Smart & creative lawyering for smart & creative people
San Diego is on fire. Members of my husband’s family have already been evacuated, more are probably going to be, and though we are not yet directly affected, the winds are bad and more fires are starting. Because of that I may not be able to work (or post) for a few days.
Please think good thoughts for the people (and animals) of this region.
I’ll check in when I can.
Yesterday my architect-husband was asked to review/critique student projects at a local architecture school here. These were second-year students and the assignment was to write a poem then to design a meditation space based on that poem (btw, he had nothing to do with assigning that–he just reviewed the results). The students were to present 3 rough models (architectural equivalent of sketches pretty much) then, as in all critiques, to explain/defend their work.
This was clearly an assignment about recognizing and developing a concept. In other words, it was about the process, not the resulting product. Unfortunately, many of the students didn’t get it and they tried instead to get the “right” answer, only one, and then forced it into the conceptual parameters linguistically (and they kinda sucked at that, too). Some of them made structurally sound “boxes” they plunked onto a site with no reason, others used materials without thought (“because I like marble”). They didn’t see that they needed to find their project concept and find different ways of expressing that concept, even if in the end it wouldn’t work in the real world (these were sketches, after all).
Now, I could go into how parenting and the educational system has failed these kids so that they don’t understand the very idea that there is no right answer and that not everything is laudable just because you did something (“Good Job, Johnny, way to spread poop on the walls!”), but that is a discussion for another forum. Instead, what I want to point out is that many of my clients have similar or related problems…thinking conceptually, I mean, and understanding that it is the process that is most important, not getting the right answer.
Here’s a way to remind yourself of the importance of the process: go find an image in a publication that really inspires you. Now recreate the concept expressed by that image, but do it your own way. Oh, and you have to do it using something other than your usual medium. If you’re a photographer, no camera. Draw, make music, write words, sculpt, dance, whatever–just do not use your usual tools. Have fun, explore, play, curse, swear, sweat, giggle, be goofy, break the barriers you put on yourself, and do not worry about the final product.
What you will end up with is something not (probably) at the professional level for an artist of that medium. Maybe you’ll use Pla-Doh and sculpt something that to an outsider looks like a brightly colored lumpy pile–that’s just fine. The end-product really doesn’t matter. It’s all about how you think through the problem. By forcing yourself to use tools other than your usual ones, you are taking the importance of the result away and refocusing on the thinking part of your job.
And that thinking part is what will separate you from the herd.
In Los Angeles last Thursday, Selina made a very important point that I want to re-emphasize here. She discussed, referencing her new book, the importance of persistence in a successful business…and this is something very difficult for many creatives. Waiting/sticking to the same thing over time is not often a creative virtue and long term planning is almost a curse to some. Unfortunately, in business the immediate win is a rare thing and, more importantly, often when it does happen, it then does not last.
Instead, if you look to truly successful businesses you will find that the steps taken are slow and constant, like a path laid stone by stone, and followed with equal constancy.
In a less zen-like way of speaking, this means two things:
1) There are no quick fixes. If you need work now, there is little you can do to make that happen on the level your business wants and needs. You might be able to get something now/soon, but it probably will not be vision-based work or pay well.
2) You have to make a plan, work the plan, and give it time to pay off. Think 18 months to 2 years before re-evaluating.
Lots of people who contact me do so saying things like “I’m broke! I need to get some work now!” I cannot help these people in the way they are hoping. No one can. If you are broke, get a job to pay your bills while you work on building your business. Someone asked me that question in LA and I knew they wouldn’t like the answer but it is true: you pay to follow your dream however you can and if that means waiting tables then do that. And work on your business.
It won’t be forever. If your creative work is good and you market with consistency, you will build business over time and, eventually, it will be successful enough to permit you to quit the “necessity job.”
Persistence. Patience. Deep breath.
I love AMC’s Mad Men. Of course, I’m seriously bothered by the way women are treated and the way they behave in it, and I’m ever-grateful I don’t have to wear hose and heels to work, but it is set in 1960 and that was life then.
