My Dinner With Andre: My Meeting With Michael

(Please pause the Podcast in the sidebar before playing the video)

The 1981 Louise Malle film, "My Dinner With Andre" has long been one of my favorites in that one can enjoy it, simply by listening to the dialogue because, essentially, nothing happens in the film. It's just two guys having dinner, yet discussing everything that matters to them in life.

As the story goes, Wallace and Andre are old friends who have not seen each other for many years and have scheduled a dinner to catch up. Wallace has continued to live his simple, uncluttered life in a small apartment in New York, whilst Andre has traveled the globe, lived with gypsies in an eastern European forest, meditated in a commune in Scotland and even tried, unsuccessfully, to stage a play based on "The Little Prince" in the Sahara. Their lives are a study in contrast, conflict and convolution. The clip here is the end of the film with Wallace's thoughts, illuminated by Andre's spirited tales, giving new meaning to things he has seen for years but forgotten their true significance. The soundtrack, Erik Satie's "Trois Gymnopédies", is quite possibly my favorite piece of piano composition and haunting and lonely in its simplicity.

All of this describes how I felt going home after meeting Michael Conrad at the DLD conference last month, after having seen him last, fifteen years ago. But in my story, I couldn't decide who was Andre and who was Wallace in terms of Michael's and my characters. Michael begins my book, Wild Wild East.

Chicago, April 1995: I'm sitting in my office on the 26th floor of the Leo Burnett building, watching the sailboats go by, when the telephone rings; it's Michael Conrad, our Worldwide Creative Director, and he has a question: "What do you know about Korea", he asks. "Nothing", I said - and that's how I got the job.

And that would be the last I saw of Michael for the remainder of my time at Burnett, save for a couple of brief meetings in Malaysia and New Orleans the following year. He was not part of my management chain and wasn't even involved in any of my company reviews or evaluations. He was my recruiter and superior, but in the end, not my boss.

Michael would go on to be the Jury Chair at the Cannes Advertising Festival in 1996 and I would go on to start Korea's first 100% foreign invested advertising agency in 1997. Leo Burnett would be eventually absorbed by Publicis Groupe in 2002, and Michael would retire in 2003. The price paid for Burnett at the time of 3 billion US, in light of sales of 1.8 billion that year, now seems tiny in comparison to Google's price for YouTube of 1.6 billion with no projected sales in the year of that purchase - but maybe just a harbinger of things to come.

Our conversation at DLD was brief, but knowing. Seeing him after the last speaker had left the podium, in the crowd talking with a woman in German, I approached and said, "Fifteen years ago...", I began... "I know that smile", he interjected. We then shook hands and each did a quick synopsis of the time that had passed between us. Michael is now President of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership at Steinbeis University, and I am now, still me, but without a big organization attached. We spoke of the conference, , and he told me - in the same way he might have told me as a superior many years earlier, that this digital thing was where the world was going. I nodded in agreement, thinking to myself that I wish I had heard that coming from him fifteen years ago when it would have been truly visionary, instead of now, when the representation at this creative conference of advertising people was surely in the itty-bitty minority. Oh how things had changed. Oh how Michael and my trajectories had been decidedly different.

And so I found myself, on a solitary subway ride home, with my schwag-bag full of goodies from the event, shuffling through the snow on a more than frozen Bavarian winter and wondering in my meeting with Michael who had been Wallace and who had been Andre from My Dinner With Andre. Michael had ended a high profile creative career gracefully with his matriculation to a university program presidency in his country of birth and I, had founded a Korean company, sold it, written a book, moved to Vietnam, started a blog and then followed a starry-eyed girl to France, Africa and finally Munich to stake my claim on this new digital planet.

All I knew is that I could not have possibly been Wallace. I must have been the Andre of my own meeting after many years. My meeting with Michael.

DLD Crash : Hunter S. Lives!

As of this writing, the Technorati story covering the opening of DLD (Digital.Life.Design) in Munich is #1 on Google if you search the term "DLD Munich", and that even beats the BusinessWeek blog by a couple of positions, but to know what a miracle that is would be to know what the Technorati writer had to go through just to get the damn thing. Hearing about the conference from CNBC just days before, said writer, went immediately to the DLD website only to be told that reservations had been closed days earlier and press verification closed in December of 09. So why TF were they running ads the week before if reservations were already closed? Cause CNBC was a 'conference partner' and those were free slots? Good guess. Partner agreement partially satisfied.

