Hope you enjoy!

Shit People Say

1. Luck. Make your own luck. Be engaged.

2. Be where the people I want to be are

3. Pay attention to the smallest considerations

4. Show up the next day

5. Bypass the guards

6. It’s personal. Having a job is personal.

7. The fancy guys aren’t fancy.

8. Hold the person to a promise.

9. Make the promise something that person has to do for you.

10. How far can charm take me?

“Making is the new thinking.”

“If 10% of a population is committed to an idea, inevitably it will become the prevailing opinion of the entire group.”

“The industry still needs thinkers, not just doers/makers.”

“Unplug – emailing, surfing, texting, social media-ing is doing, not thinking.”

“Thinking is doing. Equal parts of thought and execution is how we connect and solve problems. Hustle For it.”

Alan Snitow :: Director of Strategy, Gotham Inc.

“Creativity is about seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought” Dr. Albert Von Szent-Gyorgy 

“We’ll drive brand love if we can make people love each other more.”

“Creativity creates new capabilities.”

“Creativity is the responsibility of everyone in an organization, not just the creatives.”

Jonathan Mildenhall :: Vice President, Global Creative at The Coca-Cola Company

“You need to empathize with the client’s problem because it’s not about keeping your job, it’s about keeping theirs.”

“The sell doesn’t stop after you present to the client, your client then has to sell it for you to their bosses.”

“Cash for great work doesn’t happen without client trust.”

“Knowing your clients challenges and objectives is how you build trust with them.”

Stan Chin :: Creative Director, Anomaly NYC

“Technology will change more in the next five years than it did in the past 100.”

“You need to become and expert, that takes about 10,000 hours to attain. You just need to keep working, no one is born great.”

“T-Shaped talent: be broad in you areas of knowledge and deep into them.”

“What a company believes in matters. Interview the company as much as they are interviewing you.”

“Find your next adventure, do it well, enjoy it. Then, not now, think about what comes next.”

“Do we drive culture or does culture drive us?”

“All progress in the world is made by unreasonable people.” Bob Geldof

“Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure breeds success.”

Andrew Benett :: Global CEO, Arnold Worldwide / Global Chief Strategy Officer, Havas Group

I recently joined the blogging society The Next Great Generation. I’ll be writing for the Arts & Culture section, so if you like what I write here, you can also check out my posts over there.

Thanks!
Brian

It’s a problem everyone encounters, not just creatives. Planners and brand managers experience the same issue with strategic insights. No one is immune to it.

How can we be more positive that the idea chosen is the right one? Can we learn to know which idea has the best potential?

Here’s my take:

I think the more we work at this, the better we become at thinking of amazing ideas. Knowing which one is the best is a matter of guts and magic. There’s no amount of focus groups, colleague’s suggestions, slides, re-thinking, etc. … that can prove to us without a shadow of a doubt that our idea will blow up.

It’s become a cliché, but the Old Spice campaign was magical. Not even its creators knew that their idea would get this big, win them tons of awards, and permeate pop culture. Magic is what took the campaign beyond what they could’ve done. There was no one internally that saw this and said, “Yep, this is going to win and Emmy and be the most popular campaign on the planet.” It takes guts and magic to get past our own capabilities. It takes people outside of advertising to make it special.

I think the more time you spend coming up with ideas, the better you get a realizing which ones have more potential than others. How much potential depends on magic, but giving that idea the opportunity to flourish is our job. Great ideas are like flowers and people are like bees: They come and have sex with our idea, and then share their experience with others.

When I’m faced with having to narrow down three ideas to one, it’s better to trust my gut and go with the one that makes me uncomfortable vs. the one that plays it safe. I don’t always do this, and it’s a lot easier to say this than actually do it. A bit of false confidence helps in going ahead with the unproven idea. Those ideas reap the biggest rewards, and have the greatest impact on people’s lives.