Hugh MacLeod Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards
Hugh MacLeod
I’m Hugh MacLeod. I’m a cartoonist. Occasionally I write books. gapingvoid is interested in start-up culture, because changing business for the better is what we’re about; that’s what Social Object Factory is about. We live and breathe it; we help everyone from lone entrepreneurs, to mid-sizers, to Fortune 500’s do the same. Check out our work here.
We create art that helps companies kick ass, end of story.
If you want to talk business, then it’s probably best to please contact my business partner, gapingvoid CEO Jason Korman, here. We look forward to working with you. Thanks!
Three times in the past 10 years, I have faced down death. Once from illness, once by being hit by a car, and once running through the cloud of debris as the Towers fell on 9/11. Shoulda been dead each of those times, but I’m still here. I figure there’s a reason. Even if I don’t know what it is yet.
The result of those brushes with mortality is that a lot of stuff that used to seem important, like owning the first iPad, or collecting yet another pair of shoes, lost their urgency.
What’s urgent and important now: making time for my family and friends, my dog and cat; having time to think and write; being able to share ideas and to keep learning every day; and being able to call bullshit on false urgency, disingenuousness, and greed.
I know I am absolutely fortunate that my immediate family is alive and – except for my mom – well. We are blessed to have each other. But hey, life is not perfect, and there’s always longing for something more. I wish I could protect my niece and nephews from anything bad ever happening. I wish I could help my mom come back from Alzheimer’s. Because that’s a really ugly place to be, and it’s one we can’t do anything about.
I don’t know how to prevent or change those things, but I have become sure of who I am over the years. I got a really big clue about that just last summer.
My late paternal grandfather, Mischa Borr, was a violinist who led a dance orchestra at the Starlight Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The hotel was very grand in those days, and my grandpa was a bit of a celebrity. The biography the hotel wrote about him said that, during the Russian Revolution, he was on a train coming back from a concert with his band. Cossacks stopped the train, demanded everyone’s papers. One of them said to my grandfather, “Oh, you’re a fiddler! Play your fiddle. If we like it, we’ll let you live.”
As you can imagine, my grandpa played his heart out and the soldiers spared his life and the lives of his band members. I always thought that was some PR story the hotel made up to make him sound exotic. But I learned last summer, from the son of my late grandparents’ best friend, that the story was indeed true. And that many of the other passengers on the train were shot or beheaded that night.
When I was a little girl, my Russian grandma used to tell me, “remember darling, you are an aristocrat.” I had no idea what she meant until I learned more about history and about what she and her family lost when they left their village in Russia to start a new life of freedom in the United States.
All these years later, I know that what she was really telling me is that I am a survivor. And that means I have to remember what is beautiful, and hold dear the love in my life. It’s my heritage.
[B.L. Ochman, @whatsnext, is publisher of What’s Next Blog http://www.whatsnextblog.com , co-founder of Pawfun.com, the pet lover’s site http://www.pawfun.com and is Managing Director of Emerging Media for Proof Integrated Communications.]
Above is a little diagram I made for myself recently…
“Daily Quota”: I try to complete four basic tasks every day– the basic M.O. to keep the gapingvoid ship afloat.
I try to spend the major chunk of time working on the “Cube Grenades” every day. That’s probably the hardest part of the job. They take forever to draw and because paying clients are involved, you have to be on the ball. Luckily, all those years working in ad agencies trained me well for it.
The Daily Bizcard. I’ve only been doing these a week or so but it’s been a lot of fun so far. I like how it allows me to both (A) create new work and (B) interact in a new, interesting, unique way with friends and colleagues. I think this will end up being a major, long-term project of mine.
The Newsletter cartoons. Because these are also being turned into fine art prints, I take a lot of care with them. This is the second biggest part of the day, after cube grenades.
Three hundred words. With a successful book already out, another book on the way, and a third book slowly simmering in the back of my head, the author gig is increasingly important to me. I’m fortunate that my publishers likes my basic working format– Approx 18K words and a hundred or so cartoons– which means that the books are relatively short to write, compared to most business titles out there. I try to do 300 words a day. 18K words takes 60 days at that rate. As I throw away a lot of what I write, that’s not enough for a book, but it’s enough to get the ball good n’ rolling. Three hundred words per day is pretty manageable if you’re feeling in the groove. If you’re not feeling it, then it’s complete torture. Sometimes I’ll go weeks without writing much, but then an idea will hit me, and I’ll go after it like a crazy dog.
This diagram is a fairly simplistic version of reality, of course. Like Robbie Burns said, “the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry”. Some days I’ll cover all four bases, sometimes just one or two, depending on what’s hitting the fan that day [Cube Grenade deadlines will always take priority, end of story].
The map is not the terrain, but as a map, this diagram is a good starting point every morning, while I’m drinking my first cup of coffee, trying to get my day started.
Andrew has made his name these last few years being contrarian about the Internet and Silicon Valley. He points out that, with all this new technology and all these barrels of Kool-Ade waiting to be drunk, there is still a dark side to it all. He has a point, of course.
We’ve debated in public before, taking opposing sides. To borrow heavily from Lord Leverhume, “I disagree with half of what Andrew says. The trouble is, I don’t know which half”.
All in all, though, he’s a terrific guy with a sharp mind and an equally sharp angle. Glad to have him around.
As an antidote to all this Gee-Whizz-Internet-Techie stuff that Andrew likes to rail against, I was thinking about what came before it, back in my youth, when creating “content” was a bit more elitist, a bit more of a “gentleman’s profession”.
