When All Is Said & Done
And so the PAF Colaboratory adventure has finally come to a close. I now have a competitive advertising internship under my belt, but more important than that I have a reservoir of experiences to take into my career, namely to this next critical stage: landing a job.
I could go on about all the technical and detail oriented things I learned this summer, but let's be honest: much of that is relevant only depending on the circumstance. So I'm going to share with you the bigger lessons and takeaways of the internship - the ones that apply everywhere. Hopefully you can take some away yourself and use in your own life.
Part I - Working With A Team
In this internship the 10 members worked individually at agencies around Portland during the day, and then in the evenings and weekends together in 1 of 2 teams on an actual campaign pitch for the MLS Portland Timbers. I was the account manager for team Argo (we won btw). I entered the internship with a hearty background of leadership experience, but this pressure cooker pushed me to find new truths about myself and how to effectively work with people with diverse backgrounds.
Take Care of Your Team & They'll Take Care of You
When you're all working 80+ hours a week, it's important to stay fueled. Keeping veggie platters, microbrews, chips, muffins, and coffee readily available at meetings made the world go round late into the evenings and early in the mornings. It sounds dorky, but bite size candy bars to encourage brainstorming seems to work really well at key times too. And when the team has been working really hard, reward them after hours. I'm assured that good account guys make it rain. Simple stuff, huge benefits.
No Matter How Hard I Try, Not Everyone Will See Things From The Client's Eyes
Or at least right now I'm too inexperienced to influence this as well as I thought was possible. I can however build up the creative team's trust and equity in me so that when I need to push a client need, they respect me enough to trust in my judgment. We ought to all work with the team, not for or at the team. Still other times I will have to make the hard call and it will upset some folks. That’s life.
When you're all working 80+ hours a week, it's important to stay fueled. Keeping veggie platters, microbrews, chips, muffins, and coffee readily available at meetings made the world go round late into the evenings and early in the mornings. It sounds dorky, but bite size candy bars to encourage brainstorming seems to work really well at key times too. And when the team has been working really hard, reward them after hours. I'm assured that good account guys make it rain. Simple stuff, huge benefits.
No Matter How Hard I Try, Not Everyone Will See Things From The Client's Eyes
Or at least right now I'm too inexperienced to influence this as well as I thought was possible. I can however build up the creative team's trust and equity in me so that when I need to push a client need, they respect me enough to trust in my judgment. We ought to all work with the team, not for or at the team. Still other times I will have to make the hard call and it will upset some folks. That’s life.
If You Don't Need To Squash An Idea, Don't
Who knows what that idea could evolve into.
Twice our team came up with ideas that I didn’t feel were that strong, but we
let them live and I supported them. They evolved and adapted, and we eventually
presented them. The client loved both. I don’t have the answers all the time.
When I don’t, I find it’s better to trust in the judgment in others. There will be another time when it’ll be necessary to be strikingly critical. Having built up a stockpile of goodwill can make all the
difference. I can't stress this enough.
I Should Make The Creative Director My Best Friend
I’m Surrounded By Really Really Smart People
Smarter than me in fact. And boy is that cool! Where else am I able to work with such a collection of specialists in such a wide range of subjects all with incredible drive? I'll never be able to write an award winning commercial, design a revolutionary web experience, or create a new brand look. It's important for me to recognize and show that I understand that they are experts in their practice, and that their job is demanding in very different ways than my own.
Progressive Agency Thinking Comes With Opposition
Our team didn’t have one (by nature of the internship), and that made things hard at times. I
can comfortably offer perspective, translate, contribute ideas, make the team
look good, and be a internal vetting agent, but I am not an experienced
creative mentor. Even if I've built up goodwill with the creative team, chances are the Creative Director can deliver bad news to them better than I. I have a newfound appreciation for the magic that a CD can do
for a campaign and agency. The CDs I reached out to help our team navigate our
campaign did fantastic things for our final product and personal growth.
Shoutout to my boys Brian and Mason.
