John Drake

Over The Rainbow At 3am

When the moment is right, you just gotta do it.

And when you do it, if you need other people, it's helpful to be nice.

Fragility

The Gunn Report is out with the top-awarded agencies in the world. No surprise that adam&eveDDB tops the list.

It's true what this year's editor of The Gunn Report said about ideas. It's why nearly any agency can have one hit.

But the real marks of agency team success are two fold: does success happen over time, and does success happen in one shop across multiple categories in one calendar year? If so, you're on it.

"Ideas are fragile; they can collapse at any point. Sometimes an idea is pure and simple, you can feel the power of it from its inception; others have been shaped and crafted into great. It takes passion, tenacity, it takes a team and a great client. None of it is easy, but greatness comes in not giving up."

Dream In Years, Plan In Months

From here, from here.

Set Rules For Yourself

Kendrick Lamar has an inspiration board made up of five rules.

A great list. And a reminder that, perhaps, we all should have one, if we want to push, guide and hold ourselves to high-levels of achievement.

The Good Speech

I wish this video was around when I was a teen. Ashton's delivery is just superb--from the way he says it, to what he's wearing.

The video is up to nearly 3 million views on YouTube and 42 million Facebook.

The disparity was notable so it's a good reminder that on Facebook a video view is 3 seconds of viewing including what plays in a newsfeed.

On Advice For A Creative Career

I met Colleen DeCourcy at a conference in New York. She gave one of the best presentations about how to think about digital and I had to talk with her afterwards. It was 2009, I think, so everyone was really trying to figure things out. She had some great thoughts and I've always tried to keep up with her thinking as much as one can.

Here's a great Q&A that's chalked full of great advice for people working in the industry, or wanting to one day.

What is the biggest obstacle you’ve overcome, as it relates to your industry?
Creative people really love comfort and repetition. We have this conceit that we don't, that we’re free spirits. But most truly creative people have managed to find a way to push everything else away, to make space for their own ideas. It’s a process of elimination and discipline. Creative people are really very set in their ways.  It’s called “being sure.”  It’s necessary. 

This whole idea of perpetual change and discomfort, which Wieden has always embraced, is at it’s core a kind of creative trauma.  So, the chaotic, changing world shouldn’t be taking us off our game, but it really makes things hard. 

What motivates you?
Fear. A Fear that I would be invisible and that I would start and finish my life and no one would ever know. It's not ego. It's not that I have to be important. It's that I have to matter. When you combine that with a lot of curiosity and the curse of being easily distracted, it’s a bit of a shit show really. Still, it keeps me going. It makes me work hard.

What advice would you give to your daughter at the start of her career?
Get up everyday and commit yourself to something that doesn’t feel like it’s taking more than it gives.

There's lots more here.

On Attention and Intention

Two bits that are worth taking in.

The first is asking about someone's intention. When you don't know them well, and you're both sitting down to discuss something, what a pointed way to center things.

The second is around attention:

OWN’s turnaround might have something to do with a concept that Winfrey considers one of her big productivity secrets: being "fully present." "I have learned that your full-on attention for any activity you choose to experience comes with a level of intensity and truth," she says. "It’s about living a present life, moment to moment—not worrying about what’s going to happen at 3 o’clock and what’s going to happen at 7 o’clock." In other words: focus. "That whole thing about multitasking? That’s a joke for me. When I try to do that, I don’t do anything well."

Great creative and media briefs are only possible when they have your full attention. Shut down the feeds, turn off the email and climb into them. 

The Eisenhower Matrix

Whatever the job that lands on your desk, begin by breaking it down according to the Eisenhower method, and then decide how to proceed. We often focus too strongly on the ‘urgent and important’ field, on the things that have to be dealt with immediately. Ask yourself: When will I deal with the things that are important, but not urgent? When will I take the time to deal with the important tasks before they become urgent? This is the field for strategic, long-term decisions.

Praise By Name, Criticize By Category

 

Either Warren or Charlie said this during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders meeting in Omaha. They said a lot more words of wisdom. 

But this is my favorite.

It's positive, more constructive, and, in the end, a more helpful way to share opinions on things.

Why Research?

The reason design projects that neglect research fail isn’t because of a lack of knowledge. It’s because of a lack of shared knowledge. Creating something of any complexity generally requires several different people with different backgrounds and different priorities to collaborate on a goal. If you don’t go through an initial research process with your team, if you just get down to designing without examining your assumptions, you may think your individual views line up much more than they do. Poorly distributed knowledge is barely more useful than no knowledge at all.

From the Secret Cost of Research, via the always thought-provoking Dark Matter.