It reminded me of some of the foppish, intellectual, aesthete types I went to school with..
Word processors? Delete buttons? Ha. They liked gold-nibbed fountain pens and 1929 Royal Typewriters. Trying to re-live F Scott Fitzgerald, everything tinged with sepia. Ah, Youth! Wasted on the young etc.
[Andrew, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with your shipping address and the details you want on the back of the bizcard, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
I thought today’s Daily Bizcard, “Terribly Important” should go to the person who LEAST reminds me of the guy in the cartoon. So that would mean Mike Butcher.
Besides being the Editor of TechCrunch Europe and a very bright technology journalist all round, Mike is one of the nicest guys you’re ever likely to meet. He and I used to bump into each other all the time at geek parties, back in my London days.
[Mike, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with your shipping address and the details you want on the back of the card, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
Chris is in that enviable position of not only “totally getting” social media, he also makes A LOT of money helping other people do the same. He’s a bit of a rock star/poster-child success story in this space.
Chris prides himself on being very open and accessible, which he is, in what we both believe to be a very democratic form of media. That being said, human beings can only scale so much, so you don’t want to start taking it and yourself TOO seriously. This card plays around with that.
[Chris, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with the details you want on the back of the card, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
This cartoon is about the nature of PR. Unlike most marketing, the game isn’t about writing a check, pulling a lever and waiting for the sales to come in. It’s a wee bit more subtle and long-term than that.
And educating the client about the long-term view is probably the hardest part of the job…
[Robert, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with the details you want on the back of the card, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
Tim wrote probably the most inspiring and maddening book on extreme lifestyle design in twenty years, “The Four Hour Work Week”. It’s the “Play Power” of our generation. It’s a HUGE bestseller and deservedly so.
“Reality Is Negotiable” is one of his favorite quotes that he wrote himself. So I designed the card as a little “molecular mantra” for Tim to give out to people, on his travels.
[Tim, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with the details you want on the back of the card, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
Web 2.0 serial entrepreneur Jason is one of the smartest people I know. Some people find his manner abrasive, but eh, that’s just his high-energy, take-no-prisoners, no-bullshit way. He’s a real gentleman and a sweetheart if you ever actually spend time around him.
The cartoon is all about cutting corners. It’s a really tempting and easy thing to do, especially when business is slow. The downside is that inevitably people do notice eventually. Of course they do.
[Jason, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with the details you want to see on the back of the card, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
[NOTE: This is my semi-monthly “blogvertisement” for Lights Jerky etc.]
I’m happy to report that The Lights Jerky Company, based in my hometown of Alpine, Texas, has finally gotten their new website up.
What can I say? It’s the best store-bought jerky I’ve ever had. Locally, it’s really popular. Glenn Short, the owner, sells it in all the bars, convenience stores and supermarkets in the Far West Texas area. He’s a great guy and he really puts his heart and soul into it. And people can tell…
Glenn and I meet up about once a week or so for beers…
All you jerkyheads can order it here in one, three and five pound boxes.
Seriously, Guys, this stuff is the bomb. A global microbrand in the making? I hope so.
[Disclosure: I’m getting no money for this. I’m just doing it because I like Glenn, I like his jerky and want to see a local business succeed, that’s all.]
Loic and I first met circa 2004, back when he lived in Paris and I lived over the Channel in England (He’s now based in San Francisco). We’ve been good friends ever since.
Loic is a bit of a bad-ass Web 2.0 entrepreneur. The guy behind the web client, Seesmic.com. Before that he was an investor in companies like Six Apart and other high-profile Web 2.0 companies. He and his wife, Geraldine (one very cool lady) also organize the annual Le Web conference in Paris every December.
Loic, like me, is one helluva busy guy, so I’m guessing, like me, he’ll be tired all the time. So I designed this card for him. Voila!
[Loic, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with the details you want to see on the back of the card, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
David, who taught me a TON about PR over the years, is CEO of Edelman Europe.
Anyway, back in London David and I could often be seen drinking at the pub, hatching what we called “Evil Plans”. That’s where the idea of cartoon came from originally.
“Evil Plans” went on to become the title of my second book, which is coming out in April 2011.
Also, now that I think of it, the guy in the cartoon kinda resembles David a wee bit, just a tad.…
[David, please send me an e-mail at gapingvoid@gmail.com with the details you want to see on the back of the card, and I’ll send a free batch of 100 to you. Thanks!]
She gave me some themes to work with: freedom, claim your own authority, you don’t need permission. I went with the latter.
Pam has the same book publisher and editor as myself (that’s how we got to know each other). Her book, “Escape From Cubicle Nation” is wonderful.
[Pam, please send me an email (gapingvoid@gmail.com) with the details that you want to see on the back, and I’ll print up a free batch of 100 bizcards for you. Thanks!]
Once a day (weekdays, anyway) I’ll blog a new bizcard to give someone.
First on my list? Brian Clark, whose SUPERB blog, copyblogger –i.e. all about marketing via online– is VERY high on my must-read list. Besides that, he’s fun to hang out at SXSW and drink cocktails with.
This “Delusional” cartoon dates back from late 2009. I didn’t design it specifically for Brian (you can actually buy the print if you want), but I know from the horse’s mouth that he’s very fond of the image, so what the hell… I’m planning to do more customized ones in the future etc.
[Brian, please send me an email at gapingvoid@gmail.com with the details you want to see on the back, and I’ll print up a batch of 100 for you. Thanks!]
[Today’s guest post comes from Brian Solis, author of a new book that I’m currently reading, “Engage!”]
