The P Word

I worked in an agency that was having a big issue with Process. Yep that’s the P Word.

"Quit talking Process," said the cat as he attempted to kill the AE.

Click on the image to go to Managers Are Heroes website. Good piece on self control when you want to strangle someone at the office.

I had to use the image. It has a cat doing what comes naturally. Amazing what you can find on a Google search. And I know the irony of MAH when I'm calling-out managers all the time on silly things they do...

I started there as a consultant, then, when they discovered how brilliant I was (or I was willing to do something that no one really wanted to take on) and couldn’t live without me, they offered me a full-time position. I couldn’t turn it down – solving issues is right up my alley.

In the process of evaluating everything that was going on – and going wrong – in the agency, I had a chat with one of the creative directors. I asked about process. He said, “If I ever hear that word again I’m going to kill someone.”

Process gets discussed To Death.

Why can’t anyone in a creative environment figure out process?

Because it’s so simple. Most agencies and marketing departments actually have a process. They just don’t know it.

Why? Because they think they have to have a big meeting, involve all the managers, sketch it out on a whiteboard, write a long-winded document, 50-slide PowerPoint, have creative do a Process Workflow Diagram to print out and post on a wall, hold a company-wide training session, avow lofty pronouncements and declarations, then roll it out.

Two reactions come from this: a) why are they doing this to us? b) hooray! What’s next?

Then everyone goes back to what they were doing. Before all of that hullabaloo.

And why is this? Because management, in their brilliance, didn’t include anyone actually doing the work on outlining the process; and this is a big one – they have no one to manage the roll-out, follow-up and make adjustments as needed.

That’s because it was perfect. From a management perspective.

I can outline your process in a couple hours.

You say, “Charlotte, you’re insane! You have no idea what our agency/department is like! We’re different! We have a Special Culture!”

Bet you do.

And another thing I’ll bet is that the people doing the work know what process is and practice a little bit every day. It’s just that when things go sideways – which they do in every agency – management decides they’re going to do a process survey and decide what’s best for everyone . . . else.

That is, after it’s been discussed To Death.

So, yes, you do need Process. You need to define it, outline it and everyone needs to follow it. There are exceptions because disaster can strike any time in an agency. In those cases, you take care of the client, get the work done, fix the mistake – then learn from it. Revise the process.

But the exception is not what this is about. This is about the 95 percent of the work in your agency – the routine stuff – that shouldn’t be a pain to manage. A workflow that is predictable. We don't need drama.

Routine isn’t a bad thing, and neither is a clear process that allows most of the work to happen in a routine manner. When it’s all in place and work is just humming along, you have time for the disasters . . . and even more time to spend on the real creative stuff.

Don’t hate Process. Just don’t discuss it to death. Get the folks doing the work to outline it; give them GOOD tools to manage their work (I advocate for agency management software – you should know that by now); and once in place, assign an individual (make allowances for this additional duty) to keep on top of evaluations and adjustments.

You need champions for Process to work. None better than the staff doing the work. They, after all, have all the responsibility and actually really care.

Process is easy – not a Death Threat.

Barnes & Noble Sent Me To Amazon

I’ll get to the book part, but first . . .

Today’s a holiday – Memorial Day. My Dad was a vet, World War II, South Pacific. He was wonderful, very quiet, retired from the Phone Company when people went to work and retired from the same job after decades.

He retired early, at 62, because he was just tired of working. He had a pension, and in those days, one could actually retire at 62 and draw Social Security. Not a lot of money, but he could afford to buy books. Usually Tom Clancy and Ken Follett.

He loved to read. Did so every night after Mom went to bed. It was quiet, the cats kept him company and didn’t ask him to fix the leaky faucet.

Segue to reading.

I love to read. Unfortunately for my husband, I will forego doing anything if I have a good book. I read a lot of business books – which can be boring – but when you find one that supports your opinion – it can be a real page-turner.

Yes, I’m talking about my quest last week to buy Cubed from Barnes & Noble.

