Time flies when you’re having fun, and freelancing. Which I’ve been doing enough of both lately. So lemmee riff on the year that was or wasn’t yo...
20 things...
1) How many years since Y2K now?
2) Anyone remember to send out x-mas cards? (Pretty pathetic that I didn’t – couldn’t even email a picture of an x-mas card.)
3) Nick and Jessica breaking up. I can’t go on. Somehow I must.
4) Cool viral campaigns I came across:
- Mini Cooper
- huratorpedo.com
- I love bees
- Bruce Lee custom fight movie
- Don't be the next
5) Does anyone NOT have a blog?
6) Can Apple go at least one year without discontinuing a product line?
7) NY Knicks still suck.
8) Buffalo Bills still suck.
9) They should play each other.
10) Starbucks, like Walmart, is now officially everywhere.
11) Found the one guy without a blog.
12) He was in a Starbucks.
13) He had just come from Walmart.
14) College searches for your kids are almost as involved as attending college.
15) There is still no decent pizza in NW Jersey.
16) I got hooked on instant messaging and now need a 12-step program to get off it.
17) I mentioned the Bills, right?
18) And Y2K?
19) I have no resolution for next year yet.
20) I never had one for this year.
So, until next year...
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
PC's, tech support and Falling Down.
I love PC's. I really do. What else allows you to burn half a Sunday on the phone with tech support halfway around the world? Let alone, still not get a solution to your problem.
Now, I'm a Mac evangelist, disciple, freak, etc., so I've had mostly good experiences with computers. The times I've had to call tech support for a Mac went smoothly, mostly because I knew my way around. I could jump ahead to the advanced section of my tech's 3 x 5 'have you tried this...' notecard and with their help, figure out a solution quickly.
But... enter Bill Gates' demon.
I have never been able to call up tech support for a PC with the same problem and have them give me the same solution. Not once. Apparently, there are about 342 ways to troubleshoot one problem, and each involves more college degrees to understand the work-around they give you than is required to fly the shuttle.
And sooner or later, as sure as Courtney Love going ballistic at a PTA meeting, (allegedly), every call reaches the point where this universal gem is heard: "Oh, I don't know why the other tech told you to do that. Here's what you should do."
Now I know how Michael Douglas got to the breaking point in Falling Down.
How hard is it to just put down the card and listen to the problem. Not, "Have you turned off the power ?" Um, no. But I want to right now so this call will end. And, do you have to repeat the last thing you just asked me to do every single time?
Tech: "Ok, now type in cmd, hit return, ok?"
Me: "Okay, did that."
Tech "Okay. Now type in cmd, hit return, ok? Then type in..."
You're kidding, right? (Or is that, 'you're kidding, okay?')
Now, I'm a Mac evangelist, disciple, freak, etc., so I've had mostly good experiences with computers. The times I've had to call tech support for a Mac went smoothly, mostly because I knew my way around. I could jump ahead to the advanced section of my tech's 3 x 5 'have you tried this...' notecard and with their help, figure out a solution quickly.
But... enter Bill Gates' demon.
I have never been able to call up tech support for a PC with the same problem and have them give me the same solution. Not once. Apparently, there are about 342 ways to troubleshoot one problem, and each involves more college degrees to understand the work-around they give you than is required to fly the shuttle.
And sooner or later, as sure as Courtney Love going ballistic at a PTA meeting, (allegedly), every call reaches the point where this universal gem is heard: "Oh, I don't know why the other tech told you to do that. Here's what you should do."
Now I know how Michael Douglas got to the breaking point in Falling Down.
How hard is it to just put down the card and listen to the problem. Not, "Have you turned off the power ?" Um, no. But I want to right now so this call will end. And, do you have to repeat the last thing you just asked me to do every single time?
Tech: "Ok, now type in cmd, hit return, ok?"
Me: "Okay, did that."
Tech "Okay. Now type in cmd, hit return, ok? Then type in..."
You're kidding, right? (Or is that, 'you're kidding, okay?')
Thursday, December 15, 2005
What came first? The bad client or the bad creative.
I was wondering about this the other day after seeing a mindless piece of work from a place that normally rocks. To be sure, this wasn’t the norm for them, but it got me thinking about the reverse situation: those places that hack it out day after day and manage to occasionally pull a gem out of their, well, you know. Who’s to blame. The Client? The Agency? Both?
In a way, I think it’s a lot like the Yankees and how they always expect to win, and how fans of losing teams hate them for it. Well, win more then, gang. The Yankees win more because they expect to win. That’s their attitude. And others gravitate toward that attitude too.
Others lose because, well, they expect to. And they likewise attract similar talent. They’re used to it, and so it becomes self-fulfilling and routine for them. And I suspect it’s much the same for agencies.