Building Bridges Between Aspiration and Consummation
Several years ago, I was re-introduced to a famous quote. While I had long forgotten the words, I believe that they had subconsciously inspired me. I was much younger when they initially tested my awareness. For me, and of course, similar to almost everything I learn, it took several appearances to permeate the thinning filters of my attention and focus, ultimately earning permanent residence in my mind and heart. And consequently, it now serves us my guiding mantra for all that I do today.
“Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
Hugh’s maxim, “Remember who you are…” aligns with Shaw’s words and the piercing moral within each message, is the aide-mémoire of the experiences that moved and inspired us over the years and the hopes that each engendered. They define who we are and they’re the catalysts that trigger new opportunities and experiences.
It’s the remembrance and the application to who we are that becomes poignant. Remembering who you are serves as a history lesson as the state of “you” is the result of your past finding its place in the present. It is the future that is not yet written and without aspiration, ambition has nothing to fuel.
Understanding how we got to this place at this time is predicated by our actions as they were influenced by the events that touched us. Ergo, our aspiration is a deliberate state of intention and the distance defining our journey is measured by the actions that move hope and vision toward existence and propelled by conscious activity and purpose. It’s the difference between dreaming…and bringing dreams to life.
Lessons are the scenery that surrounds our journey and this is a trip best appreciated with eyes, minds, and hearts, wide open.
A good friend introduced me to the concept of Be, Do, Get…and I’ve since woven these words and the governing methodology into the hallmark of all that inspires me. The ideas and lessons that emerge through the discovery of answering the following questions serve as an everlasting sense of renewal of my personal mission and purpose.
What do I want to be?
Why?
How will I get there?
What’s working against me right now?
What challenges face me today and tomorrow?
How will I know when I get there and what is the reward for reaching my destination?
What is the opportunity cost of this ambition over others?
Once I discover and confirm who I want to be…I then do the things…that ultimately empower me to get to where I envisioned. The entire sequence is connected through discovery and action.
Again, life isn’t as much about finding yourself as it is creating yourself.
I believe that the distance between who I am and who I want to be is separated only by my actions and words. And defining who I want to be should remain in a perpetual state of aspiration rewarded through accomplishments and milestones intentionally introduced to transform the illusion of progress to a constant state of realization.
7. When we think of PR, we think of the stereotypical smoothie in an Italian suit, schmoozing away at some fancy sponsored event [See “Pickaxe” cartoon above]. But as we both know, Global PR is actually a pretty sophisticated business. Again, back to a conversation we’ve had more than once, the big challenge for PR firms in the next decade is all about becoming more culturally and technically diverse, AWAY from the typical smoothie archetype, towards something more hardcore, valuable and interesting. How does Edelman Europe see the challenge? Do you see a “new breed” of PR practitioner emerging?
I do see a new breed. PR used to be based on the top-down principle of managing a few relationships with senior journalists or stakeholders. These respected authorities would say good things about your business or firm and the world would gratefully receive their view and act accordingly. Well as you know, that world got blown up and the new democratised world of the enfranchised consumer and the occasional angry crowd has forced businesses (and the PR people and firms that advise them) to open up. It used to be in this business that you could trade on who you know, and now it has swung much more to what you know as well. I can’t imagine hiring people these days who are not actively engaged in the conversation or community in some form . You can’t fake this stuff. And so that means we always look for technical skills, people with a wide set of interests and a passion for something (other than work). Richard Edelman calls this ‘Living in Colour’… the idea that if you only live for the office and home you become a little grey. And if you cut off from the world in that way, you are much less use to our clients, who are looking for insight and advice and connection.
i.e. From hanging out with David and some other folks in the industry, what I found was, less of the sleazy “Pickaxe” guy in the cartoon above, but what was actually a pretty interesting and sophisticated business. At least it was from the people I knew…
And then there’s my personal evolution over the last few years. When I fist starting blogging a decade ago, I just posted new cartoons. Then I started writing about my trade at the time, advertising. Then over the years I got into writing about marketing and entrepreneurship, especially as it applied to blogging and Web 2.0. And I learned a lot about all of that, simply by blogging about it, reading other people’s blogs, “joining the conversation”, and trying to apply it all towards my own business.
I got pretty good at all that, but I feel myself evolving a lot these days. PR is getting more and more an important part of my business. Looks like I might have some more homework to do. PR blogs, here I come…
One story from the book that really stuck with me, was about Starbuck’s first REAL BIG crisis, sometime in the 1980s.
Basically, the international coffee market suffered a REALLY bad crop that year, which drove the wholesale price sky high, enough to totally mess up the company’s economic model.
Starbuck’s was left with one of two choices, neither of them good:
1. Start using cheaper coffee.
2. Raise prices.
Research had indicated that, if they lowered the quality with cheaper coffee, only 10% of their customers would have sufficient palates to be able to tell the difference. However if they raised their prices, EVERYBODY would be able to tell right away.
The accountants, predictably, recommended that they go with the cheaper coffee option. Numbers don’t lie etc, it was better to tick off 10% of their customers than 100% etc, cheaper coffee was the “obvious” thing to do etc etc.
Howard didn’t do that in the end. Instead, he raised the prices accordingly, and left a note in every store, telling people why his company was forced to regretfully raise their prices. And he also told them about the option he could’ve taken but chose not to i.e. cheapen the coffee.
And you know what? The customers understood his reasoning, and stood by the business.
Eventually wholesale coffee prices came down again, allowing Starbuck’s to lower their prices as well. The company weathered the storm and the brand ended up all the stronger for it. Life was good again.