Jerks.

Well, it was partly my fault.

As I said last week:

So, I read the article, I went online and ordered the book to pick up at my local Barnes & Noble. I planned to read as much as possible last night and wow you with enhanced knowledge, but alas, my $17.38 purchase came through, confirmed via text, that the price in store is actually $26.95.

Oh, mon dieu. I went to B&N, asked for my book at the counter and said, “I have a question.” The clerk responded immediately with, “We charge the full price, not online price” . . . as she put the book back on the shelf. They have my name, email address and phone number. Good Job.*

So I came home and ordered Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace from Amazon, free shipping and it was $17.04. Ha!

Now to be completely fair to B&N, they do let you know the price of the book will be different if you go to the store to buy the book. Well into the ordering process, mind you.

Yes, Summerlin location, I'm calling you out, AND admitting that in my excitement to find this book I overlooked the New Revised Price. I still think it's rude. And stupid.

There it is. Well, it says the book is $27. But it’s actually $26.95 – why can’t they just put the real price in there?

The bigger question is this: Why, when you have a customer standing in front of your clerk with cash in hand, do you choose to NOT complete a transaction?

This is the stupidest sales decision ever. This certainly wasn’t a case of showrooming because I looked online – then I went to the store.

In this piece from Business Insider, reverse-showrooming, which is what I was doing and didn't know it, is being adopted by retailers.

"What has changed is that retailers have begun to identify the reverse showrooming trend and the opportunity it offers to them, and they are now working to actively capture those sales."

Duh.

I live in Las Vegas. We don’t have a lot of bookstores anymore. Perhaps B&N think they have a market to themselves. But looking at the stats on bricks and mortar booksellers in this town, I think not.

Especially when they turn down a sale. From me.

I buy a lot of books – I’m not a Kindle type of person. I like ink on paper. I put post-it notes to mark important pages – especially the ones that completely agree with me and validate what I know to be true. And I’ve even been known to underline the good stuff – and use a post-it.

So, I bought the book from Amazon and had to wait a couple days. Cheaper than the online price from B&N, and I got free shipping.

Oh, and I went ahead a bought a couple other books too.

Missed opportunity, Barnes & Noble.

By the way, have a wonderful, safe Memorial Day. Put out the flag, honor our wonderful vets, barbeque a few burgers and read a book.

*well, actually, so do you if you click on my contact page. 

Open Space And My Quest To Buy A Book From Barnes & Noble

Click on the image to go to BuzzFeed and read 24 Reasons Your Open-Plan Office Sucks.

Yesterday I wrote a [meandering] post about moving people around in an agency in the effort to encourage collaboration with folks you probably see every day, but you usually don’t talk to.

The logic is that more collaboration and creativity will spark if you engage in spontaneous conversation with someone you’ve seen around the place, but just don’t chat with regularly.

Then, in the midst of searching for just the right photo for my post, I got caught up in another topic that gripes me and it is the concept of Open Space – via a lovely piece in the National Post about a book called Cubed and how the lame concept of no walls fails to make anyone more collaborative.

Sorry for the tossed salad of topics yesterday. So to clarify: 1.) moving people around is dumb and a waste of time; and 2.) open space is worse.

So today is about Open Space – and a couple other things.

There’s nothing like reading something that validates one’s opinion (based on having actually experienced it, mind you) in a respected journalistic setting. And Canadian to boot.

As I said yesterday, yes I actually had to listen to a coordinator explain Fireball shots to her mom over the phone. I had work to get done. I only wish I could have been in on the call because this woman just wasn’t gettin’ the whole gist of Fireball shots.

I wanted to crawl through that iPhone and say, “Fireball is cinnamon-flavored whisky – that’s a form of alcohol, honey, you drink it in one gulp – and by the way, you’re making me crazy. Understand fast because this call is OVER.”

But I didn’t. I did what every other person in any Open Space Agency does. Put on headphones, logged into Pandora and listened to Tom Petty.

By the way, Fireball is Canadian too.

