Fall in Love

I'm posing as a professor this semester, co-teaching a portfolio class for a talented group of UNT advertising seniors. My co-adjunct professor assigned some seriously difficult clients for these students. One in particular, the magazine edition of TV Guide, made me question: were we being too hard? Were we purposefully making their lives difficult?

Then I remembered how, two years ago, I was working on The Yellow Pages. The actual book.
And yeah -- it was hard. But that was my job. Sell the tree-killing, finger-dirtying, always-went-in-my-recycling-bin-the-second-I-got-it-until-I-finally-gave-up-landlines-in-part-because-of-the-fucking- Yellow Pages.

And a hundred other assignments over my career that I didn't want. At least, not initially.

It's easy to look at something -- anything -- and pick out the things you don't like. Or come up with a reason to keep your distance. We live in a generation of snark. It's become kind of a sport to deride the people and things that surround us.

But I realized, at some point, that no product, no company, no job is perfect.
And as a person who had decided on advertising for a career, I had made the choice of celebrating things that I might otherwise turn my nose up at.

Who does great advertising? The best advertising ever? Weiden? For who? Nike? I can say, that advertising is absolutely incredible. Heartfelt, inspiring, sometimes humorous but always thoughtfully conceived and artfully produced.

I very much believe in Nike, the brand. But I don't typically buy Nike, the product.
I dislike Nike shoes. I haven't had a swoosh on my feet in a long time, for a variety of reasons.
Some practical, others more political.

As a consumer, I am absolutely afforded the luxury of turning my nose up at brands I dislike.
As an advertiser? Not so much.

So what's a creative to do?

I suggest you fall in love.

Look past the blemishes. Look past the ugly ears and the big nose and that unfortunate eyelid mole and find something -- maybe something deep down -- that you believe in, and can unconditionally celebrate.

(I tried to convey this to my class. I fear it had mixed results. They may have though I was just being funny. Or perhaps a little insane. I wrote a long-winded love letter to them on the white board in the class room. It may have been kind of creepy.)

I will attempt to capture the essence of what I told them here:

Fall in love with your client's product or service.
Look past the ugly stuff. Especially the stuff over which both you and they have no control.
Look at shortcomings as opportunities.
Look at things with humility, and empathy. You're not perfect either -- even if you're trying.
Look at things through the eyes of a human -- with hope and optimism.
Look for the bright side. Make it shine as brightly as possible.
Look for the dark side. Rim-light it so it remains seductive and mysterious.

Don't lie. Don't ever lie.
But shape your observations -- and your belief around the good, not the bad.
Make sure you can believe it. And say it with a straight face. Because you MUST believe it if you expect me to.

You should be able to introduce me to it, as you might your girl- or boyfriend, while looking me in the eye. Without winking, or raising your eyebrows or looking at your shoes. You aren't just sleeping with it this weekend -- you're taking it out to dinner and introducing it to your parents.

Now if the thing you've been asked to sell kills people. and you're not okay with that. Then refuse to do it. Break up. This is your right. You are, after all, a moral being. A conscientious objector.

You may be fired. Or flunked.

In fact, it's probably better that you are fired/flunked if someone asks you to sell cigarettes or WMDs or anything else that kills or sickens millions of people.

Maybe you no longer create advertising. (I don't)
Maybe you never did.

But, in whatever you do -- hopefully you do something -- there are the good things and the bad things. If you focus on the bad things -- it will definitely be bad.

But if you can find the light, through clear eyes clouded only by humility and optimism, then maybe you, too, can fall in love

Magic

Generally speaking, I've lost my taste for advertising. But these are fucking beautiful. Intriguing. and actually make me want to give this car another look.

Via Ads of the World

photography by christopher griffith

Trying is human

I'm an honest guy.
Mostly. I tend to go right to the point.
And may the soft-ego'd and frail-eared fall where they may.

 I drop F-bombs like a lost fat child drops breadcrumbs.
And I have trouble disguising my disappointment around people for whom I lack respect.
 Which makes me sound like a dick. And maybe I am.

So I'd like to apologize.

 To the people that were trying. Especially to them.
To the people that were rushed, and otherwise troubled.
Or were distracted and their 100% came out looking and feeling more like 53%.

 I'm not apologizing to you because I know you're human.
Or, because your human, I know I should expect a little less of you.

I mean, that's just bullshit.

 I've been there.
I've been pulled in too many directions.
I've let life cloud my work. And vice versa.
I've multitasked at the expense of all the tasks.
I've been rushed. And I've been irritated. And occasionally I've just been lazy.

Some people might shrug and say, "Meh -- you're human."
But that's neither an excuse nor even a particularly good explanation of why I do those things.
I do them because I'm flawed. Imperfect. And occasionally just not trying.

To be human is to seek companionship and enlightenment.
To be curious.
And more importantly, restless.

To be human is to learn from our dreams to do the things that have never been done.
To be human is to try things and, when they fail, to try them a different way.
 Humans flew to the moon.
Humans created the iPhone.
Humans invented French cooking. And really amazing wine.
And, having created the first amazing wine -- they've gone on to further refine and even perfect its production and distribution.
 To be human is to be amazingly sharp, despite our soft-cell exteriors.