Sorry, Bean Counters. Numbers do lie. Sometimes pathologically so…
[Bonus link from Cheryl:] “Live in the market, not in the spreadsheet”. Brilliant way of putting it.
A Twitter comment from the London-based writer, Alain de Botton got me thinking. We can argue the numbers all day long, but they seem fairly ballpark to me, so let’s just assume for now that Alain is correct:
“The Law of Money & Complexity: An artist needs 20 followers to survive; a writer 20,000; a newspaper 300,000; a TV station, a million.”
That same day I saw something related– this very sobering info-graphic on PSFK.com, about how many “units” a musician needs to sell per month in order to make a minimum, meager monthly wage of US $1,160.
Anywhere between 143 units [Self-Pressed CDs] to 4.5 million units [Spotify], depending on the media.
Selling four-point-five-million units seems to me like an awful lot of work [39 units per penny], just in order to make a lousy Grand…
None of this is rocket science. It’s just that people often forget, building up a massive audience via social media is very, very hard… not to mention, highly unlikely to happen.
Whereas building up a smallish-medium audience (say, 5 – 20 thousand) of committed, interesting people is fairly doable and straightforward, if you know what you’re doing.
Of that audience of 5 – 20 thousand, you can probably expect to turn between maybe one or two percent of them, maybe more, into paying customers annually. So we’re talking about an economic base of around fifty to maybe a couple of hundred customers per year.
Or if what you’re selling is pretty high-end, like my friend, James Governor’s Redmonk [software consultants] you can do well on far fewer bites than that; maybe three or four new clients a year.
Is the profit margin on the product you’re selling large enough to feed your family with such small numbers?
If the answer is “No”, you’ve got yourself a marketing problem.
Please bear in mind that “results may vary”. The numbers I gave aren’t written in stone; the important thing is to always remember that social media marketing is not mass media marketing, and for the most part, doesn’t behave like it. If you want to get successful in this game, unlike TV, you need to align your offering to a comparatively tiny, highly discerning, highly interactive audience.
It’s either that, or pray that one day your site becomes as large as Techcrunch, Huff Post or Boing Boing. Nice work if you can get it.
I still remember the smell of damp ivy from a recent rain as I stood in the backyard, waiting for my Dad to take my picture.
It was 1971 and I was five years old. I was wearing a brightly colored knit vest, a present from my grandma. I tied my shoes myself, but was not totally sure I had them on the right feet. It didn’t matter. I was one powerful little girl. The Champion of the World.
My Dad smiled at me, squinting his eyes as he crouched behind the camera. I was safe, cherished and loved. He snapped the picture.
Things blew up after that, rather quickly.
My Dad left home and his marriage, to find himself. That’s what people did in the 1970’s in Marin County, California.
My world of family dinners and Dr. Seuss bedtime stories in my Dad’s lap ended. It was scary, unfamiliar, off-balance.
The way I had known myself: child of happy parents, member of a “normal” family was no longer.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I was. I tried to be a perfect student. And when that got to be too much, I inhaled, a lot. In my twenties I fell into a treacherous lover’s arms and paid dearly with a broken heart and wounded soul.
I found martial arts, self-employment and writing.
And one day in a box full of old family photographs, I found the picture.
Holding the yellowed edges in my hands, I remembered who I was. I felt who I was. Who I had always been, except when I forgot.
Circumstances can cause you to question who you are.
A boss writes you a stinging performance review.
A reader leaves a bitter comment on your blog post.
A vocal audience member questions your authority in the middle of your presentation.
A publisher sends back your treasured manuscript with a crass note.
A spouse berates your manhood, or womanhood.
And you go from You, The Champion of the World to
You, less than.
You, squashed.
You, angry and off-balance.
You, the misfit.
You, the fuck up.
When you fall into this deep pit of treachery and despair, you need something to pull you out. An image, a word, a note. It helps when this object reflects both the love you have for yourself as well as the love someone has for you.
Like a picture of you through your parent’s eyes.
Or a note from an impassioned reader who loved the piece that you loved to write.
Or a rock from a beach that was so beautiful you could swear that the sand was kissing your feet.
The bad news is, the better your EVIL PLAN, the more people are going to hate it.
The good news is, the better your EVIL PLAN, the more people are going to love it.
In Flaubert’s great literary masterpiece, “Madame Bovary”, the narrator describes Monsieur Bovary (the husband that the main heroine eventually cuckolds) with the most damning description I’ve ever read of a fictional character: “He offended no more than he pleased”.
In getting us to identify with Madame Bovary and dislike Monsieur Bovary, Flaubert was very clever. He made sure that Monsieur Flaubert wasn’t evil or a sociopath, he just made him a conventional, boring, inoffensive, COMPLETELY UNINSPIRING member of the middle classes, completely aligned and beholden to 19th-Century, respectable French society. And we couldn’t help but despise him for it. Because he wasn’t pure evil, because he was just as human as the rest of us, he had just made a conscious decision to emasculate his own humanity for the sake of social standing– something we’re all very capable of doing ourselves.
Walk into any supermarket and you’ll see again a similar phenomenon. Aisle after aisle full of products that most people, frankly, don’t really give two hoots about. Sure, they might be a perfectly good brand of paper towel or breakfast cereal, but at the end of the day, like Monsieur Bovary, they offend no more than they please. And so how much do people care? Answer: Diddly squat.
And go visit these products’ corporate headquarters and you’ll meet their human equivalent. Aisle after aisle of people in cubes. Sure, they’ll be perfectly nice, polite and all, they’ll be efficient and good at their jobs and all, but how many people would care if one of them lost their jobs tomorrow? Answer: Diddly squat.
