Advertising Or Prison?

Don't look at anyone in the eyes. Especially account reps or the traffic coordinator, they can smell fear and will feed upon your lack of knowledge in the process and folder structure on the file server.

Don't be a snitch. If someone yells at you in a concept meeting you need to take it to them one-on-one not on email. Email clicks grow fast and before you know it they'll have a list serve setup to talk about how much of a puss you are.

Do your own time. Everyone chose advertising for a reason. Don't talk about your dreams of being a Creative Director one day, no one cares. This talk will get you fired or worse you'll get a cube located across from the overweight Christian woman that has a parakeet name "Mr. Rojo" because he is red.

Don't make friends. Everyone that you talk to about the agency that you where at previously will hate you, and the Gold Pencil you got might be 'tea-bagged' before sun up, I'd advise not bringing it in for show and tell.

Don't ever be indebted to anyone. If someone offers you some extra time on a banner bar just refuse and tell them to cut down the frames. If someone tells you that they'll do a photo search for you, tell them you'll "work late" and take care if it yourself. If you become the guy that owe favors, get ready to be making trips with Sam Flax for presentation board because someone owns your ass now.

Don't ever get caught: stealing food, taking pens or becoming too close with a client. To be a client's bitch is to "be the client"; no one will trust you or tell you anything about the client's work because they think you'll rat them out. Later when the client drops you and you'll get laid off because of it.  There will be a guy adding your photo to a stack of Polaroids of people that were stupid, made it out alive, or simply could fill out the FedEx slips right.

Don't choose a clique without doing your research. If you get in a clique too soon...like with the developers in interactive, you'll have to learn first person shooters (like Call Of Duty) quickly so you can keep up with where you project sits during a headshot from "Mr. Giggles" or "HEXICON" to make sure your shit's not going to be late.

Stay in shape. Fatty's are just known to take to the freebies in the breakroom first. If you keep your head level and don't break down every time a vendor brings in Krispy Kremes and you can snake through the cigarette cloud that billows out from the Account Receivable picnic table, you might just start getting respect.

Don't get caught masturbating. This is just sound advice regardless of whether it's outlined in the employee manual or not.

Fight for your respect. You can count on someone "getting into" your concepts in the first few days. If some art director makes comments regarding your font usage or that you used a stock photo that he's seen a million times you have a choice to make. Become his bitch and be victimized or take matters into your own hands. Tell him that while papyrus is a lame 80's font that is only used in new age books and greek menus, if he had read the creative brief he would know it's in the brand standards manual and not to get into your grill again or he'll be looking for new space heater.

Know your escape routes. If you're in the break-room, position yourself close to the door that opens to the largest hallway. If your break-room only has one entrance or exit and one of the managing partners enters and gives you a look like, you better have a job bag in your hand or it will be your head...immediately open the fridge door and complain that you have been "throwing up at both ends" and that "everything in here smells like bad pork" then make a pukie face a walk out – fast.

Keep a clean record. Never take credit for any work that goes up. Claim it as a group effort that "a ton of great thinking going into it" and how proud you are to be a part of it. Then if it goes to shit in the pitch, you can say that you "live and die as a team" and go back to the drawing board with your dignity partially intact. If the second round fails, tell them that you haven't felt well since you ate some of Terry's birthday cake that was in the fridge that smelled like pork rinds.

Never trust anyone above the director level. If they have VP, Executive (even worse "Senior Executive" -- that's just an old guy that no one wants to make a partner but you can't fire because he knows where all the preverbal bodies are buried) or the dreaded "Partner" make no sudden movements or speak directly to them. This Demi-God class of employees are the tried and true battle warriors of the agency. They wield PowerPoint remotes with the precision of the Katana; given that they have to explain a line items in an RFP called "percentage based fee" can do so with the Devil's tongue leaving client so happy they wish they had their own cash to invest in the project.

Keep your mind and your spirit. Don't let anyone tell you that your work is less than clip art or tell you that you should have stayed an intern so you wouldn't take up a phone extension. Do your time, do great work and one day all your dreams will come true.  You'll soon get your own shop and swoop up the AOR for Nike and Coca-Cola in the same day.

