see the song titles with links to the artists. GarageBand is all unsigned artists, so you'll be helping some poor schmoe get famous if you become a fan! Over the last few months the visit length of blog viewers has increased dramatically. Over 25% of you stay for at least five minutes and a startling 8% are here for over an hour. I've even seen visits that reach into a couple of hours or more. Do I think these people are actually reading my drivel for that long? Of course not. What I think is more logical is that people are just pulling up the blog and letting the music play - like a radio station in the background. Cool.
Friday, February 29, 2008
The Podcast Is Up!
Ahh, you've noticed a little music on the blog have you? Well that's the addition of the GarageBand podcast. If you go to the sidebar you'll see a little lite-green control panel with different posts and selections. If you like a particular song, get the podcast (download mp3) and you can see the song titles with links to the artists. GarageBand is all unsigned artists, so you'll be helping some poor schmoe get famous if you become a fan! Over the last few months the visit length of blog viewers has increased dramatically. Over 25% of you stay for at least five minutes and a startling 8% are here for over an hour. I've even seen visits that reach into a couple of hours or more. Do I think these people are actually reading my drivel for that long? Of course not. What I think is more logical is that people are just pulling up the blog and letting the music play - like a radio station in the background. Cool.
see the song titles with links to the artists. GarageBand is all unsigned artists, so you'll be helping some poor schmoe get famous if you become a fan! Over the last few months the visit length of blog viewers has increased dramatically. Over 25% of you stay for at least five minutes and a startling 8% are here for over an hour. I've even seen visits that reach into a couple of hours or more. Do I think these people are actually reading my drivel for that long? Of course not. What I think is more logical is that people are just pulling up the blog and letting the music play - like a radio station in the background. Cool.
Monday, February 25, 2008
The death of a colleague: Perspective II
I did not have the best of days. Life was not kind. There was money involved. Let's just leave it at that. But it made me think about what I love to do for a living. It made me think about the creation of things and how it beats working in a bank or factory – how cool a job creativity really is and how blessed we are.
Excerpt from Wild Wild East:
"Today, a man named Paul Tilley jumped from a hotel in Chicago. He was 40 years old. I did not know Mr. Tilley, but he worked in the same business as I at DDB in Chicago, a rival of Leo Burnett. Mr. Tilley started at DDB the same year I left Burnett and started my own company (ADWEEK) in Korea – 1997. Paul's story made me think about w
hat might have happened to me had I remained in Chicago instead of starting a business in a foreign country, a very scary thing in itself.
I know now, very clearly, that I have much less money than I did in my Chicago days, that I am no longer married, that I no longer have a lake house in Michigan, and that I am no longer a Vice President for the most famous and respected agency Chicago has ever produced – and that I live in Vietnam. But I do remember looking at my boss, a very nice man, one time at Burnett in the 90s and realizing that he was not a happy man. His teenagers had suburban drug and sex issues, his wife had issues and his Lexus had issues. He was being told how and what to manage and he couldn't do it his own way. The company owned him, totally. To him, work wasn't creative anymore. The bad guys were winning more business and he was getting screwed on all sides. But he was an extremely well paid, yet decidedly unhappy man.
I know there was a definite point where I told myself, "I don't want to be him in ten years". I don't know exactly what day that was but I'm sure there was one."
A recent post on a website here in Vietnam stated this: "Remember, many of the expatriate residents in this crowded and polluted burg are here not just out of love for the place but also because they felt oppressed by their position in various hierarchies back home."
Today, a man jumped from a building in Chicago to his death from the business of creating things. And that made me very sad, but gave me a lot of perspective.
These days I spend much more time selling, taking care of clients, looking for new business and managing the business of the business than I do actually creating things. Ha! That fun now gets largely left up to the younger people. But I work everyday, at sometimes not very glamorous jobs, in sometimes not very glamorous situations, in a certified "developing country" looking for that next creative bone, like an old dog who just can't shake a habit. But it's enough to keep me going. Just the idea of it.