I’m Surrounded By Really Really Smart People
Smarter than me in fact. And boy is that cool! Where else am I able to work with such a collection of specialists in such a wide range of subjects all with incredible drive? I'll never be able to write an award winning commercial, design a revolutionary web experience, or create a new brand look. It's important for me to recognize and show that I understand that they are experts in their practice, and that their job is demanding in very different ways than my own.
Progressive Agency Thinking Comes With Opposition
My role in client service does not and should not
prohibit my ability to contribute ideas and be a part of the creative and strategic discussion. If you follow my blog you can see I'm firm on that. It's not without support either: I've been assured this is the way of the future by too many agency professionals to think otherwise.
But it’s been made clear to me that outside this
progressive "everything-is-backwards" nook of the world,
there are plenty of people in agencies that still believe wholeheartedly to
keeping the silos as separate as possible. I will face opposition in my career. I will be
called a “suit” derogatorily more times than I can imagine. Others in accounts will scoff at me and claim I’m wasting my time. And I will endure.
We ought to support a democracy of good ideas, where big thinking comes from
anywhere, not just from the expected "creative" places. In the end, we all face victory or
failure together, so why not increase our chances?
I'm not naive. I know creatives’ career success is tied
to their work. So future co-workers take note: I'm not in this for the fame. The relationships I build and experience I gain is far more important than my ideas. Remember, you're way smarter than me anyway. Even when a great idea comes up, it's hardly done. Take it the remaining 90% of the way, earn the credit, and bask in the limelight and praises I'll be singing of you. I'm here to make us all look good, not just myself.
Make An Agenda, Follow It, Get Done
People usually have better things to do than sit in meetings, so as a mediator of said meetings, it's on me to keep them to the point. The way I see it, the more structured and prepared you are going into a meeting/pitch/etc, the more flexibility you have to veer off of it. People appreciate when you respect their time this way.
People usually have better things to do than sit in meetings, so as a mediator of said meetings, it's on me to keep them to the point. The way I see it, the more structured and prepared you are going into a meeting/pitch/etc, the more flexibility you have to veer off of it. People appreciate when you respect their time this way.
Use Technology & Project Management Tools Early On
Things move at light speed when working on a pitch. Our ideas evolved so fast that they were distant cousins from one week to another. Tools like Basecamp or even self made spreadsheets on Excel are extremely helpful at just staying on top of the countless moving pieces of a campaign's construction. I used these to my advantage, but not until later stages of the pitch. This was largely due to us being thrown into the project with little knowhow and having to spend the first few weeks on the bigger picture aspects and norming the group. Having now gone through a proposal process, I can look forward to doing it again more effectively in the future.
Things move at light speed when working on a pitch. Our ideas evolved so fast that they were distant cousins from one week to another. Tools like Basecamp or even self made spreadsheets on Excel are extremely helpful at just staying on top of the countless moving pieces of a campaign's construction. I used these to my advantage, but not until later stages of the pitch. This was largely due to us being thrown into the project with little knowhow and having to spend the first few weeks on the bigger picture aspects and norming the group. Having now gone through a proposal process, I can look forward to doing it again more effectively in the future.
There is No "Right" or "Wrong". There is "Most Appropriate"
Realizing this helped our team get over dozens of barriers to progressing forward in the pitch. Plenty of potent ideas were born in the process, but most never saw execution because they didn't fit the particular situation as appropriately as was needed. Don't throw out those ideas. Hold on to them. They might come into service on another problem, or be a source of inspiration for something new. Either way, this reasoning is a lot easier to swallow if you have an idea you love than having it be "wrong."
Realizing this helped our team get over dozens of barriers to progressing forward in the pitch. Plenty of potent ideas were born in the process, but most never saw execution because they didn't fit the particular situation as appropriately as was needed. Don't throw out those ideas. Hold on to them. They might come into service on another problem, or be a source of inspiration for something new. Either way, this reasoning is a lot easier to swallow if you have an idea you love than having it be "wrong."
Happy Hour Makes for Great Bonding
Enough said.
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