Rad, Rad, Rad

The Naive New Beaters

NAIVE NEW BEATERS "LIVE GOOD"
by djtoncar

My Google

c/o: Paint that Shit Gold

theories...

A few good friends made a fun film for a festival. A good laugh.

hiatus

So, I've been on this ridiculously long hiatus and I'm not happy with it because I miss blogging and Blipfoto. I'm coming back. SOON!

The last month...

In the last month I...


Graduated from the VCU Adcenter, packed my bags, and said goodbye to Richmond, VA.

Flew to San Francisco for an interview.

Said goodbye to the most fantastic Amanda Rae. I heart you!

Partied with the bride to be and some fab women.

Drove south 800 miles, so the best man ever could take me to Key West for a post graduation celebration. Thank you Tropical Storm Barry for making it wonderful and wet.

Drove to Cedar Mountain, NC to witness...

A beautiful ceremony between Jeff and Elizabeth.

Then, I played in Tampa and visited some wonderful friends...

Like, the Slawiak family. I'm patiently waiting for number two! :)

I said goodbye to my family and gave Duke a million kisses. My father told me I was officially leaving "the nest." I cried.

I played one last hoorah with the sweet nectar of sangria at Tina Tapas. My last night in Tampa, and the final goodbye.

Then, I flew to San Francisco and started the next chapter in my life. Welcome! It's exciting, brilliant, and far.

This is my work station at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. I'm working on finding my voice, but I love this new chapter. It's a clean page.

For all the pictures that didn't get uploaded with the faces of friends in my head... I LOVE YOU and I miss you terribly.

Deb and Lauren...you MUST come to SF b/c I discovered the three of us do not have a picture together. It's a great enough reason.

Bonnie, I miss you terribly. West Coast time and East Coast time is really going to mess with my mind.

Tracey, move to Portland so I can visit.

Kristin, LA anyone.

Jonnie, let's get a beer soon.

Brian, no need for goodbye. I'm waiting for the next beer.

E, I need you to help me find my voice. Come quick!

I'm going to get myself into trouble b/c there are a thousand ppl in my mind who I'm missing at this very moment. I feel so far away from everyone, but I'm having fun and starting my "adult" life. I'm thinking of everyone.

MIA

I know I've been MIA for a really long time. I'm still around and promise to post again very soon.

nerves

It can really do a number on your nerves when you know you have one shot. One shot and maybe five minutes of someone's time. It's exciting but often exhausting. You spend hours upon hours staring and fixing the slightest alignment issue. You scour all of the content, looking to add more while trimming the fat. There are opinions coming at you from all sides, and you have to decide which ones stay true to who you are and what you are trying to accomplish. Once you are done, you realize the word finished doesn’t exist when it comes to something that potentially affects your future. I could have stared, added, subtracted, moved, and changed for 30 more days. Eventually, you have to tell yourself "what is meant to be...is simply meant to be." I've got an email and maybe five minutes, ten if I'm lucky, and 15 if I'm the luckiest person on the block. I feel pretty good because I know I tried my best. In the end that is all we can do, isn't it...?

school #7

We presented to Yahoo! yesterday. It was our final presentation for the VCU Adcenter. I expected to feel my body exhale in a joyous relief because I am finally crossing the finish line. Instead, I looked around at my peers and realized there would be a period of mourning. A mourning that is expected when you know it's time to move on and away from all of these brilliant people who are your friends. Congratulations class of 2007.


I did have one other reaction: Did that just happen?

subliminal advertising

I have two immediate thoughts:
First, is it real or scripted?
Second, is it subliminal or simply taking in the world around us and applying it to our work?
I believe the more we keep our eyes open to our surroundings, the more we can tap into what is driving and inspiring others.

I thought it came from my Adrants newsletter yesterday, but I can't dig it up anywhere. I apologize for not attributing the find to the right place.

school #6

Today marked our last Communications Strategy class with Caley. I remember our first class with Charlie Kouns. We used straws and marshmallows to build a tower. It wasn't that long ago when I looked around the room and faced strangers who knew nothing about one another. Today I left the room feeling exhilarated and sad. I know last names and first names. I know little snippets and details of each person I knew as strangers one year and nine months ago. It is such an odd feeling to know that in 18 days the people we've grown to trust and rely on won't be around the corner.

Caley said a few things this morning that almost broke my heart. She said that as a military child she grew accustomed to leaving but never felt the pain of someone else leaving. She was so sad but so happy for all of us. She encouraged us to stay in touch and call her during the good and bad. I have no doubt I will use the invitation. Caley is a wonderful person, and I hope to make her proud.

She asked us two favors and it is definitely something I plan to always keep in mind:

1. Raise our personal bar high. When we meet that bar it's time to raise it even higher.
2. Tend our own garden. Don't lean over to look at someone else's garden.

school #5

I was ahead of the game. Ramping up for portfolio review on the 14th. It was a 76 page file and 69 mgs. I saved. I closed. I right clicked. I hit save a copy. It said, cannot complete request. My file disappeared. Oh, dear! This is not how the weekend was supposed to end. I dare say that I'm glad I don't panic often. In this instance I should be highly upset. I admit that I am not thrilled, but it is not the end of the world. It is simply the end to a weekend. For the rest of my Sunday evening I will enjoy my margarita on the porch and perhaps at 8:00 I will venture in to catch the Simpsons. The lesson is found in Save As. C'est la vie.

a market fact

A siesta leads to a 37% reduction in the risk of dying from a coronary event, according to a U of Athens Medical School study. Researchers studied over 23,000 consumers in Greece, where naps are part of the culture. No participants had heart disease at the study’s beginning. After about six years, those who napped for at least 30 minutes on at least three days a week were about one-third less likely to have died of a heart attack or other cardiac cause.
14WFIE.com | 2.12.07

Thanks E. If I ever have my own business there will be a mandatory Siesta everyday.

for fun #12

I'm making the calls to plan the next trip. The pic is me scuba diving in Dominica. I surfaced and Zaid was completing his ascent. Zaid is in Miami for school, and I will be in Florida next month. Easy enough to plan a quick trip. Thinking about it makes me want to suit-up.

school #4

Update: I was driving home today and realized that some people may not know Mark Fenske. So, I've pasted a picture of his Adcenter bio at the bottom of the post.

