OutsideIn

So one of the strange things about my "path" is that when I got my Master's in Advertising at UT, I happened to write my professional report on Advertising Education. Apparently, I knew where I was headed one day. One of the things I mentioned was how critical it was to get exposure to the many styles and voices in the professional world.

At the Academy, we have people who are coming straight off the job and into the classroom, which I love ... in fact, Ad Research actually happens inside the walls of Goodby right now! But, I still wanted to build a speaker series, given the remarkable talent in this city. Speakers had a huge impact on who I became in this business. First was the amazing Keith Reinhard whose passion was infectious and stories were enlightening. Second was meeting and lunching and fix-a-flating with Owen Hanney who would eventually give me my first advertising job.

Working with the AAU Federalists (the student club named after our street address not any strong affinity to a strong nationalistic government), we got our OutsideIn speaker series kicked off this past month. Here is the schedule:



OutsideIn has a speaker brief where we keep it casual, passionate, interesting, and fun. We don't record it, so people aren't worried about "what shows up on the web" - just real conversations with students about what they are jumping into soon.

#1 Unfortunately, I missed the inaugural speaker, my fabulous friend Malia, due to being in the hospital with Mary. However, I heard it was outstanding. She set a brilliant tone by actually talking about something that Razorfish didn't quite nail. Rather than coming in and browbeating about the greatness of the agency, Malia passed learning on to the students.

Interestingly, two weeks later at Planning-ness, during a Zeus Jones workshop, Jason Oke would be standing in the same room with plannerly peeps discussing the need for us to focus more on failure and learning from it. Thanks to Malia for starting this trend.

#2 I was fortunate to make the second OutsideIn. We had the Goodby Account Management team for Häagen-Dazs come in: AAU alumnus (and student of my first ever Intro to Planning class) Emily Meyer, Martha Jurzynski & Erin Fromherz. They managed to fit three topics in: the amazing HD ♥'s HB project, where Account Management is heading, especially within the halls of Goodby and a good strong Q&A session. It was a great time. Also, when I came home exhausted, I was seriously craving some HD ... luckily Mary had planned ahead and this was waiting in the freezer that night:



#3 When we first started talking about hosting these things, the students gave me one name they were most interested in hearing from: Gareth Kay. Gareth had recently moved to San Francisco to become Head of Digital Strategy at Goodby and the students were excited to meet our new brilliant denizen (not to mention the "Most Respected Planning Director in the U.S." as selected by his peers, see slide 13). I asked Gareth if he would come by and in his typical lovely, humble self (despite being remarkably busy, new to the area and still trying to meet the peeps at Goodby) he did not hesitate to come talk with us.

Gareth is among that lovely handful of people in this industry who is disappointed in this industry, and has a clear vision of what has to happen in order for it to survive. There are about 15 people who again and again have gotten me to see how different everything is going/has to be. Who are these 15? Hmmm ... let's see. In random order:

1. Russell Davies
2. Paul Isakson
3. Charlie (Kouns)
4. Max Schorr
5. Steven Berlin Johnson
6. Adrain Ho
7. Daniel Pink
8. Clay Shirky
9. Grant McCracken
10. Faris Yakob
11. Kevin Slavin
12. Kathy Sierra
13. Gareth Kay
14. Seth Godin
15. Hugh MacLeod

(Shit, that was hard ... really there are about 100 of you! I just had to stop at the first 15 to pop into my head, before my "handful" become a tubful...) Anyway, Gareth came in and discussed something in his heart that many of the students feel ... this idea that Hugh MacLeod has so brilliantly depicted. "If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they'd punch you in the face." At first this seems funny, until you think about it and realize it is very true. An annoying, interrupting, repetitive, loud, mostly irrelevant, attention-seeking, self-absorbed mouth of a person who occasionally is entertaining and helpful ... but really could find a better way. I don't like advertising

I sort of fell into advertising.
1. Failed 10th grade
2. Started improving my academic-self
3. Become blindly addicted to academics, almost ended up a physician
4. Woke-up a bit scattered - tasted many majors
5. Didn't want to spend extra time in college after so much time in high school
6. Ended up an English Literature major
7. Was handed an article 0n "You have an English degree, now what?"
8. Thought advertising sounded more interesting than libraries...
9. Learned about Account Planning while exploring copywriting programs and found that more interesting.
10. Worked in advertising, but thought, "Meh." Liked the digital stuff. Found it fascinating that Cracker Barrel people loved writing in the digital diaries we gave them for sharing stories ... and thinking about a Jack Daniel's global website.
11. Left Advertising. Worked @ Wrigley Field ... thankfully.
12. Tried to do different things in advertising, but still didn't like it much. Employment had potential (see Slide 39 and 40 from Zeus Jones), but mostly they were just trying to build a better mousetrap/Help Wanted sign. Education and Government work were fascinating (but mainly because they sent me to the UK and Mexico for research where I really learned about connecting with different cultures). Direct was cool and I had the most remarkable supervisor you could ever wish for ... but again ... I didn't like it.
13. Started working in education so I can help people be more responsible about this industry, for their sake, the industry's sake and the sake of those of us participating in the market economy.

Anyway ... this post is getting away from me. Gareth came in and explained how you can do amazing things in this business. He summed it up in his lovely "Back-of-the-venue" tag:



I wish someone had told me that while I was a student. He also mentioned "Follow People" - which is right on - too many people try to jump into sexy agency names, but people are who build you.

#4) Remember when this post was about OutsideIn? Next week, we have the fabulous Ashley J George and Krystha Barrera coming in to talk about standing out from the crowd, which they did ... mostly because of their unique walking styles...



They are wonderful and I am looking forward to their energy in Rm 501!

Now, what does November hold? Geesh ... it's going to be tough. I'd better start inviting people! Let me know if you are interested (cameron at this url).