Shorter days
Today's image is kind of fun. It was inspired by my friend Brian's post on Influence People. He had a post about criticizing others as a no win situation due to the push back you get from the person you are criticizing (and I had some reference of a couple of sumo wrestlers). He ran this image on his post so I wanted to run it after he did.
It's funny where you come up with ideas. They seem to be all around if you're looking for them, but hard to capture when you actively try to chase them down. At least it is for me. Every time I sit down at the drawing board to come up with an idea my mind seems to go blank these days. Creativity is a tricky thing.
It's probably one of the reasons I've been posting images and just little short messages lately. I'm not going to apologize for it, but I would really rather do some bigger critical thinking on this blog and fitting it into my recent schedule has been quite a chore. I've been trying to stay out of the political realm because that's a zero sum game. I will come up for more of a direction for this blog soon, but for now please bear with me as I mill about directionless to see where the ideas go.
(Subject change. Hang on)
I have always found the word opportunity to mean one thing to myself and another thing to people in advertising. In advertising if anyone approaches you with an "opportunity" it usually means there will be no money, no creative control and usually a whole lot of work. I've decided recently that I will no longer be responding the same to these "opportunities". It's time for a change.
It's not that I don't like working hard, but the no money/no creative control option that people keep coming up with doesn't really fit for me. I was always under the impression that if you wanted someone to do something for you for FREE you offered them something in return. Apparently the rules have changed and I was not cc'ed on that memo.
My friend Brian understands this. He emails me with some thoughts and just asks if I have any images that might go with it. He leaves the creative part up to me. It's a fair trade. He helps me with the ideas and lets me be completely creative trusting that I am not going to offend his readers by being crass. We both benefit. That's an opportunity I enjoy.
Large charities seem to work differently. I have done more pro-bono work in my career than I care to admit and I have not been happy with one piece of it. I have never been able to use any of the work created to further my career. After the groupthink of some board of directors or "marketing" department gets involved the pieces are so mindless and uninspiring that I usually ask for my name to be removed and I throw them away.
The next time a charity asks me to do something they will have to give up something. I know they don't have any money, but what is it with giving up creative control? Do they think I am going to just put together a completely offensive piece to see what I can get away with? Do they think I value my own creativity so little that as a creative professional and communicator I am just going to throw all my knowledge out the window to do something "cool"? It's laughable that they would think so little of me.
I've got to run now, but we will explore this topic a lot tonight. I finally have an idea for a post, but time has run out for me because I have to be in a meeting in an hour.
Talk amongst yourselves. I'll be back this afternoon/evening.
Cheers!
It's funny where you come up with ideas. They seem to be all around if you're looking for them, but hard to capture when you actively try to chase them down. At least it is for me. Every time I sit down at the drawing board to come up with an idea my mind seems to go blank these days. Creativity is a tricky thing.
It's probably one of the reasons I've been posting images and just little short messages lately. I'm not going to apologize for it, but I would really rather do some bigger critical thinking on this blog and fitting it into my recent schedule has been quite a chore. I've been trying to stay out of the political realm because that's a zero sum game. I will come up for more of a direction for this blog soon, but for now please bear with me as I mill about directionless to see where the ideas go.
(Subject change. Hang on)
I have always found the word opportunity to mean one thing to myself and another thing to people in advertising. In advertising if anyone approaches you with an "opportunity" it usually means there will be no money, no creative control and usually a whole lot of work. I've decided recently that I will no longer be responding the same to these "opportunities". It's time for a change.
It's not that I don't like working hard, but the no money/no creative control option that people keep coming up with doesn't really fit for me. I was always under the impression that if you wanted someone to do something for you for FREE you offered them something in return. Apparently the rules have changed and I was not cc'ed on that memo.
My friend Brian understands this. He emails me with some thoughts and just asks if I have any images that might go with it. He leaves the creative part up to me. It's a fair trade. He helps me with the ideas and lets me be completely creative trusting that I am not going to offend his readers by being crass. We both benefit. That's an opportunity I enjoy.
Large charities seem to work differently. I have done more pro-bono work in my career than I care to admit and I have not been happy with one piece of it. I have never been able to use any of the work created to further my career. After the groupthink of some board of directors or "marketing" department gets involved the pieces are so mindless and uninspiring that I usually ask for my name to be removed and I throw them away.
The next time a charity asks me to do something they will have to give up something. I know they don't have any money, but what is it with giving up creative control? Do they think I am going to just put together a completely offensive piece to see what I can get away with? Do they think I value my own creativity so little that as a creative professional and communicator I am just going to throw all my knowledge out the window to do something "cool"? It's laughable that they would think so little of me.
I've got to run now, but we will explore this topic a lot tonight. I finally have an idea for a post, but time has run out for me because I have to be in a meeting in an hour.
Talk amongst yourselves. I'll be back this afternoon/evening.
Cheers!
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