Archive for September, 2004
September 30, 2004
5 Comments
There are a lot of great marketing books and blogs out there. That being said, I still think the best marketing stories come from personal, first-hand experience.
Here’s a favorite one of mine:
Back when I lived in New York there was this fabulous, crazy-ass juice bar on West Houston called Lucky’s Juice Joint. I think it’s no longer there. I hear it’s moved.
It was the most out-of-place business south of 14th Street. Hard to descibe, except as a “hardcore hippie haven”. Just had this weird, crazy, psychedelic-rainforest vibe.
But damn, it had the best juice in town. It was amazing stuff. Tasted like the fruits and vegetables were picked that morning. Fresher than anything else I found in New York. And yes, I had searched high and low for even better alternatives, but never found one. In New York, this was really it.
The boss was this crazy looking tie-dye wearing guy who looked and talked like he had done too many drugs back in the ‘sixties. A big ol’ middle aged, acid-head teddy bear.
One day we struck up a brief conversation. I complimented the hell out of his product.
“Wow,” I quietly gushed, “Your stuff is the best. It really is…”
“Sure it is,” said the guy. “That’s because we make it with reverence.”
You don’t have to get a job with a famous company or hot-shot industry in order to have a spectacular career. You just have to do what you do with reverence.
[UPDATE:] Tom from True Talk Blog makes a TERRIFIC point: “Authenticity and reverence are two sides of the same coin.”
Yes! Exactly!
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THE HUGHTRAIN: “THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE.”
We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary.
We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature…
Had some more thoughts, mostly disorganised ones:
: Bloggers are a fairly idealisitic bunch. When you talk about spirituality within a brand context they often get a bit twitchy. I guess some kind of self-imposed purity law is being messed with.
: Jack, a young Communications student from Australia wrote me today:
I’d like to see the future of advertising in blogs. I can see how they’re part of it. But to be honest, I don’t think I see the bigger picture.
So I write back:
Very few people can see the big picture, including those at the top of the industry.
The Communications industry can’t see the big picture because it doesn’t yet have a mechanism to handle Chaos Theory.
Worse than that, it doesn’t have any business models that allow them to do what they do cheaply. They only have expensive models. All those mouths to feed, all those executive golf club memberships to pay for etc etc.
You know that celeb on that TV show you watch? You know, the one with the fancy-schmancy lifestyle your long-sufferring wife spends all her time enviously reading about in the tabloids?
Where does the celeb gets the means to buy all that cool stuff?
That’s right. From your paycheck. Her money comes from you. Because the money that pays for her TV appearances comes from advertisers, who get their money from you when you go to Wal-Mart and buy their products that you saw advertised on your celeb pal’s TV show the night before.
Nice to see all that hard-earned money you take home from the job at the paper mill going to help such worthy causes, like a new beach house in Malibu etc.
Big Media Celebrity Worship is corporate feudalism at its finest. The little people paying for the big people. I think it’s cute.
September 28, 2004
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5 Comments
“Mark Love
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About once a week, I have to catch the late train home. Bob the cab driver always meets me the station and drives me to my house.
Bob’s got what Seth Godin calls ‘The Free Prize’. He’s got what Tom Peters calls “The Wow! Factor”. He’s got something I like that no other cab driver has. It might be his jovial manner, it might be I like the fact his car is colored red. It might be the fact that he’s very reliable. The reason doesn’t matter so much. Regardless, Bob gets my business 100% of the time. When he can’t make it I let his brother pick me up instead, but that doesn’t happen too often. I call no other cab service but Bob’s. There are a lot of cab companies where I live. Cab driving is a pretty commodified business. But I call Bob. Every time. I like Bob.
And the minute he pisses me off for whatever reason I’ll find another cab driver I like just as much.
September 27, 2004
1 Comment
Just found this old one, floating around the net somewhere. Heh.
