The Therapeutic Benefits of a Proper Fish & Chips

Last week could have gone better. There were Internet problems, wire transfer problems and a more than usual set of small business fires to be extinguished - but throughout the week there were two major issues that helped me to understand my true dyspepsia:


#1) I want to be spending more time with quality, intelligent, dedicated people who are doing their best to be the best at what they do.

#2) I need to be spending more time with people who are being honest with me and in the end, honest with themselves.

And that's what my week boiled down to - two essential problems that I needed to work better through to help me avoid disappointment and associated depression - because when I'm not sleeping well or sleeping too much, I know something is not right.

Issue #1) That I need to be spending more time with passionate, intelligent people who are making a difference in their business - came up in a response to a blog post I did regarding Vietnamese advertising agencies not winning awards. One person actually wrote a response to my post almost defending, and then in the end making excuses for why his agency didn't even bother to enter the industry award shows. "We don't see the point" - he quoted his management as saying. And that made me sad. "Why even try to be better", it said to me. And that I thought was a very sad comment coming from a man who is actually in charge of a creative business here. Other contributors to my feeling along these lines were an old acquaintance in a bar insulting another guy for seemingly no reason, except to maybe make himself feel more superior and another person just chasing small money instead of looking at the bigger picture. Are my standards too high? Or do I just need to be spending more time with people who have similar standards? That seems to be my question.

Issue #2) That I need to be spending more time with people who are honest with me and in the end, honest with themselves - started with a personal relationship last year in which someone had been fabricating almost an entire lifetime for me. The psychological reasons a person would do this are varied and complicated and as of yet, unsolved, but suffice to say it shook my trust - more my trust in myself in being able to feel I could judge people well. A job I was offered recently lasted only two weeks because the people with the business had neglected to write a business plan and obtain the proper licenses to do what they told me they wanted to do. They weren't being honest with themselves and that in-turn caused them to not be honest with me. Should I have seen it? Should I have vetted them better? Yes. But I did my best and gained a new understanding into exactly how unplanned, idealistic and poorly researched people can be when starting a business. Nobody should expect it to be easy, especially if there is a lot of money involved.

So with these two reasons for general unhappiness, I ended a week. But how to solve? Saigon is full of bars but I have found them as of late to be less than inspiring for anything outside of football and girls - so I settled on fish and chips.

Ones favourite foreign meal can take on a special feeling when it comes to hard times and big issues. People call these meals comfort food. And that's exactly what I needed. A meal served as I perceived it, at a proper price and with all the associated accoutrements - this fish & chips, served at Sheridan's Irish Pub in Saigon came with cole slaw and mushy peas, and was plump and fried and exactly what needed - with a Coke to wash it all down. Funny how simple things can wash away larger doubts. Funny how familiarity breeds comfort as opposed to contempt in a foreign land.

The week would end in my meeting Barry - a man who, of all things, builds concrete buildings with a large Vietnamese construction company - not a very creative business at all you might say? But Barry addressed his subject with a passion and professionalism seldom seen in many businesses. He impressed upon me elements of design, engineering, quality and style that only a man at the top of his craft could do. Thank you Barry. I needed to meet a person with that positive attitude at the end of last week.

The following week would bring a truly unprofessional lawyer who would cause me to just scratch my head and say WTF? - but it would also bring an interview with Sandrine Lloquet, a French/Vietnamese visual artist and VJ who brings a more than interesting history and passion to her work. Surrounding ourselves with people who inspire and help us to do better is not always such an easy job. Last week reminded me that it is a job though and one that needs constant tending - something we should never forget.

"Do our schools kill creativity" - Sir Ken Robinson

I talk about creativity, often - and education, sometimes - because I make a good part of my living from teaching creativity, in all aspects, much more than just the artistic. But rather than me going on about it, this talk by Sir Ken Robinson at the TED conference in 2006 does far better than I could ever do. Give it a look.




"Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009."

I wonder about the SDM conference coming up this week and had they thought to have gotten a speaker on this level, with an actual relevant topic, it might have provoked far more interest and excitement than the bulk of industry salespeople and hijacked model they've assembled instead - and been an educational networking experience, well worth the money. Thanks to Hugh MacLeod for reminding me of this film. Hugh has been a long time proponent of "Social Objects" - created things that get conversations started. This talk by Sir Ken is a bona-fide social object. It will get you thinking, then talking, and hopefully doing - digital or otherwise.

For more on Creativity, Education and the like, check below:

"Do Our Schools Kill Creativity?" - Sir Ken Robinson
Brand Marketing and Staff Training in Vietnam
2009 Marketing Predictions
The Language Barrier - An Asian Business Conundrum

Rubber Stamp Post-It Note Business Cards: Recession Profit Stategies #4

Recently I was on the way to a business gathering and I realized I was out of name cards. What to do? One of the main reasons we all go to these things is the ability to network and meet new people and in Asia, you look like a real dork if you don't have a name card. It's almost a religion here, and the titles one sees when attending an otherwise average gathering border on the surreal. "Deputy Chief Marketing and Information Technology Strategist", "Assistant To The Director In Charge of Other Directors", "CEO, Founder/CIO/UFO"... you know what I mean - but to show up without one means, essentially two things: #1) You can't afford the $6 printing fee, or #2) It's your first time in Asia. I myself was in a pickle - and so it was in a flash that was much more necessity than creativity I snatched a pad of Post-It notes and a rubber stamp I had made with this blog address and began to manufacture cards. The stamp fit quite nicely and they took all of five minutes to make a bundle. Voi la! But the problem of presentation remained. How was I, a guy who professes to be not only a Brand Provocateur, but a Fortune 500 Brand Provocateur going to pass off these pieces of shit as real cards?

Enter "The Global Financial Crisis" and in a jiffy I had a clever opening line for the distribution of some pretty cheesy cards. Opening my card case slowly and casting my sullen eyes upon the soon to be recipients I recited, in a deadpan fashion, how tough the crisis had been on my company and how we had resorted to saving money on all sorts of things, including name cards as I peeled each card gingerly away from the next on the pad. Fucking hilarious. The shits and giggles were almost instantaneous, and a flurry of chuckles and ha-has ensued. It was an immediate hit. Throughout the remainder of the evening I passed them out to the same humourous response and was even prompted by people who had been told what I had to give them one. The next day, hits to this site were up dramatically.

A few weeks later, another opportunity presented itself at a meeting of geeks, designers, venture and tech people, and again, the response was tremendous. One fellow, Min Tran, a right fine graphic designer in his own right, said the card was "better than design", because the idea was the design. Who knew? I guess necessity, being the mother of invention, knew. It just took me awhile to figure it out.

The moral of this story is not so difficult at all. Sometimes you have to let the situation dictate the terms of the creativity - letting go is sometimes so difficult - but worthwhile in the end. I could have showed up with no card at all and, honestly, nobody would have cared - but instead I took it a step further and ended up with a solution that worked for everybody.

For more Recession Profit Strategies click below:

#3 The Recruitment Process
#2 Saving On Employee Costs
#1 Falling Economy

For more on time bandit idea & business concept filching, para-normal plagiarism, and all out spooky behaviour, check below:

New York Magazine Steals AsiaLife cover from the future!
Dr. Thanh robbed by Chinese Time Bandits!
SDM:Saigon Digital Marketing victim of para-normal plagiarism!
Bono and international do-gooders caught (Red)handed in idea heist!
Saigon Brand Provocateur steals idea from himself!

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 what 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

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