Ad Agencies Will Survive
The title can’t be more than eight words — Rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated was an alternative — but they want something more specific, hence the reference to “new models.”
Description:
Social media enthusiasts, inbound marketers and digital shops have all declared that the advertising agency as we know it is dead. But is it really? The old agency model may have lost its relevance, but there is a new crop of “agencies” springing up all around us.
Still in their infancy, crowdsourcing agencies are succeeding at sourcing ideas from both the public and free agents.
Digital production companies that combine technology and production now offer strategy and branding in attempt to displace agencies of record.
Social savvy integrated agencies that boast innovation “labs” are experimenting with everything from the creation of their own products to the development of digital eco-systems rather than ad campaigns.
The implications of these new models are significant:
They create new opportunities for brands and marketers as they learn to engage rather than “broadcast.”
They force traditional agencies to adapt more quickly if they are to survive.
They call for a new set of skills and expertise from those who want to work and prosper in the industry.
This panel, comprised of leaders who represent each of the models, along with a leading CMO from a major marketer, will explore the following:
–Why rapidly changing consumer behavior (from spectator to creator, from reader to publisher) demands constant reinvention on the part of agencies
–Creating a culture that embraces change
–Criteria that brands and marketers should use to evaluate the new models
–The skills employees will need in the future if they are to prosper and succeed.
Who it’s intended for:
Ad agency executives, CMOs, marketing executives, ad industry employees will all benefit from this discussion. They’ll come away with ideas, examples of what doesn’t work, and new ways to think about the business they dedicate so much of their life to.
Questions this panel will answer:
- What does the next generation ad agency look like?
- Do I need one agency or multiple specialty shops?
- How is consumer behavior and technology affecting advertising effectiveness?
- What kind of skills will be most valuable to the industry in the future?
- What doesn’t work and how can I avoid making mistakes others have made?
What qualifies me:
Needless to say I wrote something that makes me sound impressive. After all, I am in advertising.
So, what do you think? Any good? Would you attend?
You don’t need a gigantic network to create, experiment and succeed
I was excited today to make a small donation to The Bucket Brigade, a project that might actually end up a book; presuming Bud Caddell’s attempt at crowdfunding its publication raises enough money.
According to Bud’s Kickstarter pledge page, if he manages to solicit $5000 from his social media friends and followers, he’ll have enough cash to take time off to write and pay an editor to help him complete what he promises will be directions for how to profit in the “attention economy.”
It’s my guess that Bud will raise his money in no time. And I hope this post helps in some small way. Bud’s experiment – in his words he’s “trying to prove that there’s more value in our networks than we can even fathom” – is the epitome of what new social media platforms like Kickstarter and Kachingle or old ones like Twitter and Facebook allow us to do.
We live in an age when anyone can publish, broadcast, design a product or start a movement. The only thing stopping us is fear, inertia or lack of a network. If Bud raises his $5000.00 – in $25 and $100 increments – it will be one more reminder of how much power has shifted to the individual.
Bud has 5000 followers on Twitter. That’s a pretty good number, though a far cry from a Chris Brogan. He has a blog that gets between 4,000 and 12,000 visits a month. That’s influence, but it’s not Seth Godin. I point that out as a reminder that you don’t have to be Brogan, or Godin or Gary Vaynerchuk to make things happen.
Sheena Matheiken’s The Uniform Project raised over $100,000 to send kids in India to school. Its Facebook fan page has 7,400 “likes,” while it’s Twitter followers number just over 5,900.
Erik Proulx, with his blog and his supporters on Twitter, was able to produce Lemonade the movie and get started on Lemonade Detroit. Erik has a similar number of followers and blog readers to Bud.
When you get started in social media – one person among millions, with nothing more than a Twitter account and no clear set of instructions – it seems unlikely that you can actually accomplish all that much. But you can. If you follow the examples of Bud, Sheena and Erik – engage, give, share, create, experiment – you’ll be surprised at what you can do.
Got other really good examples of what individuals have done by gathering a community, building a network and trying something ambitious? Please share here. And as always,thanks for reading.
The guaranteed way to teach your kid to ride a two-wheeler
I know this is a little off topic. But consider that riding a bike is as unbound as it gets, and the technique I’m about to share is definitely creative. Plus if everyone left his or her car in the garage and did a little more pedaling we’d be less dependent on foreign (or domestic oil) and be taking a first step in the battle against obesity. So, in a way, this is a public service message.
So, here’s the deal. If you want to teach your son or daughter to ride a two-wheeler I can guarantee this works. (My own son’s been screaming around the neighborhood sans training wheels since he was four.)
1. Take the training wheels and pedals off of your kid’s bike
You read that right; remove the pedals. I’m presuming he already knows how to pedal. We’re now going to learn to balance.
2. Lower the seat so his feet touch the ground flat while sitting
Make sure your child can sit on the bike and touch the ground with the flats — not the toes –of both feet. These are going to be his brakes. I’ll explain in a moment.
3. Find an empty parking lot with a slight incline
Ideally you want a smooth surface whose incline is just enough to allow your kid and his bike to coast down a gentle slope without going to fast.
4. Have your kid sit on the bike with his feet flat on the ground
You should go to the bottom of the incline, maybe 30 yards away. He’s simply going to lift his feet off the ground –holding his feet out to the sides just enough so the bike starts to coast — and aim toward you. (Focusing on you will also teach your child the lifelong lesson of “watching your target line,” advice that works for everything, from cycling to golf to business. But I digress.) If he gets a little nervous and needs to stop, he simply brings his feet back in toward the bike and uses them as brakes. Remember that the incline should have a slope that makes it possible. (Think angled enough that a basketball would roll down it but not so steep that you couldn’t catch up to it.)
5. Here’s what will happen
The first time he lifts his feet off the ground he’ll get a little tipsy and bring them back in to stop almost immediately. The second time he’ll coast 10 yards or so before stopping. The third or fourth time he’ll coast, balancing on two wheels, from the top of the hill down to you. Have him do this a couple of more times, then put the pedals back on. It’s time to repeat the process only now have him start pedaling when he reaches the bottom. He’s a cyclist.
6. What comes next?
Hopefully he’ll pedal for the rest of his life, rolling along with all those who believe cycling is the solution to many of the world’s problems: energy, health, affordable transportation, stress. And maybe you’ll join him, even if it’s been years since you rode.
Lastly, please make sure he wears a helmet and that you do, too. Ride safe.