But the writer was justifiably unsatisfied and justifiably so - so he set about instituting an 'Evil Plan' to get press creds to cover the event. Writer's Evil Plan detailed here:

1) Write Technorati Executive Editor and request approval to cover event

2) Write DLD press contact and apologize for being late and request to cover event

3) Read all 150 bios for speakers, find as many emails as possible, and write to speakers directly saying he was sorry you might not be able to see them at the event because press accreditation had closed.

4) Write to DLD affiliate Xing and see if contacts there could slide him into the event organized by their parent company.

5) Write blog post detailing said event and wonder if writer would be able to cover it or not due to late notice and closed registration. 5b) Suggest in blog post that writer might have to cover the event as Hunter S. Thompson covered the Pulitzer Divorce trial in the 80s from a bar down the street, if writer couldn't get proper press credentials . 5c) Circulate blog post liberally: Digg, Mixx, Facebook, DailyRadar, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Tumblr, FriendFeed et al. 5d) Forward blog post to DLD press contact.

6) Wait. Sharpen Gonzo quill pen just in case...

Evil plans like the one above are fun and take virtually all night to do but not a single one of the strategies above would be a sure bet because this particular writer was not only way late to the party, but didn't know one single person in the flesh who could help him. Maybe the sheer mass of shit thrown up against the wall would get something to stick.

Results:

1) Technorati returns mail inside of 10 minutes with message, "Go for it!"

2) Forward Technorati mail to DLD press contact

3) Mail from 2 speakers returned in 4 hours with encouragement

4) DLD affiliate Xing sends regrets but even some of them can't get into the event - Thinks Technorati affiliation should do it

5) Blog post gathers hits and messages of encouragement

6) Email from DLD press contact approves press pass (with conditions) in roughly 24 hours

Deal done, but there are conditions - the conditions being that it's a pass limited to only the first day of a three-day conference with the added bonus of a fairly posh party the following night with British singer Cheryl Cole taking the entertainment spot that Lady Gaga had occupied the previous year.

Our writer considers the conditions of the conditions and rightfully decides that negotiation is not a profitable option considering that this particular conference is considered to be particularly snotty and Munich itself has proven to have been particularly snotty on other occasions involving significant expense, celebrity, and corporate snottiness. Take the deal he says. It might be the best one can get during a global economic crisis. But crisis, it turns out to be, would be the farthest thing from people's minds at the actual event. Entry fees were reported to have been around $3k for three days so if the writer got in for 1/3 of that, that's a grand in market value for a night's worth of writing and emailing and at least one story. Fair enough.

But is it fair to either the writer or the event to try to cover a three-day event in a third of the time? That would remain to be seen. Anticipating that all the other early-vetted journalists would have plenty of time for interviews and proper story submission the intrepid Technorati writer spends the next couple of days preparing an interview form and posting it on the web in hopes of engaging the speakers early and getting interview commitments early. (Technorati DLD Interview) He gets one commitment so that's a go, right? Almost.

Day one at the conference proves to be a complete and total media circus. 800+ guests, 100 speakers and who knows how many journos. If they weren't carting a camera it was either a laptop a palmtop, iPhone or next generation Dick Tracy watch. The place needed signs warning people with pacemakers. It was a digital madhouse and decked out with enough German security to bring back fond memories of Steve McQueen in 'The Great Escape' - but these guards weren't in the business of keeping people in - their job was to keep people out and they were good at it. All on the inside sported neck lanyards and plastic ID badges with blue for journos, red for participants and a bit of a fusia colour for speakers, making it a real challenge to tell the interview subjects from the hoi poloi, and looking for expensive Italian loafers wasn't going to help either. There were more of those on the guests than there would have been on the panelists or presenters. The writer pauses, considers the waters, checks the packed schedule, and realizes he'll be lucky to cover the main event, let alone interview anyone.