Unfortunately, the magnificent ballsy bravado of that time has also gone the way of unchecked blatant sexual harassment and laser-breast bras.
That is sad. The bravado loss, not the bras.
Okay, so maybe the 3 (plus)-martini lunch had its downsides, but what did we lose with it and the other indulgences of times past? We’ve lost connecting with our clients, and their clients, in a special way. There is a bond formed in shared experiences and the more different and individual the experience, the better the bond. We all have stories from our (mis-spent?) youths of the time when “some friends and I _____” [fill in the blank with details you will never tell your kids]. Well, in the past (and a few times more recently) these sorts of stories existed between creatives and clients. I think we’ve lost something with them.
We used to bond with clients by shared experiences–ones that broke certain barriers. Back in the Mad Men day, there were bigger, clearer barriers to break (there was a great scene where a client talked negatively about some professional man not wearing a hat) so maybe it was easier. But we have got to find ways to reconnect, to give great experiences to clients so the stories and bonding can take place.
Maybe that doesn’t mean getting drunk at lunch…in fact I can pretty much bet on that one being gone, but that doesn’t mean we have to be a bunch of meek Beta males and females. Instead, as creatives we should find other ways of creating shared experiences and I think the most successful of those will definitely cross out of that self-imposed “safe” corral.
I’ve posted the latest Manual on the BAP site, for those of you who don’t get it via email (if you get it in your email, you get it a month sooner). There are also a few tweaks and other updates there as well. For example, there is more info about my upcoming Phoenix ASMP appearance and some interesting bits on the Spark Plugs page…like a hint about an important give-away to come.
An amazing case of idiocy (the “photographer” is a lawyer with IP experience), maliciousness (this required more effort than the perpetrators would have you believe), and lying (read the comments for total BS from the thieves themselves–like the Getty comparison, ha!).
Hat tip to Jordan from Adlist (a subset of Adland) for the link.
I’ve just added two new versions of the BAP I don’t suck shirts to my Spreadshirt.com shop. These new shirts have the text reversed, so that you can read it every time you look in the mirror, to reinforce your positive thinking, but people who look at you as you walk through the grocery won’t immediately get it.
If you’d like to see this text on other products, or have any ideas you’d like to suggest, please let me know!
MSNBC.com has a Men’s Health article I think we all can use. It discusses “office ADD”–the over-connected, distracted, frantic life so many of us are leading these days at work, and spilling into the home. I know many of you do unhealthy things like check email at home, after working hours. This article discusses how endemic it is to our working culture and offers some solutions.
Don’t blow off the solutions. The world will not end if you don’t check email for hours. You won’t lose the best gig you ever had a shot at getting because you stopped working at 5:30pm and gave yourself a life outside of your business. Take some time and think about what is really important–you can’t do your best work if your brain is fried, so maybe implementing some of these ideas will help your biz more than looking at your iPhone every 5 minutes. I certainly think so.
If your making creative work that is good enough you have two choices now:
1) (re)find your individual creative vision and make work that expresses it in its own, unique way;
or
2) quit now.
You all know that I don’t like to take the negative view, and this is no exception. I want you to pick #1 and do that. Unfortunately, the reality is that if you keep “playing it safe” you are going to, at best, struggle to survive in today’s business world; more likely, you’ll be forced to quit sooner than you think.
The great side of this equation is that the interconnectedness of the world now means the “impossible” businesses of the past–small, niche, specialized, creative–are much more likely to be successful. Being different, original, professional–these things are all factors in success now, more than ever.
In case you don’t buy that idea from me, read these posts from Seth Godin and a follow up from another blog:
Don’t let anyone sell you the line that web use isn’t worth very much. According to the AP, $10 billion was spent on online advertising in the first six months of 2007, 21% of that for display ads. That’s $2.1 billion for ads that probably used images.
And growing.