You play up or down according to the level of those around you. Period.
Average agencies beget average clients who walk all over them, all because they’re afraid of ‘losing the biz’ and then lamenting after a lousy meeting why they don’t have better clients? Well, because shit work begets shit work for one. Always saying yes when maybe you should put your foot down is another.
If as an agency, you haven’t done anything to break that catch-22, why should any new client with half a brain (and half a brand) take a chance on you? I see the same agencies making the same mistakes. In their regular work, and in their pitching. And as far as new biz goes, they just don’t get it – literally and figuratively.
It’s like watching a plane trying to take off, but never quite getting above the tree tops. Of course the plane is overloaded with too many passengers, cargo and fuel, but the pilot keeps on wondering: “why haven’t I gained altitude?”
Jettison some of that dead weight chief. Watch the billings, moral of the staff and quality of your work improve.
There is nothing like watching bad creative happen. You need a neck brace for all the rubbernecking going on from watching that car wreck. (Preferrably a neck brace with the company logo on it – after all, you have to promote.)
There’s also nothing like watching a bad account team high-five themselves over work that your Intro to Design instructor would step on in front of class. They convince themselves that they ‘nailed the creative’ and ‘man, won’t the client be impressed!’
Shhhhh. Listen. You can hear branches hitting the fuselage.
Better agencies know how to say no. They know bad creative not only reflects on the brand, it reflects on the agency. And they’re better because well, they are aware enough to know this. That’s the difference between good and bad. It’s not just that big agencies have the best clients and that small agencies don’t. You hear a lot from small shops about how they have ‘real-world clients who need real solutions - not pie-in-the-sky creative from Madison Ave shops with mega-budgets.’
Maybe.
But you owe it to any of your clients to show your best stuff, regardless of their size – or yours. Sometimes they may surprise you. Not always, but sometimes. Because otherwise, one day you wake up as agency to find your client went somewhere else because you stopped giving a shit.
They went on to an agency that showed them some new thinking. An agency that cared. But hey, you keep telling yourself it’s the client, not us, and “Man, he was a pain in the ass to work with anyway. Now we can go get some real clients.” But that’s ok.
There’s still a lot of tree tops left out there.
In a way, I think it’s a lot like the Yankees and how they always expect to win, and how fans of losing teams hate them for it. Well, win more then, gang. The Yankees win more because they expect to win. That’s their attitude. And others gravitate toward that attitude too.
Others lose because, well, they expect to. And they likewise attract similar talent. They’re used to it, and so it becomes self-fulfilling and routine for them. And I suspect it’s much the same for agencies.
You play up or down according to the level of those around you. Period.
Average agencies beget average clients who walk all over them, all because they’re afraid of ‘losing the biz’ and then lamenting after a lousy meeting why they don’t have better clients? Well, because shit work begets shit work for one. Always saying yes when maybe you should put your foot down is another.
If as an agency, you haven’t done anything to break that catch-22, why should any new client with half a brain (and half a brand) take a chance on you? I see the same agencies making the same mistakes. In their regular work, and in their pitching. And as far as new biz goes, they just don’t get it – literally and figuratively.
It’s like watching a plane trying to take off, but never quite getting above the tree tops. Of course the plane is overloaded with too many passengers, cargo and fuel, but the pilot keeps on wondering: “why haven’t I gained altitude?”
Jettison some of that dead weight chief. Watch the billings, moral of the staff and quality of your work improve.
There is nothing like watching bad creative happen. You need a neck brace for all the rubbernecking going on from watching that car wreck. (Preferrably a neck brace with the company logo on it – after all, you have to promote.)
There’s also nothing like watching a bad account team high-five themselves over work that your Intro to Design instructor would step on in front of class. They convince themselves that they ‘nailed the creative’ and ‘man, won’t the client be impressed!’
Shhhhh. Listen. You can hear branches hitting the fuselage.
Better agencies know how to say no. They know bad creative not only reflects on the brand, it reflects on the agency. And they’re better because well, they are aware enough to know this. That’s the difference between good and bad. It’s not just that big agencies have the best clients and that small agencies don’t. You hear a lot from small shops about how they have ‘real-world clients who need real solutions - not pie-in-the-sky creative from Madison Ave shops with mega-budgets.’
Maybe.
But you owe it to any of your clients to show your best stuff, regardless of their size – or yours. Sometimes they may surprise you. Not always, but sometimes. Because otherwise, one day you wake up as agency to find your client went somewhere else because you stopped giving a shit.
They went on to an agency that showed them some new thinking. An agency that cared. But hey, you keep telling yourself it’s the client, not us, and “Man, he was a pain in the ass to work with anyway. Now we can go get some real clients.” But that’s ok.
There’s still a lot of tree tops left out there.
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