Sometimes, the world of business gets in the way of our ability to create – because we let it. Relationships atrophy, the magic of that "white sheet of paper" becomes an albatross and many times it's all about money. I can't say that having a lot less money makes my life any better than anyone else's but I can tell you that it makes it a lot easier to tell people what you are not willing to do. If there's no money in the deal, you will do far fewer stupid things and the fewer stupid things one does, at least theoretically, the happier ones life will be.
I have at least put a limit on the stupid things I do – but the one reason I do that, is that I am deathly scared of loosing, not just the ability, but the opportunity to create. And creating things is what I love and do best. I know the minute that I start to regard it as just a job and not a passion, that I will have lost the battle.
Whatever mirage I need to maintain perspective. I am privileged to be able to create things for a living. Everyday. And just keep digging.
Excerpt from Wild Wild East:
"Today, a man named Paul Tilley jumped from a hotel in Chicago. He was 40 years old. I did not know Mr. Tilley, but he worked in the same business as I at DDB in Chicago, a rival of Leo Burnett. Mr. Tilley started at DDB the same year I left Burnett and started my own company (ADWEEK) in Korea – 1997. Paul's story made me think about w
hat might have happened to me had I remained in Chicago instead of starting a business in a foreign country, a very scary thing in itself. I know now, very clearly, that I have much less money than I did in my Chicago days, that I am no longer married, that I no longer have a lake house in Michigan, and that I am no longer a Vice President for the most famous and respected agency Chicago has ever produced – and that I live in Vietnam. But I do remember looking at my boss, a very nice man, one time at Burnett in the 90s and realizing that he was not a happy man. His teenagers had suburban drug and sex issues, his wife had issues and his Lexus had issues. He was being told how and what to manage and he couldn't do it his own way. The company owned him, totally. To him, work wasn't creative anymore. The bad guys were winning more business and he was getting screwed on all sides. But he was an extremely well paid, yet decidedly unhappy man.
I know there was a definite point where I told myself, "I don't want to be him in ten years". I don't know exactly what day that was but I'm sure there was one."
A recent post on a website here in Vietnam stated this: "Remember, many of the expatriate residents in this crowded and polluted burg are here not just out of love for the place but also because they felt oppressed by their position in various hierarchies back home."
Today, a man jumped from a building in Chicago to his death from the business of creating things. And that made me very sad, but gave me a lot of perspective.
These days I spend much more time selling, taking care of clients, looking for new business and managing the business of the business than I do actually creating things. Ha! That fun now gets largely left up to the younger people. But I work everyday, at sometimes not very glamorous jobs, in sometimes not very glamorous situations, in a certified "developing country" looking for that next creative bone, like an old dog who just can't shake a habit. But it's enough to keep me going. Just the idea of it.
Sometimes, the world of business gets in the way of our ability to create – because we let it. Relationships atrophy, the magic of that "white sheet of paper" becomes an albatross and many times it's all about money. I can't say that having a lot less money makes my life any better than anyone else's but I can tell you that it makes it a lot easier to tell people what you are not willing to do. If there's no money in the deal, you will do far fewer stupid things and the fewer stupid things one does, at least theoretically, the happier ones life will be.
I have at least put a limit on the stupid things I do – but the one reason I do that, is that I am deathly scared of loosing, not just the ability, but the opportunity to create. And creating things is what I love and do best. I know the minute that I start to regard it as just a job and not a passion, that I will have lost the battle.
Whatever mirage I need to maintain perspective. I am privileged to be able to create things for a living. Everyday. And just keep digging.
For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:
My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI
Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X
Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX
One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII
Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII
A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI
Seoul Searching - Perspective XII
He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V
Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2
Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV
Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1
Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III
Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II
This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V
The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things
Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2
Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1
Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III
Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II
Perspective
Sunday, February 24, 2008
"I've spent many years making up for not being a genius": Am I Doing Enough?