A check in the press room reveals a live video stream for the event and a pack of writers just phoning it in from the Starship Enterprise bridge of the place. If our writer had half a brain he might have considered the same thing - it all came down to which half he would bring to the event that day. Luckily he had used up the left in pre-planning and only had the right left. Creativity and serendipity became his journalistic hemispheres for the day. The spirit of the good Dr. Thompson was indeed a felt presence. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

In conversations that day and continuing on to the lalapalooza Red Bull and liquor sucking festival the next evening, the writer tells his tale of getting into the whole shebang in the first place. "That's an amazing story", exclaims one attendee, "You've got to meet Peter Hirshberg. He was chairman of Technorati!". "No shit", responds the writer, "They got me here, maybe he got me here." On meeting Hirshberg the writer regales him with the story of how he came to cover the event and drink enough Red Bull to get an Iggy Pop physique in under 4 hours. Hirshberg, nonplussed simply responds, "Only a day pass? You should have told them you were flying in from New York to do it and they would have laid on the full package."

But a blogger that no one at all had known just a few days prior had worked, cajoled and snagged himself a legal invite the most sought after event in Europe, short of the econ summit in Davos on the last week of January in the year of 2010.

When asked how he felt about the whole affair, the writer responded, "Forget DLD next year. I'm going to start working on Davos now - and get them to do it with all bills paid - Clinton and Gates."

Had the organizers seen fit to have given him more than a one day pass they could have gotten so much more than the brief rundown they received. But then again, had that happened the writer wouldn't have had near as fun on those stories as he did on this one. Long live the Blogosphere.

If you like the blog, read the book: Wild Wild East

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Recently I've recieved a number of nice notes from people who've read my book, Wild Wild East over the summer. This note from Yves Capelle made me smile: " This is definitely good stuff - and should be published. I'll send the link to a few friends if you don't mind. If there's a hard cover to be published, let me know and I'll make an order."

As I'm now based in Germany, I realize that I've now come full circle to the land of the man who sent me to Asia and opens the first chapter in the book, Michael Conrad.

Chicago, April 1995: I'm sitting in my office on the 26th floor of the Leo Burnett building, watching the sailboats go by, when the telephone rings; it's Michael Conrad, our Worldwide Creative Director, and he has a question: "What do you know about Korea", he asks. "Nothing", I said - and that's how I got the job.

The book doesn't have an ending yet, but I may be living it now...

The first 70 pages is now available for download - or you can read it from the comfort of your own screen right here:


Wild Wild East - An American memoir of uncommon circumstance

For those who are not fans of the book-reading format, or it's just to damn small to read, download the standard view here:

Get me the big copy!

BLURB: (The publisher's sales pitch) Part memoir, part travelogue, part historical guide and part American business review, Wild Wild East follows the adventures of one businessman in his quest to have his creative life make sense. 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 author's life that grow chronologically until they catch up with him in real time. Throughout the telling the author travels the globe through over 30 countries and the flashbacks occur every time he takes a trip, both before and after, 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 from the reader as to why the central character makes the decisions he does and travels the roads of fortune or less fortune as the case unfolds.

Do give it a read and let me know how it works for you. And reTweet to pass it around.

Frankfurt: The Wild Wild East Goes West II

Frankfurt comes on the heals of Vietnam like a powerbleached metropolis built between the lines of commerce and commerz. The difference is striking. Surreal. The Mercedes taxi slides past Festival Park, the Frankfurt convention center and home of the world's largest auto show, at 180km an hour as the driver speeds towards the train station near to where our hotel is located. Architecture blurs in a pastiche of Bauhaus office meanderings mixed with function over form human filing cabinets, or apartments, as the Vietnamese might call them. It is explained while driving through the neighborhood of signs displaying "Sex Show" or "Table Dancing" that our hotel is located in this area for the factors of reasonable price and proximity to the train station for our escape to Paris later in the week. I have little trouble agreeing with that.

The flight, from Hanoi to Frankfurt is eleven hours and jet lag takes it's toll on my partner as we settle into our room. Breakfast has been served at the end of one of our longest days and after, the only reasonable thing to do is sleep - but we can't, so we don't, quite yet.

Waking at 3 pm from a flight that arrived at 5:50 am I spy one still dead traveling companion and decide that it's a good time to survey my environs, the more than large train station that lies to the east. And it seems that bums were designed to live in train stations as I am approached by a young t-shirt wearing, German engineered bum who seems more like a college drop-out than an actual bum. "No thank you", I reply to the request. Here at the Frankfurt am Main station, classical European architecture meets steel and glass rennovation to present a shopping mall of Mac Le Grand proportions as Burger Kings and bagel shops grab out for one's ever so well healed attention - or at least that of the locals. The price of my Double Whopper meal nears ten dollars as I realize that in Vietnam, that would be equivent to 180,000 dong and buy you a gourmet entre and appetizer. I wolf that sucker down in classic western carnivorous fashion anyway, as if I am eating the very hollogrammed-silver-threaded-security-embeded Euro note from my pocket. Heaven, in the financial nirvana of Deutchland - delivered in all it's flamed broiled glory.