But once your EVIL PLAN starts getting traction, you’ll start noticing a much more polarized world start to emerge. People who LOVE what you do, and people who UTTERLY DESPISE it.
Why such strong feelings? Why the emotions? You’re just doing your thing, they’re just doing their thing, so what’s the big deal?
Answer: Because A LOT of people AREN’T ACTUALLY doing their own own thing. They’re just trying to pay their bills, living paycheck-to-paycheck, payroll-to-payroll, promotion-to-promotion.
To some of these people, your example will give them hope. “I may just be shlepping now, but ONE DAY I’ll leave this cubicle farm AND THEN go do something amazing!” Those people will love you and buy into your EVIL PLAN. Hell, some of them will even give you money.
But some people will hate your EVIL PLAN too, for no real reason. Envy? Jealousy? Of course. Your example is not giving them hope, your example is just making them more aware of their own issues and inadequacies. And maybe it’s easier for them to attack you, than attack their own demons.
In Internet circles, we call these people “Trolls” or “Haters”. They’re easy to spot, mainly because they’re everywhere.
Sure, the haters are a pain, especially at first, when you’re not used to this kind of treatment.
But they do serve a purpose. If you were just shleppping along like they were, they wouldn’t bother going after you, their sights would be turned elsewhere.
Ergo, they’re a sign that you’re doing something right. So you probably want to get other people to hate you eventually i.e. the right kind of people. They might actually end up helping you define your brand to others, more than the people who actually love you.
I meet young, creative people all the time, just out of college. They’re tending bar, waiting tables, stacking shelves in bookstores, folding jeans at The Gap, working in an office. All trying to get by, all trying to figure out what to do next, where they fit in this big ol’ world of ours. And it’s tough for most of them. Of course it is.
My advice to them is always the same: “Make Art Every Day”.
When I say “Art”, I don’t necessarily mean paintings or literature or music or whatever. I mean, whatever it is that’s meaningful and powerful to them. Like the old song said, “T’ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It).
Only they can know what that is, of course. For me, it was always drawing cartoons. But for others, it could be about business or cooking or carpentry or screenprinting tee-shirts or raising money for charity.
That was my M.O. for years. I remember in my early mid-twenties, working my ass off all day long at the ad agency in Chicago. Then after work, instead of going home to watch TV and hang out with roommates or whatever, I’d head for my local coffee shop, pull a seat up at the bar, and sit there for hours on end, drawing cartoons. Even if my cartoons weren’t very good, even if they weren’t commercial. Even if some of the waiters and fellow customers used to made subtle and frequent quips about me “needing to get a life”.
It paid off eventually. Eventually the cartoons got good, eventually they got commercial. Eventually I didn’t need a day job anymore, eventually I got a life. Happy Ending.
I didn’t wait for the money, I didn’t wait to “be discovered”, I didn’t wait for the approval from others. I just got on with it, every day.
Like a very talented pianist friend once told me when I was a boy; it’s better to practice a musical instrument for five minutes a day, than to practice for two hours, once a week. It’s something I never forgot.
Which is why regardless of what the rest of the world needed from me on any given day, I found the time, somehow. Simply because I made the decision to do so, somehow.
Whatever your EVIL PLAN might be, “Make Art Every Day”.
Maybe it is a consequence of when I was born (1957) and where I grew up (Calcutta), but from a very young age I’ve believed in some things. Not many things. Some. Some very important things.
I believe that none of us is an accident, that we all have potential and purpose. We can deny ourselves reaching that potential and purpose. We can be denied reaching that potential and purpose by others. But we cannot deny the existence of that potential and purpose.
I believe, as part of this purpose, we are born to relate to others on earth, to enjoy spending time with others, talking with each other, listening to each other, having consideration for each other in covenant relationships. I believe that spending time with other humans is a joyous thing. We can deny ourselves this joy. We can be denied this joy. But we cannot deny the existence of this joy.
I believe, as part of this joy, we are born to share, to enjoy communal participation in things. In sharing, we make ourselves vulnerable. And in that vulnerability is joy. That that vulnerability and that joy inhabit all our relationships.
I believe, as part of this vulnerability, we are born to learn. To learn while relating to the people around us, to learn while sharing, to learn while making ourselves vulnerable. Learning involves doing new things. Sometimes the new things are called failures, sometimes they are called successes. We should celebrate both as learning.
I believe that doing all this: learning, loving, sharing, socialising: it’s called living. I believe that anything that stops us from reaching and extending our potential and purpose is wrong; I believe that anything that stops us relating to others is wrong; I believe that anything that stops us sharing is wrong; I believe that anything that stops us learning is wrong.
I believe that, seen from this perspective, there are many things that are wrong with this world. That this is not normal. And that we have the power to change it.
Remember who we are.
[JP Rangaswami is Chief Scientist at BT Group PLC. He blogs at www.confusedofcalcutta.com, tweets as @jobsworth, can be contacted via jobsworth@me.com. He’s passionate about his family, his work, his friends, his church community, books, music, information and food. He’s currently working on a number of books; the one he’s most likely to finish is about two of his passions: food and information.]
Back story – I like the original but know it’s a bit too edgy for some people. I asked Hugh if he could tweak it to what you see now. This is the result. Nice one Hugh.
You never know what you’re going to be famous for.
In the case of Polonius Lord Chamberlain to King Claudius in what is arguably the best known play in the world [Hamlet] it was some advice. His son Laertes is leaving Denmark, there being something rotten in the state of it, and is off to Paris. Polonius takes the opportunity to lay some fatherly wisdom on him and finishes up by saying:
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
The expression lept out of the play and into the Big Book of English Aphorisms, becoming significantly more well known than Polonius himself.