I'm listening to a musician named Sufjan Stevens and reading about the sheer volume of work he has already done, not to mention his ambitious plans for the future. Last week I downloaded and cataloged over 30 Todd Rundgren albums – the week before, all of Zappa and Brian Eno and some Ennio Morricone. Here are are a number of extremely prolific creative people and I ask myself, "am I am doing enough?".My wife used to say my life was too complicated and maybe she was right, but I was doing a lot. And I like doing a lot.
Oh, I wrote a book last year and even in that book it seems I've got a million things going on at one time in that rendering, but am I doing enough? I collect as much music as I can get my hands on, work a regular job, I write, I make films, I attempt musical composition from time to time. I read. I cook, I clean and keep a journal – different from what I do here.
But do I do enough? Do we all do enough? One thing I have always brought to the creative process is the idea of a million influences. From music to architecture to the social sciences to whatever. How can I create if I don't know anything? How can you give if the tank is empty? So my tank is probably brimming over most of the time.
But I'm not sure I always get more from it. Because many of the people I deal with only want a certain amount. Too many ideas is not what a lot of people want.
I like and old quote from Bill Bernbach. He said, "I've spent many years making up for not being a genius".
I suppose it's going to take me more than many years. That's why I always ask myself if I'm doing enough.
For more in the "Am I doing enough?" series, check below:
III An Ozomatli Day: Am I doing enough? III
II Blimps & bullshit: Am I doing enough? II
I "I've spent many years making up for not being a genius": Am I doing enough?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
MicroHoo or NewsHoo?
$50 Billion Price Tag Puts Pressure on Microsoft to Up Its Bid for Portal
"NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Want to talk about massive display share? Forget Yahoo and Microsoft -- it's Yahoo and News Corp. that could shake up that world."The story above from Advertising Age magazine points squarely to the fact that News Corporation's advantage here would be the ability to offer advertisers package deals that would cover print, television and internet placements – something Microsoft just can't offer – business growth. If the deal sells it won't be the extra 5 billion or so in the offer price that does it but the possibilities of advertisers dollars and the ability to access content from News Corps stable of media enterprises over time. Here in Asia the combination of Murdoch's Star TV, newspapers and Yahoo would be more than powerful.
Friday, February 15, 2008
It Was 40 Years Ago Today...
Well, not 40 years ago exactly, but 40 years ago in general that the Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive on American forces in the war. It was a surprise attack, launching on the first of the Vietnamese Holiday of Tet, or Lunar New Year, the same as the Chinese and Koreans celebrate. While historians have generally considered the Tet offensive to have been politically successful, militarily it cost great lost of life to the Viet Cong and inflicted heavy casualties on soldiers and villagers alike.
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
The Tet Offensive (Tet Mau Than), or officially, Tổng Công Kích/Tổng Khởi Nghĩa - General Offensive, General Uprising, was a three-phase military campaign conducted between National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during the Vietnam War (1955-1975).The purpose of the operations, which were unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity, was to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and to spark a general uprising among the population that would then topple the Saigon government, thus ending the war in a single blow.
I'm sure there were military parades in Hanoi but I didn't see any in Saigon. Tet here passed peacefully, as well it should. During Tet the majority of businesses close for various times over a two-week period but most certainly for the three-day official Holiday which happened last weekend. Almost at the beginning of the Holiday, the man or maybe woman across the street died. So at 4am one day the brass band started up and we were off for three days of burial celebrations. This person ran the busiest Vietnamese restaurant on the street, packed at 4am with all the local workers from the tourist bars here, but during the funeral – closed. And closed still. I wonder if that's the end of the business? Just to give you and idea, here's another Vietnamese funeral – shot from my balcony:
The modern funeral ceremony, at least in Saigon it seems, borrows a lot from a New Orleans style service. In any case, the Holiday is now finished and the Vietnamese will get back to work, at least until Christmas, when a full two months of festival activities launches again and doesn't end until Valentines Day. Now that's something you get here: all the charming traditional holidays right along with all the cheesy commercial western ones!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Are the Bloggerati Missing the market?
Somebody's gotta help me. I can't figure out why not a single blog in the technorati or social marketing arena is talking about the world's largest market. Why are the bloggerati preaching to the choir and not the church?