So if I fail -- ESPECIALLY if I fail by not trying -- it's not because I'm human.
It's because sometimes I'm an asshole.

If I'm truly trying, I make time for you.
If I'm truly trying, I come up with something great -- then beat it with something better.
I admit that I'm wrong.
Not as an excuse -- but as a segue to being right (or at least right-er), eventually.
If I'm truly trying, I know when I'm not given enough time -- and I plan accordingly.

Yes. Sometimes I go home and go to sleep. Because I'm human. And humans need sleep. And water. And to see their families and be greeted by their dogs and put the work on the back shelf. And while they're home -- they need to be trying, too. Really trying.

Yoda said "...There is no try". But Yoda wasn't human. Or real. Let's not garble the definition of human by assuming the flaws are part of the package. Let's do all we can to overcome them ever day. Or, at least, let's try.

User or Loser?

User: Wants to feel something. Loser: Wants something for nothing. User: Appreciates custom. Loser: Settles for lowest common denominator. User: Appreciates a thoughtful process. Loser: Badda Bing, Bada Boom. User: Appreciates the details. Loser: Understands a cliche. User: Pays extra for thoughtfulness. Loser: Buys in bulk. User: Considers the package, not just the product. Loser: Would judge the book by its cover, but rarely goes to the bookstore or the library. User: Design is a feature. Loser: 100 features is better than 99 features. User: Do one thing well. Loser: Sixteen uses is better than fifteen. User: Function meets fiction. Loser: Function trumps fiction. User: Surprise and delight me. Loser: Buy it, break it, hate it, regret it. User: Try, iterate, try again. Loser: Repeat the same mistakes, blame others for the results. So I ask you all, Are you a user? Or a loser?

Celebrating lo-fi

In the weeks since I've gone from advertising creative director to user experience strategist, I've been impressed with the notion of low-fi to hi-fi. Lo-fi can have some really beautiful and unexpected effects:

One Sander, One Drill from Craig Cutler on Vimeo.

Untitled from Craig Cutler on Vimeo.

More at craigcutler.com

Crowd Source This

Sam Adams wants the crowd to help them make a beer.

But here's the thing: People are idiots.

A smart person avoid crowds and crowd logic.
Take the path less traveled.
Discover a new way. A better way.
Does it different. On their own. Or with a few handpicked smart people to guide them.
And challenge them.

You want to make a good new beer?
Partner with another brewer.
Or a physicist.
Or a chef.
Or a bicycle technician.
Not a crowd.

The crowd is lowest common denominator.
The crowd is too many chefs in the fucking kitchen.
A crowd is a mob.
A crowd is a focus group.

Crowds make terrible decisions:
Like Facebook.
And book burning.
And Hollister.

You want a brilliant idea?
Leave it to a brilliant person.

You want a stupid idea? Ask a crowd.

How full is your bike?

Photograph one of a series by Alain Delorme

I saw this photograph, and loved it right away.

Beyond the spectacular palette and the riveting subject matter, I immediately thought of the dilemma we sometimes face of working on a lot of jobs at once. If you step back and look at the load, you shake your head and you say "impossible". But if you are riding the bike as someone carefully balances one more, two more, five more projects on top, you somehow find a way to balance them. You make time. You compensate. And as long as you keep moving, you almost don't notice.

Of course stopping and starting become the issue. And as with any delivery job, stopping and starting are a serious part of the deal. Inertia sort of plays against you -- you'd rather hold onto the job then stop long enough to deliver it properly. Just one more meeting. just one more week to really finish it properly.

You're not nearly as nimble -- when a truck blows by, when an innocent pedestrian steps in front of you, or in a narrow alley strewn with trash, vermin and the occasional drunk. Right? Welcome to advertising! You'll probably crash. You'll likely drop jobs all over the place. The unforseen stop is WAY worse than the calculated stop.

There's something to be said for the accomplishment of moving a lot of stuff at once. If you ever actually get it all where it's supposed to go. But clearly this can't be done without sacrificing time. Energy. Focus. Accuracy.And these are precisely the reason that all those jobs seem to stay on the back of the damn bike forever.

The funny thing is, the people who can most easily recognize the bike is overloaded are the ones who aren't riding it. The open-mouthed gapers who look on with fascination. Marveling. CAN he do it? Which turns into a sort of morbid jenga-like fascination: what if I put one MORE box on there? Would THAT tip it over? I mean, CLEARLY he has the other 423 boxes under control. What's a 424th box?

And what if you are the customer? When this guy pulls up to your door, do you get the sense you're not working with a quality company?

If you are the dispatcher, do you start to ask this guy to park his bike around the corner and walk into the office with a single package under his arm to preserve the illusion he's hand delivering them one at a time?

When you feel overloaded, do you just stop the bike and dump it all in the street? Do you refuse to ride it until someone takes 1/2 the stuff off? 2/3 of the stuff? Would it seem normally loaded with one absurdly large box (and a two-week window to ride it 100 miles)?

Have I beaten the shit out of this metaphor?