John Drake

Spending Time On Things

The first Sherlock Holmes book was called A Study in Scarlet and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it when he was 27. A cool thing about this book is it's the first time Holmes and Watson meet. After their first meeting Watson recalls Holmes and his rather unique set of knowledge, which mostly stands out for the things he doesn't know much about:

"1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.”

It's when a conversation ensues about about the solar system, and Holmes complete obliviousness to it, that we learn something great about knowledge:

“That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

‘You appear to be astonished,’ he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. ‘Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.’

‘To forget it!’

‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man’s brain is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.’

‘But the Solar System!’ I protested.

‘What the deuce is it to me?’ he interrupted impatiently: ‘you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

Isn't that great? 

Brand Story Podcast

My love of ads and desire to one day work in the ad industry started when I was 16, so it was great to talk with Cole over on Brand Story all these years later.

We talked about what’s so delightful about working with mid-market clients, the future of creativity, the people who work in agencies, ways to approach ad strategy, and stuff like that.

Be Water, My Friend

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water.

“Now, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or it can crash.”

Then he smiles and a twinkle appears in his eye. He says:

“Be water, my friend.”

To me, he meant that you couldn’t just use logic to figure things out. You had to feel them, to discover them for yourself.

 

--> This led me to this, fuller length video.

Playing Chess With A Pigeon

A funny one from Only Dead Fish's weekly email.

You Have A Right To Imitate Your Heroes

 

Andrew shared this with me.

 

The wisdom of those who have spent a lifetime doing something is always amazing. Nearly anything can apply, in some way, to your craft.

 

Surfing is completely subjective. Competition is best suited for sports where you have some line that’s being crossed with a ball, or a net the ball is getting put into—anything with a defined winning or losing situation. That’s competition.

 

Kids have the right to imitate their heroes. Some people shit on other people for that, but I think that’s the way nature intended it to be. You have heroes and you try to copy them until you become good enough to get off those train tracks behind them and do something for yourself.

 

Make it a beautiful life. You’ve only got one f–king chance. You’ve only got one go.

Leave The Screen, Rise To Total Challenge

Much of my following of Standing Rock was through the updates and prompting of wolf & wilhelmine founder Heidi Hackemer. Which, of course, required all digital. Me, the follower, that is--digital, as stuff arrived in my feeds and channels. She, the doer, was there in the physical. Making change in non-violent ways with lots of other people.

And there it is: doing, versus following. Physical versus digital.

Of course things can be done from the screen. Of course they can. But can it replace what can happen with physical interaction when it really matters? In 2016 it feels like everyone thought it could. Years of Twitter and Alerts, finding Medium, living on screens no matter where we are.

But as we swing into 2017 I think we're all, in the back of our minds, questioning whether it can.

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.

Attitudes Are Caught, Not Taught

At five minutes Fred Rogers says that one of the greatest gifts an adult can give a child is for them to see how much they love what they do. Maybe that's work or a hobby.

Let that sit with you for a moment...

After all, that's Mr. Rogers' favorite thing about his own book--the spaces between the paragraphs.

You'll find that in this video, too.

And it's no small thought that attitudes are caught, not taught. Ponder that for a bit--for yourself and for the world today.

How And Why To Be Bold In Marketing

I moderated a panel at MarketMix about how marketers can be bold. I was up there with three people I greatly admire: Peter, Ryan, and Michael. Their bold work speaks for itself. The session ended up being standing room only--it was quite fun.

The idea for the panel started here: As an agency, you present a very bold idea, it gets approved, and then you leave. But the marketer is left with an entire organization of people who don't work in marketing or advertising so they have to champion the work internally and get it approved and supported. Imagine how difficult that is when your idea is extremely bold?

One of the great bits that came out of our discussion was how to recognize a bold idea. The group's answer: when it makes you uncomfortable. Their opinion was that, when the work is presented, if you don't feel uncomfortable it means you've probably seen something similar before... even if you're not sure where.

Which doesn't mean it's not good! It just means you're probably not in "bold" territory. And that's fine, of course. But if you're looking to be bold, to stand apart, to turn convention around, to surprise your competitors, to earn an unfair share of consumer attention, then you should anticipate being uncomfortable on your way there.

Bowie said the same thing.

"Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being... go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting."

But my favorite part was about why it's important to be bold... you do it on behalf of the customer.

The core reason for bold ideas isn't to make your organization "be different." It isn't to strongly position you against your competition and it isn't to grab headlines. The reason it's important to be bold is to make something notably better for the customer. As Bernbach said, a brand value isn't really a value until it costs you something.

T-Mobile, Xbox and Amazon are all bold because they put the needs of the customer at the top of their thinking. And when they do that, their ideas become bold--and the advertising has to level-up.

Hemingway said the same thing.

When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your objective to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself. That’s the true test of writing. When you can do that, the reader gets the kick and you don’t get any.

Tracy Wong offered one of my favorite descriptions of advertising: "commerce, artfully told." So it's not surprising that the process of being bold--understanding what it takes, and what it means--is similar to what the world's best artists, writers and musicians experience, too.

On What's Important Now

Larry Gelwix coached the Highland High School rugby team to 418 wins with only ten losses and twenty national championships over thirty-six years. His mantra: “What’s important now?”

By keeping his players fully present in the moment and fully focused on what is most important— not on next week’s match, or tomorrow’s practice, or the next play, but now— Gelwix helps make winning almost effortless. But how?

First, the players apply the question constantly throughout the game. Instead of getting caught up rehashing the last play that went wrong, or spending their mental energy worrying about whether they are going to lose the game, neither of which is helpful or constructive, Larry encourages them to focus only on the play they are in right now.

Second, the question “What’s important now?” helps them stay focused on how they are playing. Larry believes a huge part of winning is determined by whether the players are focused on their own game or on their opponent’s game. If the players start thinking about the other team they lose focus. Consciously or not, they start wanting to play the way the other team is playing. They get distracted and divided. By focusing on their game in the here and now, they can all unite around a single strategy. This level of unity makes execution of their game plan relatively frictionless.