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Back in the 60s and 70s, Received Wisdom would say that a computer company should make both main bits of the machine– the hardware and software. IBM, Digital etc all followed this model.
But 25 or so years ago Microsoft asked themselves one of the best questions ever in the history of business:
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You ask folk to name some brands that really resonate with them, what Saatchi & Saatchi’s would call a
September 26, 2004
3 Comments
1. Do you mind me posting your work on my website?
Not at all. Just as long as it’s properly credited, unaltered (yes, you can alter the size to fit your site, no worries) and links back to gapingvoid. Check my Creative Commons License for more info. Also, I’d rather you make a copy of the images and host them on your own server rather than “stealing” my bandwidth. But if you can’t do that for whatever reason, then go ahead and “hotlink”. I’m not too fussy about it, to be honest. If you want your stuff to be read, then you have to make allowances etc.
2. I really want a certain image on a blogcard. Could you make it for me?
Sorry, no. Blogcards don’t make enough money for individual commissions. In fact, I make no money from them. Everything is ploughed right back into paying for bandwidth. I just publish them mostly for the fun of it. That being said, I plan to be adding new designs to the stable, so if you have a favorite one, feel free to drop me an e-mail.
3. Are all your drawings drawn on the back of business cards?
Yes and no. I draw some of them on other people’s printed cards, but mostly I draw on blank pieces of high quality bristol board, cut to business card size. This goes back to the early days when instead of handing out my company’s business cards, I would just make a wee doodle on a blank card with my contact details on the back. People remebered it more, somehow. So blank cards have always been “business cards” to me. Depends how you want to define it.
4. Are you a full time cartoonist?
No. It’s just a hobby.
5. Are you married?
No. Very single at the moment. Never been married. No kids to my knowledge, either.
6. What’s your day job?
I’m a “blogvertising” consultant.
7. I’m new to gapingvoid. What should I check out first?
This is what I generally point people to:
The About Page: History of the cartoon-bizcard format, plus a list of my dozen or so sentimental favorite cartoons, with the story of how each one came into being.
The Hughtrain: “The market for something to believe in is infinite.” A rant about the new realities of marketing.
How To Be Creative: Tips that have worked for me over the years. The book proposal is here.
The Sex & Cash Theory: “The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.”
Old Site: Before I got into this whole blogging thing, I posted about 400 drawings on an old-fashioned website. Worth checking out.
7. What do you look like?
Some wonderfully unflattering pics of me are here.
September 25, 2004
2 Comments
It’s official:
“The consumers who make the biggest difference (the busy ones, the ones who earn a lot, spend a lot, vote, talk a lot and change things) are the ones most likely to be online and least likely to watch TV.”
You think TV is tedious? You should see the people who work in it.
As a cartoonist, I prefer blogging to publishing in old media. I like the total control. I like the one-on-one.
Careerwise, I meet far more interesting people via blogging than I ever did working in TV or Madison Avenue.
ALLEGORY: The difference between blogging and mass-media cartooning is like the difference between a glass of whisky in front of a fire with an old friend, and talking to a hundred random people in a nightclub.
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Somebody recently asked me what my dream job would be.
Being a professional cartoonist is not it. I absolutely loathe the bunker-dwelling lifestyle. I absolutely despise the market most cartoonists have to schlep in.
Being a conventional advertising copywriter is also not it. Most copywriters are uninspired hacks with only a small bag of smartass tricks separating themselves and oblivion. Very few of them bring any seriously original thinking to their client
September 23, 2004
28 Comments
I’m turning “How To Be Creative” into a book. Here is the rough outline for the publishing folk etc.
(NB: The Book Proposal is here)
“The Sex & Cash Theory: How To Be Creative In A Non-Creative World”
“Sex & Cash” is a book about how to deal with the creative bug properly without it ruining your life.
The book will have about 15 – 30 thousand words. It will be small and thick; I’m thinking 5 x 8 inches. Mixed in with the main text will be hundreds of my cartoons, which will compliment the writing.