It’s always seemed like good advice to me.
As we grow up we learn by imitating, trying on aspects of other people. We dream of being stars of pop and film, helpfully forgetting that what makes them famous was who they are — and that ain’t us.
Kurt Cobain once said that “wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are” [and a person is a terrible thing to waste, as I’m sure he would tell you] but it’s an essential stage of development.
The important thing to realize is that, eventually, you need start being you.
And then — you need to get really good at it.
It’s been almost 15 years since Tom Peters wrote “The Brand Called You” for Fast Company and in that time the idea of “Personal Branding” has gone from the height of douchebaggery to an inevitable consideration for anyone in the mediation generation.
Once you begin to extend yourself via media, you become aware that by broadcasting your life through media fragments, you are creating an idea of who you are that is distinct from, but inextricably linked to, who you are.
And that brand is a highly defensible asset.
Not in the sense of making you a social media superhero [everyone is famous online, but some are more famous than others] but because no one else can ever use it.
If you are hired simply to do a job, whatever it is, your job is never entirely safe.
This is because, if you are being hired solely because you can perform the tasks associated with the role, then, by inference, you are always replaceable, by anyone else that can perform the same duties. Being able to the job is the cost of entry.
If you are hired because, as well as being able to perform the duties, you are remarkably good at being you, suddenly you are no longer quite so replaceable, because no one else can do that.
I get sent resumes a lot — sometimes several a day. I try to respond to all of them with at least some advice.
And my advice is usually something like this:
1. If you are looking to get a job anywhere in the marketing communications industry, but especially in digital places, make sure you have links to your web presences on your resume.
2. Don’t just put what jobs you have done or what experience you have — everyone has done jobs and has experience and it mostly all sounds the same: somehow communicate what makes you awesome at being you.
I like to think Polonius would approve…
[Faris Yakob is the former (and first and only) Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson (NY) and Digital Ninja at Naked Communications (Everywhere). He will probably be doing another job soon that he will be, hopefully, uniquely suited to. You can find him on his blogs: Talent Imitates, Genius Steals and StolenGenius.com — and on twitter @faris. He hopes you have a truly awesome day.]
Dennis Howlett, an avid gapingvoid print collector, asks six questions to the management of the Enterprise giant, SAP. He uses my prints to [*cough*] illustrate his points.
So long after you leave college, you keep asking yourself the question, “What do I want to do when I grow up?”
And to help you answer the question, you try out a whole string of different things. Working in an office. Working outdoors. Going to law school. Starting your own coffee shop. Freelance. Consulting. Writing books…
And hopefully, after a few years (or decades) of trial and error, hopefully you end up with your answer.
I think I’m finally ready to answer my own question, “What do I want to do when I grow up?”
Sure, they’re great social objects, but to me they have another purpose: They’re good tools for a company trying to engage in what’s called “Cultural Transformation”.
[The one that started it all: “The Blue Monster”. Backstory here etc.]
You change markets in your favor by changing the culture– either you own or the culture of the industry you’re in. In my world, that’s where the REAL opportunity lies.
That’s the change I want to help affect. That’s where I think my cartoons can be the most useful and valuable.
Always happy to talk further about it with people maybe wanting to do business. Feel free to ping me whenever. Thanks…
For the upcoming PSK conference this Friday, besides the PSFK event poster, I also designed these wee purple badges– a bunch of quirky designs that people wear to describe to other attendees what their shtick is– deluded, investor, guide, confused, maker, mayor, data, tech, art , advertising, pr, investor, etc.
[N.B. People get to pick their own buttons, they’re not assigned etc.]
These words were inscribed on the walls of the study house of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Château Le Prieuré, Fontainebleau-Avon, the home of the esoteric teacher George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. They summarised the essence of his teaching and were written there as a reminder to his students.
Gurdjieff taught that human beings are divided into two parts: Essence and Personality.
Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is ‘not his own.’ ‘Not his own’ means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation …
Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. But in proportion as personality grows, essence manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more feebly and it very often happens that essence stops in its growth at a very early age and grows no further.
(G.I. Gurdjieff, as reported by P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous)
In other words, Personality is made up of the rules, conventions and expectations of the world around you; Essence is the real you. A bit like the white pebble.
By definition, Personality is hard to resist, since it carries the weight of the world’s expectations. It’s easier to go with the flow, to fall into step with those around you, to do as you’re told, at the expense of who you really are. But doing the easy thing comes at a price:
Moreover, it happens fairly often that essence dies in a man while his personality and his body are still alive. A considerable percentage of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead.
(Gurdjieff, ibid.)
According to Gurdjieff, we can only avoid this fate by staying in touch with our Essence and helping it to grow and develop unhindered by the shackles of Personality. The chief way of doing this is through an activity he called Self Remembering. In ordinary life, he said, we forget ourselves in the bustle of daily activity and the delusions of Personality. Self Remembering is the opposite of this forgetfulness — it involves becoming deliberately aware of yourself in the present moment, of your thoughts, feelings, actions and physical sensations.
Right now, for example, notice how you are reading words in front of your eyes, on a screen. Notice the thoughts and images that they are creating in your mind. Notice the emotions they are arousing in you. Notice how your body feels right this instant; the posture you are in; the sensations you can feel. Don’t let this article and these few seconds of your life be like a disembodied film being played out in front of you — put yourself in the picture. Feel what it’s like to be alive at this moment.
