One of the things I'm constantly muttering to myself these days is how agencies and their clients need to speed up their creative development processes. Six months is a joke today, at least when it comes to digital. Six days is more like it. Of course, radical change doesn't come easy. Apparently, I'm not alone with this sentiment. Catharine P. Taylor also has some thoughts on it. What I wish for the industry (in …
There’s One for You, Nineteen for Me
"I believe advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable." -Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad at Advertising Age's The Idea Conference While I love the audacity of the above statement, it's important to note that Geek Squad is not above advertising. Far from it. …
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Be The Change
One of my favorite change agents, Tom Asacker, has written a short but deep treatise on the meaning of life. He says it's our business to to be useful, honorable and compassionate. Here's what he says about honor: Are you honest, straightforward, trustworthy? Do you play fair? And if not, whom do you think you're fooling? I'll tell you who. You're fooling your kids! You are not doing them a favor by providing for …
Digital Disorder Breeds Collective Intelligence
video courtesy of YouTube user, Michael Wesch When I was in Cambridge last month, I picked up the hardbound first edition of David Weinberger's new book, Everything Is Miscellaneous. I just started reading it, so I'll need to circle back in order to offer deeper analysis, but I can say "so far so good." Here's a pickup from his chapter "Social Knowing" that grabbed me: In a miscellaneous world, an Oz-like authority …
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PepsiCo Charts Path To Sustainable Future
We tend not to think of a firm like PepsiCo as a change agent. Yet, when you consider what they're up to in rural Arizona, that title applies. International Herald Tribune is running a story about the greening of a Frito-Lay's factory in Casa Grande, south of Phoenix. Frito-Lay is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the way this factory operates, and in the process, create a new type of snack: the …
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Truth Against The World
"If you will look, by and large, at the present-day practice of any profession you will see a sordid picture. Absolutely a sordid picture." -Frank Lloyd Wright, speaking in Biloxi, MS in 1949 Few creative professionals in any field fought as long and as hard to maintain their particular vision as did Frank Lloyd Wright. It's amazing what the man achieved in his 92 years on earth, and also amazing what he endured. …
Two Views On Fostering Creativity
"In order to foster creativity we should hire misfits, goad them to fight and pay them to defy convention and undermine the prevailing culture." -Robert Sutton via Lee McEwan "Every morning take Royal Jelly and Omega 3 oil, eat oysters and have a good sex life. Don't care about anything, and never listen to anybody. Be free." -Philippe Starck via Tom Asacker …
You Are Not Your Achievements
The New York Times is running a series called "Age of Riches." Today's installment looks at a weird strain of Silicon Valley youth culture. Max Levchin, who is now 32, is typical of a new generation of junior titans in Silicon Valley who might be called the prematurely rich — techies worth tens of millions of dollars, sometimes more, at an age when many others are just starting to figure out what to do with their …