Has anyone noticed that Korea is the #1 broadband internet penetrated country on the planet – with over 80% of 48 million people connected? Has anyone noticed that OhMyNews from South Korea has been around since 2000 and pioneered the area of citizen reporting way beyond any of the recent offerings in the west? (Translate: Truemors) Yes, OhMyNews has an International edition (click below).Excerpts From Wild Wild East:
"It is the first of its kind (OhMyNews) in the world to accept, edit and publish articles from its readers, in an open source style of news reporting. About 20% of the site's content is written by the 55-person staff while the majority of articles are written by other freelance contributors who are mostly ordinary citizens."
Whoa! Innovation and entrepreneurship from Asia? "Tsunami go wrong way Kimosabe!"
Okay, I'm boring you. Let's talk about the 78 million siliconmunists in Vietnam, who drew 20 billion US in foreign investment last year, the largest on the planet, or the insanely growing blogging universe here...or China. Anybody wanna talk China? Ok, that's 1.5 billion people and I need to check my Internet connected numbers and bandwidth and so-forth but why?
Oh wait...The world is round? You don't fall off it when you leave America? Oh dear. The marketing community calls this market the "BRIC" market.
Brazil. Russia. India. China. These are the fastest growing, largest consumer markets in the world – and if products aren't coherent with the world's next largest middle class they will simply die. Are we inventing anything these markets want to use? Imagine digging up a Yahoo logo in a thousand years and the archaeologist explaining to his students that the word meant "a cowboy's cry".
"Short of nominating Ron Paul, the dark-horse populist candidate for president in 2008, it’s doubtful that America’s taste in candidates will ever veer towards people of my background – you know, red-light visiting, expatriate, advertising sorts, (Did I mention I’ve also smoked marijuana more than once?), but should I ever venture a run, there’s one plank I would insist on in my platform:
That every American of Selective Service age be required to spend at least two years abroad in either a military, or humanitarian capacity – or, at the very least, certainly those accepted to university – our future leaders.
I know, I hear a few million asses being laughed off right now. “What the hell is he thinking?”, you’re thinking. And I am required, not by any law, but by sheer sense of national duty, to tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that America has spent far too much national capital on letting our military be our international face and not near enough letting our real faces be our face. It’s time to get out of the house and take a walk around the globe.
Right now America is a terribly misunderstood super-power with almost no national plan for growing good will in a world where the European Union has already surpassed the US in market size and Asia looms as the world’s next greatest and most profitable middle class. America's branding is in the dumper.
Too much politics for you? Well, that can wait. All I can tell you right now is that the world I was about to find in Korea was like a good cold slap in the face to this American and I couldn’t wait to get back to Chicago to tell the big boys about it."
Oh, I've got a big ole thread here, but then again, that's why I've written a Book. More on this later...
For more on blogs, blogging and bloggers, check here:
Advertising People & Blogs - The Travis Diaries VI
How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World
Throw That Blog a Bone!
If Blogs Are Free Are They Worthless?
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If You Like the Blog, Read the Book>/a>
2008 Annual Report - The Wild Wild East Dailies
Blog Redesign WWED
BarCamp Saigon 2008
Attraction vs. Conversion - How to Power Your Blog
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market?
For more on digital marketing and social networking see:
Xing vs. LinkedIn: Round II
Trial and Error: The New Normal
What's Wrong With My Social Networking? Xing vs. LinkedIn I
Low Tech Germany. Who Knew?
Advertising People and Blogs
How to Write the Best Blog in the World
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If Blogs Are Free Does That Make Them Worthless?
Detri-Viral Marketing II: The Top 10 Social Media Blunders
Bright Lights, Big Internet and the WWED
Saigon Digital Marketing Conference Successfully Avoids Plumbers Convention
A Tale of Many Marketing Conferences
Detri-Viral Marketing I: How Web 2.0 Can Go Against A Brand
Marketing Predictions for 2009
Barcamp Saigon 2008
"Ignore Everybody" is Born: A Plug for Hugh MacLeod
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market? Asia has Risen,
Into the Gapinvoid - Web 2.0 Social Networking Born 20 Years Ago
America Overseas? CitizenMekong to the rescue!