Barnes & Noble Tangent

So, I read the article, I went online and ordered the book to pick up at my local Barnes & Noble. I planned to read as much as possible last night and wow you with enhanced knowledge, but alas, my $17.38 purchase came through, confirmed via text, that the price in store is actually $26.95.

Oh, mon dieu. I went to B&N, asked for my book at the counter and said, “I have a question.” The clerk responded immediately with, “We charge the full price, not online price” . . . as she put the book back on the shelf. They have my name, email address and phone number. Good Job. I retraced my online steps, and sure enough, missed it. The real price was there in the final step. I was just so thrilled to validate everything I know about Open Space I was blinded.

So I came home and ordered Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace from Amazon, free shipping and it was even cheaper than B&N - $17.04. Ha!

Back to Open Space The Saga

Since I didn’t read-up on everything I know to be evil and true about Open Space, I’ll share some of the highlights of the article.

About cubes

“The irony of the cubicle is that it was designed to save workers from the kind of chaos of what was essentially an open-plan setup,” Mr. Saval said in an interview . . .

About the return of Open Space

“The first time it’s tragedy, the second time it’s farce,” [Saval] said of this concept, which was prone to complaints about noise and distraction. “They’re repeating the same mistakes they made in the 1950s when the Germans introduced the more open flexible landscape. It’s sort of silly that that’s happening… there’s some dishonesty and bad faith in it. It’s obviously cheaper to cram more people into less space.”

The problem with Open Space is that everything is a distraction. Collaboration happens either in meeting rooms or collaboration spaces – which are usually booked – or off-site at Coffee Bean (okay, Starbucks too).

So why build all those meeting areas and collaboration spaces when you can just create real office space so people can get work done? As my experience in an old-fashioned agency back in the ‘90s clearly demonstrated – everyone had an office. With a door. And there was constant collaboration going on within those offices. Just because an individual has an office doesn’t mean he or she is going to sit in there and work alone. It’s just not the nature of the agency business. We collaborate and then we get some alone time.

We need that time alone. Great creative ideas do emerge when we can just sit and ponder on the problem. Awesome solutions don’t happen when you’re distracted by your desk-mate getting their voicemail on the speaker phone. As noted in the heavily commented piece in the New York Times, “Headphones are the new wall.”

There is one thing worse than Open Space. That’s hotelling. I’ve done that too. Bad idea devised by cheap bastards.

Bottom line, it’s either management’s brilliant idea to create serendipity, or an effort to cut the cost of overhead. Perhaps it’s one in disguise of the other. Creepy.

But you know, we still get the work done anyway.

Hooray for you guys! Now let’s shove-off with some Tom Petty – who isn’t Canadian.

Moving Things Around And Trying To Create Serendipity When People Actually Like Just A Little Routine

I’ve encountered, read, been a part of agencies and marketing departments, where management gets the brilliant idea that moving people around to different desks and tearing down cube walls will get them out of their ‘ruts’ and start talking to – oh, wait no – collaborating with other people. Creating Serendipity.

This is plain dumb.

I first experienced this at an agency in Portland in the early ‘90s. The partners had visited an agency in San Francisco or New York or some other esoteric advertising mecca and saw first-hand how teams were assembled. Account, creative and all support staff in a team - sitting side-by-side. Because in those agencies, those teams were actually assigned specific accounts (so it worked for them, I guess).

The partners were so enthralled, they decided we needed to do the same. This would surely spur creativity. Get more clients. We had a meeting! We had champagne! We had to clear out our offices and move our crap.

Well, half the employees had to.

Our agency was on three floors. The move was a giant pain in the ass. Fortunately I was a PM and my boss said that all PMs had to stay put in their offices – near him. He was a partner who knew better.

Well, some creatives moved upstairs, some downstairs – the same for account – and eventually, we didn’t know where anyone was.

But the thing that was so telling was that the creative folk kept getting together in each-others’ offices, as did the account folks. You see, they had their routines; they had their trusted collaborators to bounce ideas off; they had their confidants to discuss jerks in the office, husbands and boyfriends, and where to meet for drinks after work.