I buy a baguette for my partner back at the room, knowing she will be little interested in venturing out to this sea of commercialism that thrives on the almost mechanical meticulism of the populace of this less than vibrant metropolis. What you do see in Frankfurt are the spoils of bean counting of the highest German order. What you don't see is heart. And that's what I was about to find to be a byproduct of a strictly German education. Compassion, removed by education - replaced by ambivalence.

The next day brings Ericka. Ericka and I had met on YouTube nearly two years ago and now we were finally going to meet in person. How wild in the world of virtual friends and relationships the Internet has cobbled together for all of us these days.

Ericka Dickens-Gerhardt fronts a jazz and blues band in the city and goes by the moniker "That Broad Abroad" to her fans back in her hometown of L.A. She meets us at one of the more than ubiquitous foreign-owned Irish Pubs that seem to dot the globe and greets me with a warm and gracious hug. We settle down to a less than Irish Lunch and begin to chew the fat, American style, as my Vietnamese counterpart and Ericka carry sidebar conversations in German. Oh how International it's all become. Finishing lunch, Ericka takes us around the corner to the former apartment of Oskar Shindler, of Shindler's list fame. She then presents me with a book about him, signed and commemorating our meeting, along with a small bag of cookies baked by her daughter. So sweet. My partner, ever still victimized by jetlag and a few other traveling demons, decides, not surprisingly, to retire back to the room as Ericka and I continue our venture into the city formerly occupied by the Americans in WWII.

Our afternoon walk travels through Zeil, a posh area of shopping malls and higher class boutiques and ends, accross the Main river at the Deutsche Architekturmuseum for espresso and espresso induced conversation. A large bottle of Pellegrino hits the table and I feel I#m almost in L.A. - Oh and that "slash-mark"? Welcome to the wondrous world of the German keyboard - where Zs and Ys are transposed and all the little nuggets like @ signs, // marks and "quotations are buried in odd, possibly shift or possibly alt key locations making a tour of the typescape a real romp and a speedbump for virtually everz sentence I venture. Fun? No.

But Ericka answers my big question of the tour. "Could I, and the partners of Infinite Wisdom, find work in Frankfurt"?

And her answer is an uniquivocal "Yes"! With over 922 jobs per 1,000 inhabitants, Frankfurt has the highest concentration of jobs in Germany. The areas of Management Consulting and Advertising are represented by all the big names and just a short train ride brings Munich, home to Germany's film production and creative community. So why are we not hanging out longer here and in Munich and instead going on to Paris? Ah, the answer to that question lies in a last minute cancellation of our apartment in Munich and a quick plug in of Paris to fill the hole. Once in Paris, I'm sure we'll sit around and ponder that logic for awhile. Or maybe not.

Ericka's last statement to me on the subject brings us to the beginning of my memoir, Wild Wild East. In further deliberation on the possibility of using my Asian knowledge back here in the West she said, "David, look. The man who got you to Korea can get you to Frankfurt"

From the memoir Wild Wild East:

"Chicago, April 1995: I’m sitting in my office on the 26th floor of the Leo Burnett building watching the sailboats go by when the telephone rings; it’s Michael Conrad, our Worldwide Creative Director, and he has a question: “What do you know about Korea?”, he asks. “Nothing”, I said – and that’s how I got the job."

Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett remains one of Frankfurt's premier agencies for Advertising, Branding and Corporate Image.

Amazing. What goes around, really does come around. More Infinite Wisdom from Paris...

For more in the WWE Goes West Series check here:

I) The Wild Wild East Goes West: Onward Ho!
II) Frankfurt
III) C'est Si Bon
IV) Bon Jour Paris!
V) Les Picassos en Paris
VI) Nothing Much Happened en Paree Today
VII) Paris Wallpaper: Sometimes The Best Prayers Have No Words
VIII) Au Revoir Paris
IX) Is Publicis Groupe a Dead Brand?