For all those worried about America's image overseas, I send CitizenMekong to the rescue – America's champion in the communist world!
Going to the War Remnants Museum here is a fairly sobering experience. Certainly one-sided but a side Americans have never seen – and as valuable as any museum could be. For starters, it's called the American War here – understandably so.
Gone now are the agent orange fetuses they had in glass jars, now replaced by photographs. Gone also, the photos of Jane Fonda and John Kerry. These exhibits existed until George Bush's visit in late 2006. Still here though are examples of some of our war hardware with plaques that say how many tanks and how many planes were used. They number in the tens of thousands of all sorts of killing equipment. The number of bombs dropped is singularly staggering.
And a Vietnamese man smiles, serves you a Coke and a bag of prawn chips as you rest under the wing of a plane to take a break.
The equipment in the video is not in the War Remnants Museum. It is stuff found all around town at different locations and part of anyone's daily walk.
For more in Political Satire and Satire see:
Monday, February 11, 2008
"You have a very interesting resume"
That means the interviewer thinks you are strange. And what is strange? Strange means you are not like them. It means they do not understand you. It means they are looking for someone more like themselves.
Excerpts from Wild Wild East:
"Webster says: A STRANGER. 1a: of, relating to, or characteristic of another country : 5: having the quantum characteristic of strangeness synonyms: STRANGE, SINGULAR, UNIQUE, PECULIAR, ECCENTRIC, ERRATIC, ODD, QUEER, QUAINT, OUTLANDISH, meaning departing from what is ordinary, usual, or to be expected."
Strange means you may have been to places and know of things that they don't so the word interesting is inserted instead. It's not a form of curiosity - unfortunately - it's more of a criticism, a way of pushing back from the table.
"One look at all those descriptions and it’s easy to tell why people from other countries can be misperceived or misunderstood. Strange, outlandish, eccentric and odd - queer, erratic, and peculiar – these are certainly not the words we want to describe the person who’s coming in to manage your company. So maybe there’s a basic problem in using the word foreigner to describe people from other countries – but in Korea you will be a foreigner, like it or not.
Many of my expatriate friends have experienced the initial shock of being labeled foreigner and they tend not to like it, but Koreans, being from a homogeneous country with a Confucian value system, where everyone has a place in the hierarchy of the group, don’t see anything wrong with it. To Koreans it simply means that that person is not part of the group. And that is exactly the point:
The first thing one needs to learn in moving from a Western to an Eastern culture is not who you are, but who you are not."
Talking with friends and relatives back home is a little bit different. At any gathering or cocktail party you are obviously the zebra in a room full of horses and they are all very curious to learn how and where you got your stripes – for about twenty minutes. Then their knowledge of Korea or Vietnam turns to MASH and Apocalypse Now until it finally wanes and the conversation jumps to Bob's issues at the country club or Bert's new Lexus.
How odd to have been the foreigner when I initially moved abroad and now to be one again when I go back home or deal with American's there.
A few years ago I had a speaking invitation to about 250 Korean graduate students who were all planning to study abroad in one field or another. My subject was marketing. Reading through my resume and reviewing the Powerpoint it became obvious that most of the information was just gobble-dee-gook on paper. Couldn't I tell the story better in pictures? I gave a 2 minute run-through of my credentials...blah, blah, blah – university this – big agency/big client that, blah, blah, blah – and then said, wait – "All of that data on paper just tells you what things are. I want to show you how it all feels." I then proceeded to show the following film. I've edited the ending a bit to reflect the last couple of years just to keep it current for new audiences.
