Beer Fridays and Music

Alright, I admit I’m old. Way back in the day, during high school, my Very First Job was in a radio station.

Doesn't seem that cool? Well, back then, AM Radio Ruled – but it was comprised of tinny songs around two minutes long. And lots of spots. For local things. Because radio was really local back then.

FM Stereo was gaining ground. People were buying very cool home equipment, but it was really expensive to put it in your car, and at that time, 4-Track Stereos were The Thing. 8-tracks followed shortly – progress!

Because life was so amazing, we’d drive around at night looking for things to do – as we switched back-and-forth from station-to-station to find a good song – and take in that two-minute version with all the guitar leads cut out so it fit on a 45 record.

So at my Very First Job after school, I worked at the first FM Stereo, Album Format Rock & Roll station in Portland. The music was safe during the day. But after 9pm, the DJs played the long versions of everything. Which, in those days was about 17 minutes.  Extended versions. With all the guitar leads. Do you know what the two-minute-version of the Allman Brothers’ Whippin’ Post sounds like? Neither do I.

That. Was. Awesome.

To complete the picture, I had a ’63 VW bug with a safari top. Adorned myself in Indian print shirts and Sea Farers. Got free tickets to concerts, and I hung out with people who were a lot older than me. It all fit so well.

It was a cool job for a teenager.

In the world, we had a war to protest, bras to burn, consciousness to raise, and music that defined a generation. I’ve heard it said that music is the soundtrack for your generation. It was true for me.

I still love the old music, hear it sampled here and there – and resurrected in a TV spot or two.

I was ‘too young’ to participate in Beer Fridays, but we had plenty of them. We were creative, hard-working and had a lot of fun – and the DJs knew how to put a set together.

The music always got us in the mood for the weekend. Glad I was there.

Happy Beer Friday! And what are you listening to?

How To Fix It

There are lots of blogs written, and consultants with sites who work with / write about agencies and in-house marketing departments. These experts assess and refine your business skills, coach leadership, or even define your brand. Most are highly qualified and very successful – plus they’re really nice folks.

They work with Owners / Partners, EVPs, SVPs, VPs, Accountants – all those guys and gals who lament, “There’s something wrong.”

When your car doesn't start do you get out, take a look, and decide it needs a wash and wax? Nope. Instead, you have someone get into that…place…under the hood, where you never look.

I am like...an automotive technician. I check out the moving parts of your agency or department. Disassembly and observation tells me what is wrong. Management usually doesn't go there.

I work with the day-to-day everyperson (which probably represents, a large percentage of your staff), and their seemingly drudgery-related stuff that can sap your organization of…joy.

I know joy exists in advertising, because I have witnessed it. In between crises.

Joy: things that make you want to go to work. Like doing awesome creative, bonding with appreciative clients and turning a profit.

I have done the work myself, dealt with the powers-that-be, and know exactly what they’re thinking:
We’re always over budget (not making money on X client), or late, or employees are hatin’ on one-another – as in, no joy. Fix it.

I've said it before and I’ll say it again – if you want to know what’s going on, or going wrong – ask the people doing the work.

Well, for God’s sake, do not crowdsource a solution. Because like any committee, they meet; issues get discussed (interminably); ideas cheered; a task force is assembled; a manifesto written; then everyone gets busy and nothing changes.

The suggestion box is for management who doesn't want, or is ‘too busy’ to take a little time and have direct contact with staff. And, have you ever read the suggestions? “Let’s have Stone IPA instead of that lame Bud Light. Trust me, I have seen that.

If it sounds like I’m beating up management – I am. Quit thinking you know everything and listen to your employees. Incessant whining is one thing, complaints are something completely different. Let the whiners go elsewhere to spread their gloom; listen to the complaints because those can be fixed.

I invite you to descend from that throne and pay heed to your employees’ ideas, complaints and solutions – all the time. The complaint department is a laser-quick path to enlightenment.

Give those ideas/complaints/solutions some air time. Ask that person to flesh-out the idea, provide a simple plan, and bring it back. Then give it thoughtful consideration – right away – and act. They did the work, you owe them. And it just could fix the problem. Then you wouldn't need to hire a consultant.

Back to process.
Most agencies have competent accounting staff. That’s because they have learned to follow strict rules - there are specific procedures for that role. There are amazing programs out there that will give you every kind of report you can imagine. And if you have good process in place – a process for the other 90 percent of your agency – you will be able to rely on those reports. Imagine, getting rid of Excel.

But a lot of agencies – and in-house marketing departments – don’t have a good process for managing (e.g. documenting, tracking) the day-to-day that feeds those important reports. You know, the ones that tell you if you are making money – or not.