Now you are starting to remember yourself. Soon, you’ll forget again, and get caught up in demands and distractions of the rest of the day. But at any moment — if you remember — you can come back to yourself, and become a little more aware, feel a little more alive. Do this often enough, said Gurdjieff, and you open up the possibility of waking up to your real nature.
Self Remembering is not easy. Try to do it for more than a few moments at a time, and you’ll soon discover how hard it is to avoid getting sucked into the next train of thought, the next enthusiasm, the next pressing engagement. And the hardest thing is remembering to do it at all! When I was first introduced to Self Remembering, I experienced such a vivid sense of freedom and peace in the moment that I resolved to do it often as possible. Several days later, I ‘came round’ with a jolt when I realised I had completely forgotten all about that ‘unforgettable’ experience and hadn’t made an attempt to remember myself since!
As we’ve seen, the easy thing is to surrender to personality, the internalised rules and expectations of society. Remembering who you really are is hard work. You have to fight like hell if you want to hold onto it. That’s why Gurdjieff called it ‘The Work’ with a capital ‘W’.
Gurdjieff helped his pupils by providing reminders, prompting them to remember themselves ‘always and everywhere’. Sometimes he would ring a bell at irregular intervals during the day — on hearing the bell, his pupils were to remember themselves immediately, whatever they were doing, and start observing their mental and emotional state. He also encouraged them to make small changes in their daily routines, to create little reminders during the day. If you always take milk with your tea, get rid of the milk from the fridge — every time you go to make a cup of tea, the absence of milk should act as a nudge to remember yourself.
In his own way, I think Hugh’s after something similar with his cartoons and the ‘remember who you are’ shtick. If you have a picture like this or this hanging on your wall, looking you in the face every day, it’s hard to do the easy thing, forget your real nature, and slide back into conformity. The picture serves as a reminder, a challenge to stay true to yourself, no matter what. A bit like the writing on the wall back at the study room in Gurdjieff’s Institute.
[Mark McGuinness helps artists and entrepreneurs create remarkable things at Lateral Action. For bite-sized inspiration, follow Mark on Twitter.]
If the answer is no, I’m sorry to hear that. Wakers are my favorite people.
A waker is someone who is very good at waking other people up from their metaphorical slumber.
Some people just have the gift. Being around them or their work just makes you feel more alive, more inspired, more motivated, more awake. The best wakers will make you do crazy-ass things, like quit your boring job and start your own business, write that song, move to Thailand, forgive that someone who once hurt you, or finally tell that girl that you love her.
A waker reminds you on a constant basis, just how alive you really are. Just how much human potential you really have inside of you. And there’s something about their influence that makes you utterly unable to go back to “sleep” ever again, in spite of your best efforts.
Wakers can be great artists– Jeff Buckely, Picasso, Harper Lee, Beethoven, Charlie Parker, Leo Tolstoy, Tilda Swinton, Louis Armstrong, Ralph Steadman, Saul Steinberg etc– but they don’t have to be.
Wakers can be great spiritual leaders– Jesus, Gandhi, Mohammed, Buddha, The Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Joseph Campbell etc– but they don’t have to be.
Wakers can be great public figures– Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill, Simone de Beauvoir, Diana Vreeland, Carl Sagan, John Peel, Susan Sontag, Alistair Cooke, Margaret Thatcher, etc– but they don’t have to be.
I know great wakers who are bartenders, bus drivers, teachers, receptionists, plumbers. Theirs is a gift, not a job title.
If you are a waker, I’m happy for you. There is no better way to spend one’s life than being a waker, I truly believe that.
The human race needs you, like flowers need sunshine. The human race would die out within three generations without you. Thanks for being here. Seriously.
If you’re not a waker, don’t you think you should be? Serious question.
When I (unwittingly) coined the “Remember Who You Are” phrase for Hugh [backstory here] it was in reference to the print of his I had just purchased, that we proudly display in my ad agency’s lobby. It reads: THE MARKET FOR SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN IS INFINITE. Which pretty much sums up EVERYTHING you need to know about marketing.
At the time I said that it reminded me of the Roman Catholic icons my mother displayed in my childhood home to remind us of who we were: Irish Roman Catholics. I write this on vacation, from my hometown of Galway, Ireland. And I am reminded afresh of why this practice originated.
You see Ireland, unlike Hugh’s homeland of Scotland, was never fully subjugated by the English. We had the great advantage of being separated from England by the sea. We also had the great advantage of being bloody minded in the extreme. The Irish are a passionate and unreasonable race. We are Celts and we will fight you to the bitter end. We will never give up.
At one point in the 18th century, our now-friends the English outlawed both our religion and our language and customs upon pain of death. Or worse, transportation to Australia! The English assumed, not unreasonably, that surely this would do the trick. That we would eventually give up our identity and assimilate. They were wrong. Ireland, despite our proximity to the UK, became the first “colony” of the then great British Empire to defeat it.
We ultimately did this by inventing urban guerilla warfare, aka terrorism. We made Ireland ungovernable by using unconventional techniques that favored our comparatively limited resources. The English expected us to fight them on their terms but we fought them on our terms. The Jewish Israeli independence fighters studied and used these exact same techniques against the British in the then Palestine in 1948.
Unreasonableness won us our independence. Our very identity was at stake. Being Celtic and Roman Catholic was literally illegal. Our reaction was: well f**k that s**t! And in the long run, and it was a centuries-long long run, we won out. Because we never lost sight of who we were, and the value that had to us. Some things just aren’t right. And no amount of bullshit and arrogance and/or money and power can make them right. They’re just wrong. Period.