The Pitch: “Seth Godin meets Edward Gorey”. You either get it or you don’t.
Introduction: “The best way to get approval is not to need it.” This is the central message of the book. A lot of people daydream about living the creative life, about being a writer, artist, whatever, even if they don’t really have anything to say or really want to do the actual work. This book is not for them. This book is for people who already have a few ideas of their own, who may already be well on their way, but maybe could use a wee push. It’s not an instruction manual. It just shows where some of the land mines are buried, and gives direct and unapologetic advice on how to avoid stepping on them.
It will be very different from the usual touchy-feely “Personal Creativity” fare. It’ll have a bit more bite to it. It will not try to romantisize the creative life, nor try to convert people to living it. The aim is not to make the reader feel comforted, validated or make it all seem easier than it actually is. The main thesis of the book is just to get on with it; that only when one has dropped all those clich
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:Yes, another spike shoved my bandwidth above its quota late last night and caused my site to be down for 8 hours. I’ve sorted it out with my webmaster. It shouldn’t happen again, he said, reaching for his checkbook.
: Another diamond from Seth Godin:
In a world where things are viral, you’re more likely to succeed with passive networking (strangers recommending you) than the old school active kind. In other words, make great stuff, do your homework, build your audience and when you’ve got something worth talking about, people will talk about it.
I love this guy. “Passive Networking”. What a stunningly great term from a stunningly great paragraph.
: Tom Peters’ new blog is ferociously good. There’s a reason why he gets the big bucks. My pet name for fun, motivational writings about business is “Greedcandy”. It’s a bit cynical, but hey, it was coined by me, so go figure…
Anyway, Tom and Seth are my two favorite Greedcandy folk at the moment. [UPDATE:] Though I’m thinking Evelyn Rodriguez is getting damn close to stealing their crowns. Her stuff already goes beyond them both in a lot of ways.
Hear that, Tom? You’ve got serious competition for a change 
September 22, 2004
3 Comments
“The best Scottish movie ever. An utter masterpiece of seething, beat-novel-film-noir sexuality.” — Hugh MacLeod
Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Emily Mortimer etc.
Opened in USA April 16th, 2004
Buy the R-Rated DVD from Amazon.com
Buy the artisically superior, far racier but more expensive NC-17 version from Amazon.co.uk.
Been a while since I pimped Young Adam.
The DVDs are out, so if you haven’t seen it yet, well, your loss.
Frankly, I’d recommend the NC-17/X-rated British version. Scenes were cut in the American version to make it fit the R-Rating.
Disclaimer: one of my best friends, Dave MacKenzie directed it. So of course I’m biased.
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The corporate business model of the (very near) future is childishly simple to understand. Nike, Dell and Coca Cola already use it, and most big companies are gearing up to implement it ASAP.
THE FUN NEW BIZ MODEL:
The company is divided into two parts, Part A and Part B.
Part A is much, much smaller than part B. Part B is huge.
Part A is called “Creative”.
Part B is called “Outsourced.”
So, are you creative or are you outsourced?
September 21, 2004
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I
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Chess pieces move the way they do for a reason:
A drunk Scottish guy in a pub told me this story. Fisk away.
Chess pieces are wee representations of ancient warfare.
1. Pawns. Foot soldiers. They were ordered to advance, fight to the death, and never retreat. Manoeuvring a phalanx of them in any direction other than forwards was pretty much impossible until the advent of the highly trained, highly drilled professional soldier, which didn’t appear until much later with the Romans.
2. Knights. In ancient times, Calvary never advanced head on, but flanked i.e. they went around the back and attacked at the side.
3. Rooks. The original chess rooks were not castles, but war elephants. Elephants are fairly unstoppable once they get going, but not very manoeuvrable. Hence they can go in straight lines– forward, backward, left, right– but little else. In ancient times war elephants carried little
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More thoughts on “How To Be Creative”:
26. Write from the heart.
There is no silver bullet. There is only the love God gave you.
