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.