"The Guild of the Infant Saviour on East 86th Street in New York in 1956 was approximately 6885 miles and exactly thirty-nine years away from Seoul, Korea in 1995. Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis would play their last comedy show together at the Copacabana just a few blocks away that year and Elvis, singing Hound Dog, would electrify the Ed Sullivan show in the same city just a few months later. But things were reasonably less grand at the Guild of the Infant Saviour, a home for unwed Catholic mothers just a few blocks south of Gracie Mansion on the East River and adjacent to what was then Misericordia Hospital at 531 East 86th. It was here that Shawn Michael Everitt would begin his journey"
How does one get from New York to Illinois? From Illinois to Texas? From Texas to DC? From DC to Chicago? From Chicago to Korea? From Korea to Vietnam?
"I would be asked in Korea much later, how it felt to be a foreigner in a strange land and my response was simply this: When you’re adopted and have traveled by car from Jersey to Illinois at the age of three, you’re already a foreigner – doing it one more time is just no big deal."
Now the thought occurs to me that I should edit the film one more time – to explain to Americans about my time in Asia – or just make a whole damn new movie. Or write a Book?
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Le Feel Internationale
Recently, Hugh MacLeod, in his blog, Gapingvoid.com, mused that in the quiver of the necessary business tools of Financial, Intellectual, Technical and Cultural properties, that the only possible shortcoming in Microsoft's ar
senal was the latter. Oh, we all know there's a million Bangalorean geeks slaving away at code for good ole MacroStiff but is that really cultural? Or just low cost outsourcing? Cultural assimilation and growth require absorption of new ideas, divergent histories and traditions – a true crashing and synergism of disparate advantages towards the greater benefit of the whole. (very Confucian...or nuclear?)Following is an excerpt from Wild Wild East – One American executive's view of a foreign culture as pitched to an employee a few years ago:
"The attorney was a whole other story. A primpish North-side Chicago gal she had all the charm of a sorority girl on spring break. I honestly don’t recall her name but her pitch was nothing short of glowing – glowing in the manor of stinking shit about things she didn’t know fuck all about. Oh, the international life as she recounted it. Sunsets on the Champs-Élysées. Wines at quaint corner cafes and an exotic circle of European friends pervaded her life in Paris with her husband, also an attorney with an international law firm. I can still smell the champagne soaked carpet of her description as it was being rolled up after the American Chamber of Commerce Ball on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. I had been to Paris in 1990 and while much more of a backpacker than an executive at the time, certainly knew a few of the finer moments of that great city. I had stayed in the shadows of Tour Eiffel and busied my trip with cooking school, trips to the Louvre, Musée Rodin and Musée d'Orsay. My father used to say that I had “champagne taste” on a “beer budget” but my budget had come a long way from college and I had the wife to prove it.
“Have you ever been to Korea?”, I asked the attorney.
“Hong Kong?”, “Anywhere in Asia at all?”
Her “no’s” were just sheepish in an unknowledgeable sort of way.
“Honey”, I recall thinking, “Seoul, Korea ain’t no fucking Parée!”
Hell, she wouldn’t have understood it if I had said it in exactly that way so I tried my best to describe to her just how different from Paris it really was, but I knew all my counter-claims were falling on deaf ears. Her memory of Paris truly was truly blinding. She thought all international assignments were like Paris. I'm sure she'd love Bangalore.
And though this tale is over ten years old, I encountered the same just last week from a recruiter with a major global advertising group. She was recruiting for a Tokyo position but couldn't spell the Japanese partner's name correctly nor even confirm facts that are listed on the company's website (in English!)
At least when you see a McDonald's in another country, they will spell the name in the appropriate language and even represent the typography in the style of the culture. "Le Grand Mac!" , to quote Travolta from Pulp Fiction..
What are the chances that Microsoft can even bridge that chasm as it slips in word dominance? MicroDeux? I dunno, I think legal's gonna have some issues... I'll get back to you...
Into the GapingVoid!
Who knew years ago that the funny Scottish man who drew sardonic urban cartoons on business cards and grooved to Django Reinhardt would be a web 2.0 prophet today?