As a professional writer, I am interested in how conversation scales.
How communication scales, x to the power of n etc etc.
Ideally, if you
September 20, 2004
7 Comments
A startup I know just got big and sexy. Now the people doing the actual work are pissed off because suddenly the management are starting to believe their own publicity. Suddenly the fancy-talk consultants are moving in. Suddenly for the first time the CEO is closing the door to his office so his underlings can
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A few years ago, the ad agency I worked for in New York was sold to Euro RSCG, the international advertising conglomerate.
The week of the paper being signed, the entire agency was crowded into this big room, and the then CEO of Euro RSCG, Bob Schmetterer, our new boss, gave us this big pep talk. We were part of this big global future that was happening or whatever.
Fair enough. I kinda saw the vision. It made sense, sorta, at least from a senior management position. We grunts were less sure, but since when are grunts sure about anything senior management gets up to?
So Bob opened the floor to questions. Nobody really had any, which I thought was odd. So to break the awkward silence I raised my hand.
September 19, 2004
7 Comments
Artists, both famous and unknown, spend a lot of time waiting around for “The Big Yes Moment” to arrive. The moment where they get the greenlight. The moment where the publisher, producer, whatever finally calls him/her up and goes “Yes!”
Yes! You are no longer pond scum. Welcome to the happy, shiny, Holy Order of Non-Failure. Yes! Yes!
Yes! We’re going to make your movie! Yes! We’re going to publish your novel! Yes! We’re going to give you a show!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Go to any art opening, film screening or book launch in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo etc. The place is full of these people– artists killing time, drinking the free wine, working the room, trying to hide their fear and doubt, trying not to look desperate, trying to look like players, trying to feign relevance, trying to be as interesting and confident and amusing and networked as possible, all waiting around till their Big Yes Moment hopefully one day lands on their lap from an unknown direction. It doesn’t matter if they’re a 20-year-old art student or a 50-year-old Oscar Nominee. Their palpable unease carries the same vibe.
Some lame-ass myth exists that if you’re talented, hard working, savvy and networked enough, then one day power will be given to you.
It doesn’t happen like that. Power is never given. Power is taken.
Power comes from sovereignty.
So now you know.
September 18, 2004
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Coined a new term. Heh.
TROGGING: Trust + Blogging i.e. “Using Blogs to build trust and transparency.”
It occurs to me that my opinion of Microsoft has risen considerably in the last year.
Not that I ever belonged to the “Bill Gates is Satan” crowd. I never was into computers enough to really care whether a guy in Redmond wrote the code, or some guy in Toledo. The same way I don’t really care who made my telphone or my microwave, so long as it works. It’s not an area where I project a lot of myself in to.
Still, there is something quite monolithic about Microsoft, and one always keeps an eyebrow raised when something gets that big, quite rightly.
So what happened? A new product? Nope. I still use the same Windows 98 and creaky, old Dell as always. Great new advertising campaign? Nope. Not watching much TV these days. Bill Gates gave all his money to cancer research? Nope. Not seen that much mention of him in the media recently.
What happened in there’s this guy called Robert Scoble who has a blog that I’ve been reading a lot this last 6 – 9 months. Robert works for Microsoft. Mark seems like a smart, honest, regular guy who holds down a job, same as the rest of us. He just happens to work for Microsoft. Robert writes about his job and his company the same way I would if I worked for them and liked my job. Informal, informed, friendly, it gives real insight about his company where possible– he tries to be as open and insightful as he can without disclosing trade secrets.
It other words, he seems sane, reasonable, trustworthy, human and somebody who knows what he’s talking about. Which to me helps make Microsoft seem likewise.
One guy and his blog, doing more real good for his company than any multimillion dollar ad agency campaign could ever hope to achieve.
As somebody in the ad business, I find the implications staggering.
Long live Robert Scoble, King of the Troggers!