The problem usually is this: management doesn't like to hear whining about process, so they forego structure for just a little quiet. This stuff doesn't just go away and fix itself.

As an aside, if your staff doesn't have the time to assess, define and implement process and tools; and you (managers) don’t want to field the, “why are we doing this?” I can help. Short term / long term solutions are available.

So all those things you hate, and your staff says takes too much time – like process, forms, schedules, budgets/estimates, and – timesheets. You need them. And to be effective, they really should be accurate – like updated – real time.

It isn’t drudgery if you define your process, put good tools in place, and ensure compliance.

It will become a habit. Like having Beer Fridays. You will experience joy.

Shortcuts = Disasters

I have this book The Logic of Failure by Dietrich Dörner. Amazing – there is logic to making really stupid decisions. I bought the book because I was trying to make sense of the tragedy that is, Projects Gone Off the Rails.

Since I seem to be on the subject of illustrating the disaster of Deviations and Justings aka Tiny Daily Decisions, I’ll talk about a little something that went completely out of control.

Never had one? Then you aren’t in advertising. Or ever worked. Anywhere.

One word: Chernobyl.

I could have used a million others (there are so many from which to choose), but this is so graphic – and long lasting – like millions of years, that it begs comparison to your Tiny Daily Decisions and their lasting effect.

In the book, the author states, “[t]he tendency to ‘oversteer’ is a characteristic in human interaction with dynamic systems…We regulate the situation and not the process.”1

In a nutshell – or a sarcophagus – a series of decisions to override tested and proven systems (official procedure), in the name of haste (a holiday weekend ahead), caused that irreversible chain reaction – and meltdown. And spewing a radioactive cloud, which wasn't reported until some heads-up folks in Sweden detected it. A couple days later, denial was impossible (they tried – it’s under control) and the explosion was news.

How does a disaster of this magnitude beg comparison to your Tiny Daily Decisions in advertising? Well, because folks in advertising think that every error (or little change the client wants) deserves Level-One Trauma Status and the patient is going to die if we don’t act NOW. Therefore, rather than taking a step back and determining how much of a disaster you have on your hands, you dive in and keep trying to regulate the situation.

If you have a process in place (you do don’t you?), you actually have a set of steps to prevent oversteering – or at least be able to recognize the effect of what you are about to do.

Or, if some numskull decided to deviate, you can actually identify that crafty departure before it’s Too Late.

The problem, like at Chernobyl, is that when things go horribly wrong and you ignore process, every individual who touches that job keeps oversteering.

Voilà! You have blown the budget, delivered it late, and it is unrecognizable from the original plan. Worse, you have no idea when or where it started heading to the path of ruin, much less who initiated it.

But you delivered the job. The client isn’t really happy. And you send a bill – for the original estimate.

Yep, I keep harping on it, but this will keep you from making (too many) stupid, expensive decisions – put a process in place and use it. Think about the action you are about to take, document it so everyone is on the same page, and then make sure it’s covered in the budget.

You start pushing that crap through without a second thought and someone will have a meltdown. And the folks in Sweden will let me know.

If you don’t know how to get process in place, call me. If you don’t want to damage fragile egos with oh-so-cumbersome procedure, call me anyway. Everything will be okay.

1 pp. 30 The Logic of Failure

Open a Job for Every Project – I’m Not Going to Nag

I just re-read this article in AdAge Small Agency Diary, "Beware Those Tiny Daily Decisions: They Can Come Back to Bite You". It speaks to the creative-side, but there is another side – and it comes down to resources and cost.

Call me a control freak – or a nag if you don’t get it – but I like to know what’s going on in my agency. As I said yesterday, a hundred little things really add up. Even ten little things add up. One little thing can trigger a chain of events that will throw all projects – and your fabulously creative staff – into chaos.

Chaos is bad. And very expensive.

Actually, I’ll change that paragraph – I need to know what’s going on in my agency. Because someone has to pay attention. If not, you have a bunch of people running around asking who has the latest version of X, and upon locating it, wondering if it really is the latest version. Such a waste.

You need a few rules to keep life orderly and just a little predictable.

So those rules include writing a job order (job start, ticket, whatever you call it) for every project that comes in the door. If this little quickie is part of a Bigger Project – like a campaign – was it factored into that plan or are you just sneaking it in under the veil of the Big Project?

Sneak it in and you just gave away something for free. I will find out, hunt you down and make you fill out a form. Dang. You just screwed up our planning, time allocation and budgets – not to mention the potential to make a little more money. So we can stay in business – and get bonuses.