2010 Archive: "Change" & Rebooting Your Life

I guess I should not be surprised that [real] life-changing things are happening to people I consider to be real extended family. Just like your parents telling you "wow, we have friends passing away" you don't hold hands with mortality in the same ways that they do from generation-to-generation. While I'm sure I will just not at this point yet. But many things have transpired, and are transpiring in my life that are reminding me how fragile life really is and how much my loved ones and friends mean. In fair-weather times we naturally take these moments for granted, but in times like these I'm beginning to see one door close and another open. It's not good or bad (dependent upon situation) it's simply being confronted with unknowing, and often times uncontrollable change. I see more and more that humanities real survival is not just adpating and evolving but the acceptance of this change. No, this post doesn't end with some witty takeaway just know that beyond this holiday season take the gift that is change and do your best to accept it and apply it. Learn from your past as it's trully all you have as reference at any given moment and work to make your life better for yourself, your family and those around you. One final thought, log off and log back into your childs eyes. Hold them, be happy with them and cherish your significant others.

Don't Ask Me What I Think Of Your Site

I don't ask a professional there opinion and not like the response. Especially after using the words "be honest with me." <shakes head> Recently when asked for "quick peek" at an associates site he got more than he bargained for:

Home Page:

• Lots of stacked logos - check
• Inconsistent graphical sizing of all images - check
• Make links to both underlined and non-underlined hypertext functional; for a more exploratory feel I would assume or just to play mindgames with your UI - check
• Italicize whenever the mood should strike - check
• Flagrant disregard for rounded vs. angular compartmentalization - check
• Five disconnected CSS font styles - check
• Awesome selection of metaphor based stock photography - check
• Your design company logo to dwarf footer and client logo - check

The awesomeness here is almost unrestrainable.

From this point forward there apparently was no need to discuss the sub-pages.

Your Music & Waterboarding

What were you in high school, a band geek, a stoner, a jock, and metal-head-art-fag (here's me) or where you simply part of the fabric? Unseen, unheard and begging to get on with your life. I'm not going to go on elongated tirade about about how much I think music sucks these days, as I find myself hearing the band I grew up with on the "classic" stations but I'll say this – it's nice to get kicked in the stomach from time-to-time.

What does that mean? Well most of the new music these days 'takes some listening to.' What the hell does that even mean? "Well, you'll liked it after a I listen to the CD two or three times." Oh my god. Is this what we've become? Dan Zarrella calls them "sheeple" and I have to concur. When did we bow down and become fed from a tube? Why must we torture ourselves to conform in parties? Are we only listening to what we think is safe or has the most views on YouTube? Where's the angst? Where's the anti-establishment? Where's the shakeup? Where's the band that kicks you in the teeth the moment you hear it and you say "hell yeah!"

I give you:
The Bronx – "Inveigh"

Yes, I know the song's three years old, and that I'm old, get over it. Send me some new music! Send me some new links. Show me the music that made you wake up. Keep me young and angry and thinking! I don't want to be in the box. Give me your band to promote and I promise I will spike your traffic by four or five people. Talk to your hosting service to insure that I will not bring down their infrastructure with this wave. Best ~

Addendum:

My friend Sean "8-bit" Smith just brought some points in the comments below that make me think. I guess it's never been about anger in the sense of hatred or malice, though that music exists too, as a father and humanist I don't agree with that sensibility. It is about "change" pure and simple.

Brand Affinity: Hyatt Place

First off, I'm a total brand junkie. Though loyal, I love to kick the tires on new brands. Now, while Hyatt Place hotels are not totally new, I was only recently introduced to them a couple of years ago. Now, as I've come to understand it (from staying at various properties and speaking with their staff), Hyatt wanted a brand concept that they could come into a town and seek out distressed hotels that no longer fulfilled the needs of the consumer, purchase and reintroduce them in the Hyatt Place brand. This is usually done by tossing the ashtrays, hitting it with some paint and a couple of new lobby accoutrements. Nothing could be further from the truth with Hyatt Place.

"Designed for the busy lifestyle of today's multi-tasking business traveler, Hyatt Place features a selected range of services aimed at providing casual hospitality in a well-designed, high-tech and contemporary environment. Property sizes range from 125 to 200 rooms and are located in urban, airport and suburban areas. Signature features of Hyatt Place include The Gallery, which offers a coffee and wine bar, a 24 hours a day, seven days a week guest kitchen with freshly prepared snacks and entrees, and daily complimentary continental breakfast. Hyatt Place guests are business travelers as well as families. Hyatt Place properties are also well suited to serve small corporate meetings."