UPDATE: Rick Bruner shows what happens when a company (in this case, Kryptonite Bicycle Locks) doesn’t “trog”:
This is simply going to devistate Kryptonite. Too bad, I’ve always been a fan. Of course, this isn’t principally a communication problem; it’s a product problem. The only thing I could think that might save their business at this point would be a massive recall/refund for every customer with a U-lock. But this is also a communication problem. As a customer (I have four of their locks), I would really like to know whether this problem affect their other products, or whether it is limited to that Evolution 2000. But their communication on this sucks. The story broke online, yet there is nothing about it on their web site. They could really, really use a blog to try to contain the damage ASAP. But looking at their actions so far, I am not optimistic.
Can you imagine how much money Kryptonite would have saved if they only had the foresight to let one of their smarter writers keep a company blog?
Companies that “trog” will remain. Companies that don’t will die. You heard it here first. Fire your ad agency. Hire a blogger who knows what he’s doing.
NB: Yes, I know, “trogging” is a silly word. I’m not expecting it to catch on, frankly.
UPDATE: Rober Scoble spotted this post and gave it a wee mention. Thanks, Robert!
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I work in the advertising and branding business, coming up with ideas. These are my sentimental favorites.
1. The Hughtrain: “The market for something to believe in is infinite.”
2. Movie Blogvertising. I was the first ever to use blogs as form of advertising for a commericaly-released film, as far as I know. Maybe somebody beat me to it, but my radar hasn’t caught it so far. [Update: Radar just caught it: This was the first. Heh. But at the time I didn’t know of it.]
3. Seally Commerical: Killer Whale.
4. My Diet Coke Ad.
5. McDonald’s. “Stay Hungry.”
6. “Smarter Conversations”. Kinda says it all.
7. “Blogcards”.
8. “Aaaaagh! It’s Mr Hell!”
9. The Kinetic Quality. “A brand is a place, not a thing.”
10. “Quality is not job one.” Life is suffering.
(more…)
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Tim Oren has some wonderful thoughts on the bundling and rebundling of content:
These bundling strategies are not stable of themselves, they exist only within the context of technology, distribution and transaction costs surrounding them. When these change, bundles may collapse. The CD is the obvious example. With individual digitized songs now easier to duplicate and distribute than the physical bundle, the albums raison d’etre has disappeared. As the simple playlist replaces the album’s remaining value of simplifying choice, CDs commence a slow glide to oblivion, moderated only by the installed base of equipment and consumer habit.
Jeff Jarvis has some nice thoughts to add:
If the network or the newspaper or the magazine or the cable system was the old bundle, the internet itself is the new bundle: In this medium of extreme control, we each put together whatever bundle we want…
This accelerates the commoditization of content. It also provides opportunities for those who can add value (and convenience and perspective and even fun)… In this new distributed, unbundled, post-marketplace, molecular, commoditized media world, value can be added in many ways. It’s about relationships. It’s about relevancy. It’s about service. It’s about uniqueness. It’s about perspective.
My two cents: A friend of mine just got laid off from his high-paying editorial job at FHM. He’s 37. His bosses figured they could get a 26 year old to do the job a lot cheaper. They were right, of course.
Every non-executive media, publishing and advertising person I know is hurting. But I don’t expect the pain levels to ever decrease, for reasons Tim and Jeff talked about.
Even worse, a lot of these folk live in “media center” cities like New York or London that, unlike the prices they command for their services, never get cheaper.
i.e. their jobs are worth less and less every day, the towns they live in get more and more expensive to live in every day. It’s unsustainable.
We media/advertising/content folk are supposed to be “creative”. Yet we’re very uncreative when it comes to thinking about our business models differently. We still expect management to take care of that aspect for us, in exchange for allowing our “creativity” to be squeezed like lemons. Management knows we’re screwed, knows we’re stuck, knows we’re desperate, so they squeeze harder. I would do the same. So would you.