I’ll explain. The purpose of a job order is to outline your direction on the client’s desires. In other words, it is the plan. We will know what is expected, and when – in writing. Other than someone’s weird interpretations – it should be pretty clear what the deliverables are.

Now come those small deviations (from the original job order) and justings (just do this or that).

Document the deviations and the tweaks – through a collaborative app like BaseCamp,  or at least on the file or proof - or better yet, invest in agency management software. Email is NOT collaborative software, sorry. Remember that game of telephone? Projects go the same way. Who made this change anyway?

When it’s time to send that little job back to the client, you’ll know why project X now looks completely different than the original job order. It’s documented. Further, when you check the accrued hours on the project you’ll know exactly why the Quick Little Job is now in the thousands of dollars. And late.

Of course, in my perfect world, I’d have you do a change order.

You’d be amazed at how ridiculous some changes are when you actually have to write them out. The mere act of articulating a change makes you think about it. Speed doesn’t equal efficiency.

If you don’t find documenting changes compelling, there is this: It will become crystal clear the origin of all those little things that send a project into the stratosphere of time and cost, or delayed to the point it is no longer relevant. A client who has become creative director; an AE who can’t say no; an AD who just wants to do a little more; a studio that has to re-work the file because it has morphed into something unrecognizable.

You get the idea. And by the way, never work on anything without a legit job number. We can all be gatekeepers of profitability. 

setting expectations makes you look – psychic

A long, long time ago I was a freelance designer, and a single mom with a couple of young kids. I had a phrase “Boring is good”.

I like knowing what to expect. That means you have a routine, a plan for the day and expected outcomes for your chores and tasks.

There were plenty of times when life was not boring. Like when I had to pull an all-nighter to get a project to a client for a 9am meeting, then my son awoke at midnight and couldn't breathe. With my sleepy daughter in tow, we rushed to the hospital. We were in the emergency room until 5am, while I watched the clock, calculating how I could finish my project when I got home - while feeling guilty that I wasn't fully mentally devoted to the more important issue at hand.

My son was, in fact, just fine – it was scary though – I rushed home and I got the kids to bed, and got to work. By 7am I knew I couldn't make the deadline, so I called the client and told her that I needed a little more time and asked for a 10am meeting – delayed one hour.

I managed to get the project done, kids to the babysitter and to the meeting by our new, revised time.

I had a wonderful meeting – my client asked what happened, and I told her. She had several colleagues in the room. Everyone was like, “oh, you could have had another day; I've been there myself; when my kids were young…” You get the idea. They were human, empathetic, kind.

They were a client for a long time.

So, think about planning for outcomes. As it relates to an agency or an in-house department, plan everything. It gives you breathing room when you have a real emergency.

Yep, planning means... create a schedule, allocate time for every task, and be diligent about it. And have contingencies, like moving staff around, or getting more help. This isn’t advanced math, just common sense.

I would never tell you to do busywork – this is planning. A quick turn-and-burn, get it on the schedule, allocate time. A hundred little things really add up. Use a schedule template and it is easy. Assign, adjust hours and SAVE. DONE.

When you do this, then you will know immediately if you can actually get all your work done. In fact, if you have everything on a schedule, you can even confirm before you commit.

You become a…seer.

You really can tell a client – “let me check to make sure we can get that to you by xx time”.

Clients become jerks when you let them make endless, unreasonable demands – and then fulfill them. Grow a spine and train your client. You do have more than one client – right? One dictator can ruin deadlines for everyone. Train client-facing staff; replace or reassign the weak or the eager-to-please. They may be nice, but are the undoing of profitability. Your goal is to stay in business. Sorry.

Setting expectations is Rule One. Delivering on time comes right after. Okay, you can include awesome creative.

And, when you ask a client for more time, have a legitimate reason. It had better be an emergency. Bad planning just makes you look irresponsible.

See…boring is good. But you, somehow, already knew that.

You Can Save the Economy – Go To Las Vegas

I live in Sin City. Where vices are okay, and we rank #2 on MarketWatch’s 10 states with the most homes in foreclosure – a dubious distinction that YOU can change.

In an effort to turn that dismal statistic around, I’m inviting you to come to Vegas!

Yes. It is beautiful here. Right now a little chilly, but clear and sunny and the high is expected to be 61 degrees today. Not bad for January 19. And we don’t have icky bugs.

If you come here, this is what YOU CAN CHANGE.
As cited on MarketWatch, our official unemployment is at 10.8%, and foreclosures are at 2.70%. Neither of which really reflect the truth because there are many of us who don’t bother reporting that we’re unemployed anymore, and there are a lot of houses that aren’t yet really reported as foreclosed – for a couple years (like the house across the street). Oh well.