What was the impulse that initially got you excited you about what you do? Stick with that impulse. Maybe you are right and THEY are wrong. The Sex Pistols were right. The Beatles were right. James Joyce was right. Bill Bernbach was right.
Life conspires to throw you off your true course. So we all need reminders of who we really are. Of what really animates and inspires us on a day to day basis.
My late mother’s statues of the Virgin Mary and pictures of the saints weren’t solely the product of religious devotion. They were also a gesture of defiance. Our culture had come precariously close to losing our identity. But we were damned if we were going to succumb to something that was just plain wrong.
Never forgetting who we are is the key to everything. For all we know, YOU may well end up being the center of the universe. Think about that. Assume that is the case. Why not? It could be true.
[Vinny Warren is a founder and creative director of The Escape Pod. A Chicago-based ad agency that knows who it is. You can follow Vinny on Twitter. @vinnywarren is his wildly creative handle. ]
[Today’s guest post is from minimalist maven, Everett Bogue.]
How to Eliminate Distractions to Focus on the Important
In the modern age it’s so difficult to focus on the important.
It’s not entirely your fault. For the last few generations the televisions told us to want everything, then Internet gave us infinite options. It’s no wonder no one can concentrate on their art, we’ve never had the ability to do everything for 30 seconds a day.
Why focus when you can spend all day hitting the refresh button on your email?
It’s important to take time to remember how to focus.
The most successful people realize that in order to create anything meaningful, they need to turn it all off. In order to do anything that matters, you need cultivate a healthy atmosphere of complete silence in order make a difference in your own life and change the world.
Leo Babauta is focused on the essentials. He’s limited his life to the minimum in order to focus on the important. Now he runs the of top 25 blog Zen Habits and published his print bookThe Power of Less.
Tammy Strobel is focused on using simplicity to save the world. She encourages her readers to give up their gas-guzzlers for pedal power, to exchange your stuff for the elegance of living with less.
Colin Wright is focused on living anywhere. He lives with less 51 things and moves to a new continent every 4 months. He runs a zero-overhead sustainable design and marketing studio from anywhere in the world.
Ashley Ambirge is focused on challenging the status-quo. She’s just getting started as the world’s leading rebel against mediocrity, even if that means living in a basement (for now) in exchange for the opportunity to travel to every corner of the earth.
Focusing on the important doesn’t have to be complicated.
For the last six months I’ve been investigating the implications of living with less — the minimalist existence. This journey started with quitting my day job and hopping on a plane to Portland, OR with everything I owned in a bag. This investigation continues daily as I explore the true implications of turning it all off to focus on the important in order to make work that matters.
The answer is pretty simple, everyone buys and does too much stuff. They’re over-extended to the point that no one knows what they’re doing anymore. Anyone who’s not making things (or not making good things) isn’t “not creative enough”, instead they’ve been hypnotized into thinking that junk and wasting time matters more than discovering their true purpose.
The secret to focusing on the important is simple:
Turn off the TV.
Donate your junk.
Turn off your smart phone.
Quit your day job.
Stop buying stuff that doesn’t matter.
Cultivate silence.
Work on your art.
Have your own ideas.
Push for change.
Do something that matters.
All of that nonsense they told you to buy isn’t going to make you happy.
The only thing that is important making art that matters.
The only way to make art that matters is to focus on the important.
[Today’s guest post comes from BL Ochman.]
When I was a little girl, my Russian grandma used to tell me, “remember darling, you are an aristocrat.” I had no idea what she meant until I learned more about history and about what she and her family lost when they left their village in Russia to start a new life of freedom in the United States.
1. Get yourself a body of work and a large audience who want to give you money.
Today’s 
[Today’s guest post comes from 
Once I discover and confirm who I want to be…I then do the things…that ultimately empower me to get to where I envisioned. The entire sequence is connected through discovery and action.
A Twitter comment
[Today’s guest post comes from 
When you fall into this deep pit of treachery and despair, you need something to pull you out. An image, a word, a note. It helps when this object reflects both the love you have for yourself as well as the love someone has for you.
I meet young, creative people all the time, just out of college. They’re tending bar, waiting tables, stacking shelves in bookstores, folding jeans at The Gap, working in an office. All trying to get by, all trying to figure out what to do next, where they fit in this big ol’ world of ours. And it’s tough for most of them. Of course it is.
I believe, as part of this vulnerability, we are born to learn. To learn while relating to the people around us, to learn while sharing, to learn while making ourselves vulnerable. Learning involves doing new things. Sometimes the new things are called failures, sometimes they are called successes. We should celebrate both as learning.
This is because, if you are being hired solely because you can perform the tasks associated with the role, then, by inference, you are always replaceable, by anyone else that can perform the same duties. Being able to the job is the cost of entry.
Right now, for example, notice how you are reading words in front of your eyes, on a screen. Notice the thoughts and images that they are creating in your mind. Notice the emotions they are arousing in you. Notice how your body feels right this instant; the posture you are in; the sensations you can feel. Don’t let this article and these few seconds of your life be like a disembodied film being played out in front of you — put yourself in the picture. Feel what it’s like to be alive at this moment.
Some things just aren’t right. And no amount of bullshit and arrogance and/or money and power can make them right. They’re just wrong. Period.
For the last six months I’ve been investigating the implications of living with less — the minimalist existence. This journey started with quitting my day job and hopping on a plane to Portland, OR with everything I owned in a bag. This investigation continues daily as I explore the true implications of turning it all off to focus on the important in order to make work that matters.