Like I said in “How To Be Creative”, all existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.
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September 17, 2004
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Just added the following blurb to The Hughtrain:
There
September 16, 2004
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A wonderful rant from Tom Peters, courtesy of the ever life-affirming Halley Suitt.
Tom’s latest book, “Re-imagine!” is wonderful. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Same goes for Halley’s website.
tomAto, TOMaTO by Tom Peters
New Delhi. Thirteen September 2004. I awoke, jetlagged and sweaty, at 3A.M. I
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I really, really like Seth Godin’s basic take on marketing. To him, there are only two questions worth asking:
1. Who
September 15, 2004
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I’ve been a keen advocate of Blogads for a while, now they’re on gapingvoid as well.
If you have something worth sharing with my readers, feel free to click the link at the bottom of the “blogvertising” adstrip, or go here.
My stats: I’m currently getting around 5000 visits a day, often more. A lot of my audience are people interested in advertising and marketing. I also get a lot of random hipster traffic because of the cartoons. I get a lot of creative folk because of my “How to be Creative” schpiel. I’m read by a lot of journalists, for some reason. I also get a lot of “A-Listers” coming to visit, which often triples my traffic (Thanks, Guys!).
My Google Page Rank is a “7”, which makes my site’s “link universe” comparable to other large blogs like adrants, joi.ito.com, buzzmachine.com etc.
Since gapingvoid got pretty well known my bandwidth costs have gone through the roof. The blogads are a way to hopefully pay for them. I didn’t use blogads before because I didn’t think my traffic was high enough to warrant using them. Now I do.
Hmmmm.… anything else I’m leaving out?
September 14, 2004
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September 12, 2004
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Britton Monasco writes about “The Fragmentation of Fashion” over at Corante. It’s a good read.
My two cents: It’s not just consumers have too much choice; it’s that they’ve gotten too smart.
They know that $100 t-shirt cost $2 to make in The Phillipines. They know the supermodel is just as screwy, tedious and flawed as the rest of us.
They know there’s a short, bald guy behind the curtain.
Dazzling them with your brand isn’t as easy as it used to be. The bullshit detectors are a lot more powerful than when you were back getting your MBA.
And they’re getting more powerful every day. You know that, I know that, to pretend otherwise is just stupid and wrong.
You no longer control the conversation, they do. All you can do is make products that enhance the conversation. That make the conversation interesting and wonderful.
It’s what I said in The Hughtrain: “It’s not just the product. People have to love the process as well.”
i.e. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.
Markets are now faster and smarter than you are. Without belief and purpose, you have nothing.
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My life has been completely governed by an e-mail exchange I had earlier in the year with Bob.
Bob is the Japanese brand director for a very large international brand. A famous one. You’ve heard of it. Bob is a very smart and talented guy.
At the time I was starting to really get into the whole Cluetrain thing. I was looking at the advertising industry as a whole, and not liking what I was seeing, frankly.
So I exchange a few e-mails on the subject with Bob over in Tokyo. I remember Bob writing back something in particular about ad agencies– I don’t even have to look it up, I can easily recite it from memory:
“Their business models suck and they’re expensive for what you get.”
There’s the rub. Their business models do suck and they are indeed expensive for what you get. Bob is no fool.
So, my advertising friends, here’s the new deal:
It’s not about strategy.
It’s not about media.
It’s not about creative.
It’s about having a business model that (a) doesn’t suck and (b) isn’t expensive for what you get.
I have a plan. Do you?
September 11, 2004
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One thing about using the business card as a primary medium is the small size forces you to to think about what you’re saying. You don’t have the space to waffle or ramble. You cut to the chase. The drawing above is a pretty good example, I guess. It tells a lot of story in few words.
I can’t tell you how useful this has proved to me professionally. In mass-market advertising, both space and airtime are very expensive. So every sentence you cut out saves thousands of dollars of your client’s money.