Everyone still did what they did before, with the people they always did things with. Now, it was just more inconvenient.

Serendipity did not happen. The staff just got work done and life happened.

So quit moving people around. And for Gods Sakes, get rid of those group work tables and, at least go back to cubes with real (higher than 18 inches) walls. I do not need to hear another coordinator explain to her Mom that doing Fireball shots with friends is super fun.

Oh, and while on my journey to find a cool photo to accompany this post, I found this terrific piece on Cube Rage. 

The GIF is from the National Post by way of Office Space.

The book mentioned in the article – Cubed – The Secret History of the Workplace – I’m buying it today.

Tomorrow’s post will surely be about Open Space.

We Start Out Hopeful Then Everything Turns To Sh*t. Or The Endurance Of The Human Spirit.

It never ceases to amaze me how people endure the most difficult, nebulous or desperate situations – and just go on. They get up. Go to work. Eat a meal. Do laundry.

Survive.

My neighbor moved out yesterday. Just a guy, a small U-Haul and a day of schlepping back-and-forth. Out of a 2600-square-foot house with a pool, dying yard and eerie quiet.

When he moved there, about four years ago, it was him, his wife, his teenage sons every-other week, and eventually – his new baby. Then grandma was there every day to take care of the baby while everyone was a work and school.

Then the guy lost his job. He was out of work for more than a year. This is Las Vegas.

He quit paying the mortgage because the house was now worth less than he owed. He and his wife split – she moved out months ago. Then the house was sold on a short-sale.

Glad he was able to sell. A small victory when banks still work to make the process impossible.

That’s all behind him and he can move on.

That’s reality.

Working in an ad agency is just working in an ad agency. We act – and feel – like it’s our life. And actually, it is for most of us who love advertising. The agency becomes our family. We spend a lot of time with them, and they’re the ones who are there with you when you turn 30, 50 or 65; or when you get the call from school that your kid was spotted leaving with the red-headed-kid at 10am and you have to leave to track him down only to find they’re smoking pot in the basement; or when you find out you dad died.

Then we go on.

It’s the camaraderie, or perhaps the simple need to survive, that we stick together and show up for work every day.

We show up even when the boss does insanely stupid shit and requires endless re-works because he’s just not seeing it, only to revert back to original the work. Or doesn’t show up for days, weeks or months on end – only to finally make an appearance to tell you that now Everything is gonna change. Or despite everything you know to be true, tells you to do things in his new and improved way – because he’s just come from either an inspirational Management Summit full of gurus who bloviate on the merits of Failure, or he just got ripped a new-one because he’s just-not-doing-his-job-and-he-better-get-with-the-program-or-he-is . . . gone.

We show up and do our jobs, turn out great work – or as great as we can given the circumstances – and eventually, we short-sell, get the hell out, and start a new life.

The ability of individuals to endure, work like dogs, and still find enjoyment in a few things here and there, is truly remarkable.

You have each-other. And trust me on this: nothing lasts forever, so just carve-out what you can now and move on as soon as a good opportunity presents itself.

You are the ones making the business run. Think about it. You are remarkable. 

Working Miracles In Agencies

It’s time to call in Anne Sullivan. You must sit at the table and mind your manners.

After the scene below is one of my favorite movie lines. It’s from The Miracle Worker, Anne Sullivan (Anne Bancroft) just finished breakfast with Helen Keller (Patty Duke). By the way both won an Oscar® for their awesome performances.

“She ate from her own plate. She ate with a spoon. Herself. And she folded her napkin.”

I used to think it was just an anomaly attributed to ad agencies – creatives and account – arguing, fighting, avoiding, circumventing the system. Unfortunately, this can, and does, happen anywhere – even in your local holistic peace-loving organic market. Or bank.

But this is about advertising, marketing, interactive, branding agencies. Where creative and the business of creative intersect. Or clash.