About 70 students showed up to Mark Fenske's session this afternoon. I was impressed with the amount of people who attended from all tracks. I tried to take as many notes as possible. Please take into account that I missed some parts, but I was able to scribble all of his major points. He used the Elmo for his presentation.

As many of you know Mark Fenske loves to start his classes with a poem. This is the poem he started with for the "My Love of Planning" session.

Swordfish
by Andrew Hudgins

My fingertips marveled at the silvery shimmer,
already less silver, less shimmery than when it lived.
I never again should cause flesh this beautiful
to be less beautiful, I thought.
At supper
—swordfish—my brother offered up his neighbor
for conversation. He'd shotgunned every TV
in his house, even the puny black-and-white
on the kitchen counter. Buckshot shattered black
granite and splintered yards of Golden Oak.

It wasn't election time or football season.
Maybe his kids had watched Debbie do Dallas.
In the unexpected hush as we considered
slaughtered appliances, my brother's drinking buddy
told my girlfriend she was a pretty lady,
a real pretty lady. She looked like a dream.
One day she'd make a real man really happy.
I barked three hard flat laughs. The lit friend winced
as each blast turned his cheeks a richer red.
My girlfriend closed her eyes and opened them,
her azure eyelids shimmering with jade.
From Volume 189, Number 6, March 2007
Copyright © The Poetry Foundation

From what I gathered, the poem was Fenske's point about how the character in the poem didn't like his actions to the swordfish and didn't want to do it again, but his actions to his friend mirrored his actions to the swordfish.

My Love of Planning

What I Like:
1. Planners don't try to make an ad out of everything.
People don't like ads.
Planners possess a natural curiosity, which seeks the core of every new thing, which looks and appraises each product, each subject as if it could move what they must believe.

2. Planners converse
Argument is a means to wisdom

3. Planners tell the truth
...The most fertile ground is away from the doctrine. That land is all trampled in peoples minds.

4. Planners are schlubs
Planners don't try to be better than the rest of us. Real people don't live in NY, go to clubs, stay at La Mondraine, or drink $100 bottles of wine

5. Planners cry
Feelings are first. Feelings trump. If you ever want to win an argument, feel something.

6. Planners are ad people
"I'm not a planner." John Steele

Planners are good writers. ("I've met two that write better than me," Mark Fenske)
Planners know the game.


(This is where he went into the football metaphor.)
There are two parts to every business: Make and Sell

Football Team
Agency is the offense.
They have a ball and they want to score.
The client is on defense.
In order to get as good a deal and as good work as he can, he goes after the ball.
Each player is selected to do their job.
Blockers keep the defense from getting to the player with the ball.
(......I missed a line here.......)
Runners, throwers, and catchers handle the ball.

There's a breakdown when a person selected for their ability at one-job stops doing it because they want to do another job. In the middle of the play there are two functions on a team, when you do your function the team works.

Planners ----------> Creative
Creatives ----------> Performers

Planning invents something out of nothing.

Two things we aren't looking at:
How work is sold:
1. History - cause and effect
2. Finance of a company

What I Don't Like:
1. Planners think what they wear makes them something.

2. Planners don't read more than I do.

3. Planners won't risk.

There we have the session in a long nutshell. It was interesting. He is different from last year. Calmer...almost shy. Maybe that is because I say hello to him everyday, and he isn't used to such niceties. ha I hope this was fruitful for some. I think he does appreciate planning. He even mentioned his four favorite planners, which I was going to share but thought better. What I've learned is that Fenske simply wants us to get "it." Whatever it may be.

school #3

At noon on Tuesday our very own Mark Fenske is holding a lecture on why he loves planning. I am very curious. For a year and a half I've waited to hear his true thoughts on planning. Now that it's here, I feel it's a set-up.

His Creative Thinking class in the Fall of 2005 became in my mind, the Class of Humility. Every morning we showed up and every morning Fenske made us feel inadequate. In the end, we pulled a legitimate fast one on him. The news was out that he was going back to W+K in Portland. We royally pissed him off with the last project, so he made us redo the assignment for our final class. We all got together and decided that instead of a redo, we wanted to play. We each picked a town that touted THE WORLD'S BIGGEST ________________. (ex. I had LaCrosse, WI with the World's Largest Six Pack) In the middle of each person showing the map and the World's Largest, Fenske stood up and started ranting about how we were crazy and how much trouble we were in. We told him to sit down and be quiet (yes, we did). He sat down defiantly and watched until the final presenter, Cliff, showed a map with all of the cities connected and the final destination as Portland. The city of Portland with The WORLD'S BIGGEST ASSHOLE MARK FENSKE. We presented him with a bottle of Asshole beer. His reaction...silence and then laughter. A defining moment for all of us.

**I should have prefaced and mentioned that I do enjoy Fenske. His love of poetry is something I admire. I learned from his class, and I took away the "getting it" part that we all seem to neglect. I even learned the beauty behind humility.