In a world of permanently fragmenting media, the market for “shorter” increases. The market for “longer” decreases. Artistically one could easily find that objectionable, but that doesn’t change the actual market.
September 10, 2004
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“How To Be Creative” is done, finally.
25 entries, 10,000 words, 26 drawings. One very large thread.
Thanks to Everybody for reading it. Especially thanks for all the feedback you left in the comment section. It really helped.
Yeah, I’ll tweak it and whatnot. But it’s done.
Thanks again =)
PS: Yes, I have had some publishing conversations. Yes, I have an agent. Expect a book at some point. Nothing is set in stone yet. If you’re a publisher, please feel free to get in touch with me. If you know anyone in publishing who might be interested, please e-mail them a link to this page. Thanks.
As well as books, there are other possibilites– postcards, stationery, t-shirts, posters etc etc.
Anyhow, yeah, so I’m looking for allies to turn gapingvoid into something bigger than just a website. Angel investors, VC money, publishing deals, I’m open to anything. Again, feel free to drop me a line if you have any ideas:
email: hugh at gapingvoid etc.
Thanks again. Rock on.
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More thoughts on “How To Be Creative”:
25. You have to find your own schtick.
A Picasso always looks like Piccasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven Symphony always sounds like a Beethoven’s Symphony. Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else’s voice but your own.
Every artist is looking for their big, definitive “Ah-Ha!” moment, whether they’re a Master or not.
That moment where they finally find their true voice, once and for all.
For me, it was when I discovered drawing on the back of business cards.
Other, more famous and notable examples would be Jackson Pollack discovering splatter paint. Or Robert Ryman discovering all-white canvases. Andy Warhol discovering silkscreen. Hunter S Thompsonn discovering Gonzo Journalism. Duchamp discovering the Found Object. Jasper Johns discovering the American Flag. Hemingway discovering brevity. James Joyce discovering stream-of-conciousness prose.
Was it luck? Perhaps a little bit.
But it wasn’t the format that made the art great. It was the fact that somehow while playing around with something new, suddenly they found themselves able to put their entire selves into it.
Only then did it become their ‘schtick’, their true voice etc.
That’s what people responded to. The humanity, not the form. The voice, not the form.
Put your whole self into it, and you will find your true voice. Hold back and you won’t. It’s that simple.
September 8, 2004
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NOTE TO SELF:
Your job is no longer about selling. Your job is about firing off as many synapses in your client
September 6, 2004
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More thoughts on “How To Be Creative”:
24. Don
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More thoughts on “How To Be Creative”:
24. Don
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Yep. The site was down this weekend as I changed servers, but it’s up now.
Everything seems to be working fine… more later.
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Earlier I wrote:
For the record, I don’t believe that some new happy happy joy joy marketing schpiel is going to somehow usher in a new dawn in human conciousness.
There is a new dawn in human conciousness happening whether we want it to or not. All marketing folk like myself are doing is just reacting to it, same as everyone else.
So why is this happening? No, I don’t think we’re all suddenly taking magic mushrooms, or Jesus has come back for a second round etc. There are many reasons, a lot of them simply to do with technology bringing people closer together etc.
But there may be another good reason; one I thought of last night while I was re-reading Tom Peter’s wonderful new book, “Re-Imagine!”:
The Baby Boomers, the most powerful demographic in the history of the world, are starting to age. The older ones are hitting their sixties. The younger ones are hitting their forties.
You get older, and suddenly life isn’t so much about sex and ambition anymore. Suddenly you find there are fewer days ahead of you than there are behind you.
Suddenly you get reflective. Suddenly you start looking “inside”.
And, because you’re part of the most powerful demographic in the world, everybody and everything else starts doing the same.
I’ll say it again. We live in wonderfully interesting times.
September 2, 2004
2 Comments
This website will be down, starting Saturday afternoon, 4th September, for about 24 – 48 hours, while I change over to a new server. Sorry.
Just check back after the weekend and it should be fine.
Thanks.