This nifty little chart shows the national ‘official’ unemployment rate at 7.8% and the U6 rate at 14.4%. The U6 rate in the BLS statistic for Nevada is 21.4%.

U6 is defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as:
“U-6, total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.”

Almost everyone I know falls into this category. This is a city that has grown on service and construction jobs. Therefore it’s easy to be marginally employed. Most work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

But that’s all gloomy and I’m all about the economic recovery of Las Vegas and getting my friends employed full-time.

Now for the pitch: do what I tell you.

As a visitor, you don’t have to pay attention to any of that. Because, when you come to Fabulous Las Vegas, you will affect change in our local economy. I like that about you.

Vacation here.
Go to Vegas.com and check out things to do, places to stay and then book your trip. You’ll have a great time here. Plus, there are very cool things to do if you’re not into the casino thing.

Red Rock Canyon is only a 20 miles West of the Strip, Hoover Dam is 35 miles to the East; and Death Valley is a couple hours West.  (Check out Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level.) You’ll even learn a little history.

Meet here.
Since the President reversed his opinion on going to Vegas for business, it is okay for you to plan your next meeting here. Fantastic accommodations, reasonably priced; every major airline flies here (and the airport is right near the strip); lots more fun after the convention or conference (you do attend, don’t you?); and did I mention a pyramid, pirate ship, volcano, the Eiffel tower and gondolas?

So check out the place, and request a meeting planner guide. Then plan your conference, meeting or some sort of business thing. Heck, hire me as a speaker. I have an opinion. On everything.

A couple tips for visiting Vegas:
- Casinos are big, so bring comfortable shoes. If you’re out clubbing, stick some flats in that little handbag. You will thank me. If you’re taking a stroll on the Strip, everything looks close. It isn’t – but it’s worth the walk to catch the vibe. There’s a lot to see. Do it in comfort. You’ll thank me again.
- Drink water. Humidity is really low here, and in the summer it is hot. Hydrate – especially if you drink alcohol. Alternate those margaritas-on-a-sling with a bottle of water – or two.
- Spend money. You’re going to take a trip or have a conference somewhere – right? Plan to do it here. We all appreciate you more than those other cities.

I can sense our economy improving.

Beer Fridays: Ultimate Agency Culture

Since I've been on a theme this week about company culture, I’ll talk about Beer Fridays. Sorry it’s a late post, but I was out testing martinis yesterday. Really.

Drinking has long been a tradition in advertising. Three Martini Lunch. Cocktails with clients. Legends are born from these traditions.

Aren’t you proud.

In these modern times, we all have microbrews stashed in our mini-fridges so we can pop a cold one when we’re done on Friday at 3pm. Or something like that.

And often, those brews are cracked open at other celebratory times – when a pitch is won, a client lost, you’re pissed at your CD, or you just got something done. Woo hoo!

The best agency is one that has a smokin’ micro-brew account. Awesome beer – always free – on Friday and it’s fresh. In a keg. No bottles to testify to how much you all drank. Just one Red Solo Cup – refilled many times. Everyone loves that client.

Anyway, back to culture. How did we get from suits and scotch to flannel and beer?

Because of creativity.

Drinking doesn't go away in advertising because – get this – it enhances creativity! As if you were looking for a reason, a study published by the good folks at The Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago found that alcohol can help with creativity. An article in Psychology Today about the study summed it up nicely:

“Simply put, people’s ability to think about information in new and unusual ways can actually be hampered when they wield too much brain power. What Dr. Jennifer Wiley and her team have found is that one way to get around this is to have a couple of drinks.”
(emphasis added)

Channeling your inner Hemingway has never been more legit.

So now that you've got creativity down...how does the etiquette part work? Well, since you spend more awake time with your colleagues than your favorite partner – don’t get stupid. And we all know what stupid is. Been there or watched it first-hand. I do not have to give you bullet-points on what not to do.

In an agency, culture is nurtured from legend and folklore. The stories of the founders’ struggles and triumphs, magnificent creative, the campaign that changed everything – all seems so old school. It isn't.

Bottom line – whether you’re in one of the big old agencies that are a part of a Humongous Holding Company, or you’re working in The Hottest Digital Startup – the guys and gals who sign your paycheck have worked hard to get where they are. Many have put everything on the line so they could become successful and hire you.

Have some respect. Working in advertising does not give you the right to drink on the job. It is a perk that is part of the culture in many agencies. So imbibe wisely. And be nice to one another.

Don’t embarrass the boss or client, be cool with the alcohol and get your work done. On time. Thanks.