What are they doing? Basically making everything much harder than it should be.

Why? Because everyone has a valid point of their own. The rules don’t apply . . . to them. They don’t “have time”. It isn't their job. And they don't care. Or they know better.

We’ve all heard it over and over.

I have worked with a lot of agencies that call in a peacekeeper. A peacekeeper in the form of a Process, or Tools such as software (oh, yes, it’s technology now), to better track what’s going on – and each other. Sadly, often used as punitive measure just to prove one’s point.

Having worked in and with many agencies, I’ve witnessed it.

First, software doesn’t fix lousy attitudes. It provides structure. You need structure in your rainbow-hued creative world.

Process is discussed ad nauseam – and is never really clear, much less followed – and is always the object thrown in the road like a tack strip to catch a felon.

You didn’t follow process.

So sophisticated ad folks resort to what they know best. They fight. Like kids.

Sometimes, fixing an agency isn’t changing your clients, submitting your magnificent creative to Cannes, or adding to your stable of most sought-after ad men (or women).

Sometimes it’s just looking at how people [don’t] work together.

It should never be that hard to do a day’s work.

Sometimes it takes a little tough love. Everyone needs to know their place, work together (it is, after all a collaboration), and have just a little empathy.

When everyone is at each-other’s throats; at Coffee Bean complaining; working from home (way too much); getting into your stuff and messing with it – it’s time to take a step back and look at what’s really going on.

It’s time for management to put on their big boy Fire Hose Work Pants™ and bring everyone back to Earth. 

Yes, you need a clearly defined process - documented. And yes, you HAVE to have a good, comprehensive (and user-friendly) agency management tool to track work. But not dealing with the people factor will kill every great attempt at implementing process and software.

And sometimes, you just have to be an adult and fold your napkin.

I leave you with this. And yes, you do look like that.

Rockabilly Weekend and Vanity Plates

It’s Saturday. It’s beautiful outside and we’re going to hit the car show at Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend today. So we’ll see lots of cars from around the country and many will have vanity license plates. (Not to mention all the vanities that abound – this is Las Vegas)

So this morning, I saw this piece about a woman in New Jersey whose request for a vanity plate was rejected because it was for the word 8THEIST.

She is suing the state of New Jersey.

New Jersey: please take that money you’re spending on defending the decision to deny the plate and fix some roads, for cripes sakes.

A person who buys a vanity plate often also states his or her opinion/conviction/support of oh, their senator or president; their sexual orientation/marriage; for/against guns, abortion; organic food, zumba fitness; university/pro sports team; love of cats/dogs/ferrets; and free speech – on their car.

Cost of entry to add those messages is really cheap.

What I find odd is – that while one can spend almost nothing to paste their personal messages all over their car, and that they are willing to pay a premium to make that message [semi] permanent on their car – the government of any given state wants to decide that it is inappropriate to say it on a license plate, and they don’t want that extra money paid (usually every year unless you live in Oregon and licensing a car cost almost nothing), even though their state legislature decided that vanity plates would be an awesome way to make extra cash to repair (uh-um) all the roads.

I understand keeping all the bad words off plates. People don’t usually write f*ck you in the dirt on the back window of their mini-van. If they’re not willing to make that statement in dirt, then they shouldn’t get it on a plate. Besides, it’s rude. There’s enough rudeness on the road.

But this is a Freedom of Speech issue.

I live in Nevada. Home of Ranchers, Gambling, Legal Brothels (outside of two counties), millions of acres of Beautiful Desert, Sunshine 360 days a year, and Bars that are open 24 / 7. I’ve seen first-hand how the First Amendment is handled on a license plate.*

Another thing we have in Nevada – an awesome Rockabilly Weekend – that, I hear, will now be twice a year.

So, be free and have a great weekend. I can’t wait to see cool rides and hear Los Straitjackets.

Oh, and one last thought. If that plate you want is already taken, please don’t try so hard to make it work with numbers and such. It makes me crazy trying to figure out what your plate says.