If it's not brand new and it is a refurb, but they do their very best to include all the design standards that make the Hyatt place a contemporary experience. If there's a fault at all here, it's that they are all so close to brand standard that they all feel the same! But let me tell you, when you're driving from state to state with your family and you arrive at a hotel that even your three year old daughter knows where things are and what to expect, I'd say they're doing something right. And while it is more fashioned for the business traveler, I will tell you that my daughter's always been treated with the same amount of attention given to the big kids.

Each room has a large wraparound couch that also services as a pull-out bed, should you need it, along with a half divider wall and a large 42" flat screen television on a swivel post that can be positioned for either the bedroom area or the sitting area. Very nice. I wish I could see it better from the shower, but I also want the Denver Broncos to have a winning record. Alas, we cannot have everything. There's a fridge, a desk, free wi-fi, an ottoman and a decent office chair.

The free breakfast is decent and they offer a few meals, both breakfast and dinner that are reasonably priced and quite good. There are small, but efficient, sitting areas for relaxing in the lobby and around the food areas. I recommend the pesto chicken ciabatta sandwich. They have express check-in stations with touchscreen -- not a time-machine, but a pleasant necessity when you're not feeling chatty. Most of them have a pool, a weight room all of the stuff you would expect‚ and even laundry service!

A couple of flimsy cons are that the shampoo and the soap smell like bubblegum -- it's the weirdest thing. Tell me I'm wrong! Oh, and Hyatt, if you're listening -- you also might want to vary the artwork from room to room, I'm kind of over the tribal branches. And please buy your maintenance staff a laser level, I swear, all the artwork in the potties are not level!

All this for typically under $100 a night. Be sure to ask every time you go if they're offering any double points or one-night stay free, their reward's program is great. Oh, and if you stay there enough, be sure to hit the manager up with a business card and they will establish you a corporate rate. I think that's about it kids, sleep tight.

What Happened To The "Ecstasy Of Gold?"

"The Ecstasy of Gold" is a song written by Ennio Morricone from the Spaghetti Western, 'The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,' and its popularity had a resurgence in the 90's as the heavy metal band, Metallica, would use it as the opening music to their concerts. This tune would start to fill the air and the crowd would practically eat itself knowing that the band was about to hit the stage. I was born of this metal militia almost thirty years ago and I can still remember seeing them walk out on stage each and every time.

That being said, I saw Apple tease a couple of weeks ago the release of something on iTunes tomorrow! "Cool," I said and then subsequently tweeted that they're "such a tease." That's in jest, really, as I love that some people are still taking the time to build anticipation. There's less and less of it anymore as we've made way for the expectation that one's social network is of such that whatever the trend in my interest will simply 'find me.' I guess I cannot blame the technology companies these days -- there's this hurricane of technology releases coming from every direction and none of them seem to be any bigger than the other. Facebook, today, released messaging surrounding their messaging services but it didn't feel special. It didn't make me talk, chatter or speculate what it could be.

Maybe Al Capone's vault or the lack of inspiration that was provided by the Segway just cast a shroud of apathy of building pre-buzz. What's going on? I mean, even DVD and game releases are having less and less pre-seeded expectation applied to them. Are we just to the point that we don't require anticipation anymore? Maybe I'm just so past my trending prime that I'm oblivious to these campaigns, but I don't think so. I [think] that we're just swimming in deliverables. There's a poster that I saw behind some technology executive (Facebook, as I recall) that said "Better Now Than Prefect", and while I'm coming to understand more and more that sometimes being first is better than being the best in the application/mobile market, it has a tendency to be a wash of technology, versioning and vague discussion that swirls into muddy noise.

I started this by saying that apple's doing it, but just for a day. Facebook seems to have a feature release a month and that's about as special as a new item on Cracker Barrel's menu. Maybe I'm just old, or maybe I want to be so excited about something that when I finally hold it I feel special to have acquired it. Christmas day, camping our for tickets to that one band you must see before you die or simply waiting to see a good friend. The art of anticipation seems to be a dying art. We're so connected to everything and news travels at blinding speeds that even word-of-mouth is too slow. I have dozens of friends and we all send each other sites, video and technologies to get our thoughts. And I find it amazing that I send the same file to two people on across the continent and I get "oh, I saw that an hour ago." It's something that is bitter sweet about technology, we get everything faster and faster but we seem to forget that sometimes it's just good to wait.