Hugh and I met in the fall of 1989 as the two newest employees of the Leo Burnett company in Chicago. Hugh had just graduated from the University of Texas and I was about ten years into a fairly successful advertising career. Our day of company orientation included hours of scintillating explanations of insurance plans, profit sharing plans and of course, an in-depth analysis of the ever important employee handbook. We didn't give a fuck about any of it and spent most of the day cutting up, asking inane questions and marveling at the sincerity with which our sophomoric behaviour was being responded to. The day culminated with a showing of Leo Burnett's now famous retirement speech, "When To Take My Name Off The Door". You can see it here:
And with that speech, we were actually inspired. Behind the mahogany veneered walls and shiny conference tables, here was something we could sink our teeth into. Common sense, uncommon honesty and heartfelt passion for the business of creating something. I've heard it said that in terms of people's respect for certain professions, that advertising people rate just above used car salesmen and somewhere below lawyers, but here was a man you could believe in. Too bad he was dead.
Hugh and I would work together for the next few years. At lunchtime we'd grab a sandwich and head for the Jazz Record Mart in The Loop, still the largest jazz record store in the world. The storefront was a small deceiving dusty affair with just a few rows of racks of old LPs and a tiny selection of CDs. But through the curtain on the back wall was a cavernous room with tens of thousands of records of all shapes and sizes. They even had LPs that were nearly a metre in diameter, commissioned by the US Army for use on Jeep-mounted turntables with overhead loudspeakers on the rollbar. These records were only grooved on one side with the theory being that nobody had time to turn a record over on the battlefield. The size was simply to insure the longest play possible.
Hugh was a huge jazz fan, his father having been one as well, and probably taught me more on the subject than anyone previously. But all along were the cartoons on the business cards. They were an integral part of Hugh. Sarcastic, sardonic, enlightening and decidedly un-PC in the ultra conservative environment of the Leo Burnett Company. Remember, this is the company that created the Jolly Green Giant, not the Blue Monster of www.Gapingvoid.com fame.
What the fuck were we doing there? Both of us were fairly well known for throwing shit in the company's face whenever given the chance and did so routinely, because that was actually our job. I am convinced to this day that companies in the precarious predicament that Leo Burnett was in, in the 1990s need to hire people who will come in and shake the tree.
From Wild Wild East:
"Burnett would struggle in the years after that, loosing client upon client, all for different reasons, but the message was clear: this was a company tied to the images of the Marlboro Man and the Keebler Elves struggling to come to grips with a vision and technology that was much more Mario and Pokemon."
I told people for years that my job was to be the exact opposite of everyone else at the agency, that by sheer force of individuality and a measured detachment I provided a service that they desperately needed – objectivity. But it's hard to maintain that kind of freedom once you become part of an organization because the organization won't let you. They hire you because your are different but then try to make you the same as they are. This is pure organizational psychology. There is little one can do about it – within the organization, that is.
Hugh and I continued to work at Burnett for the next few years. In the mid 90s I headed for Korea and Hugh moved to New York. After a year and a half in Korea, I started my own agency there and Hugh continued on the cartoons. in NYC. As fellow geeks I'm happy that technology has allowed us to keep in touch and stay creative.
For more on digital marketing and social networking see:
Xing vs. LinkedIn: Round II
Trial and Error: The New Normal
What's Wrong With My Social Networking? Xing vs. LinkedIn I
Low Tech Germany. Who Knew?
Advertising People and Blogs
How to Write the Best Blog in the World
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If Blogs Are Free Does That Make Them Worthless?
Detri-Viral Marketing II: The Top 10 Social Media Blunders
Bright Lights, Big Internet and the WWED
Saigon Digital Marketing Conference Successfully Avoids Plumbers Convention
A Tale of Many Marketing Conferences
Detri-Viral Marketing I: How Web 2.0 Can Go Against A Brand
Marketing Predictions for 2009
Barcamp Saigon 2008
"Ignore Everybody" is Born: A Plug for Hugh MacLeod
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market? Asia has Risen,
Into the Gapinvoid - Web 2.0 Social Networking Born 20 Years Ago
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
2.6 Million for a Super Bowl spot?
I recall having around a million dollars once to produce a spot for the Super Bowl. It was okay, not great, but not as bad as some of the shite I saw the other day on YouTube. You can see the game here in Vietnam, on a Monday morning at an American bar, but you don't get any commercials. It's an ESPN international feed or something.
Shortly after I arrived here, I was sitting on a tiny plastic chair on the street having a coffee and a smoke – little plastic chairs are pervasive in Asia because so much living is done at street level. As I sat, I saw the man in this video, slowly making his way toward me so I discretely pulled out my cel-phone and shot this film. If a picture is worth a thousand words this spot should be worth at least a million dollars. It didn't cost a cent, but hopefully will do some good.
_______________________________________________
Shortly after I arrived here, I was sitting on a tiny plastic chair on the street having a coffee and a smoke – little plastic chairs are pervasive in Asia because so much living is done at street level. As I sat, I saw the man in this video, slowly making his way toward me so I discretely pulled out my cel-phone and shot this film. If a picture is worth a thousand words this spot should be worth at least a million dollars. It didn't cost a cent, but hopefully will do some good.
_______________________________________________
After I made the original film, it sat around awhile until the script came. This would have been a little over two years ago. Watching George Bush on TV roostering around and acting as if America had some sort of copyright on morality just didn't add up to me, when I could see the results of our morality, 30 years after the fact. I finished the final commercial at home on my Mac and then sent it around the world to interested organisations. A wonderful man named Professor Kenneth Herrmann from SUNY Brockport in New York responded and we began a partnership. Do click on Professor Herrmann's link and see the good work he and his students are doing in Vietnam – and of course help them out with a donation if you can.
Perspective
Today on the street there was a woman with a small pile of electrical refuse – wires and connectors and stuff, sockets & plugs. She had a screwdriver and a small hammer and w
as very deliberately separating the tiny copper and brass connectors from their plastic casings, throwing the plastic away. Each effort yielded a piece of metal about half the weight of a penny. She had a very small bag full of the scrap metal – not even a pound; and that was worth her time this afternoon – right across the street from the photo here. Graham Greene in his novel "The Quiet American" called Vietnam a country where nothing goes to waste. I see this in practice everyday. I am paid to think for a living. I shouldn't waste a thought. Perspective, for sure.
Update: 03.02.09 - I have learned since, that the building you see pictured was designed to be the home of a famous writer - hence, the window treatments representing the quill of a pen. Tre' cool.
as very deliberately separating the tiny copper and brass connectors from their plastic casings, throwing the plastic away. Each effort yielded a piece of metal about half the weight of a penny. She had a very small bag full of the scrap metal – not even a pound; and that was worth her time this afternoon – right across the street from the photo here. Graham Greene in his novel "The Quiet American" called Vietnam a country where nothing goes to waste. I see this in practice everyday. I am paid to think for a living. I shouldn't waste a thought. Perspective, for sure.Update: 03.02.09 - I have learned since, that the building you see pictured was designed to be the home of a famous writer - hence, the window treatments representing the quill of a pen. Tre' cool.
For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:
My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI
Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X
Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX
One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII
Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII
A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI
Seoul Searching - Perspective XII
He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V
Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2
Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV
Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1
Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III
Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II
This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V
The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things
Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2
Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1
Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III
Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II
Perspective
Go East Young Man
Part memoir, part travelogue, part historical guide and part American business review, Wild Wild East follows the adventures of one man in his quest for a creatively meani
ngful life. From an adoption agency in Manhattan to the board rooms of corporate America and then on to the far east, WWE weaves a story from 1995 through 2005 and beyond with flashbacks from the authors life that grow chronologically until they catch up with him in real time. Throughout the telling the author travels the through over 30 countries as flashbacks occur every time he takes a trip, usually when he is on a plane when there is plenty of time for reflection. In this way the story builds upon itself in both complexity and understanding as to why the central character makes the decisions he does and travels the roads of fortune or less fortune as the case unfolds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)