Serendipity Book

That's just too obvious isn't it?

"The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted"

by Søren Kierkegaard in Journals and Papers

Inspired by this link about "Filling Much Needed Holes" from Russell.

Photo credit: HidEric Miura 

Risk & Reward

 
"You have nothing to lose" 

by CHRISSY PIPER.

"If you look at where all the best ideas in advertising are created, it tends to be in places where taking risks is acceptable. Where budgets are small and under the radar. Where not too many people want to be involved. Where the agency or client has nothing to lose. Where the environment or culture is forced to deal with risk on a daily basis." William Charnock, JWT NY, via Hidden Persuader

What's important?

"On a desert island gold is worthless. Food gets you through times of no gold much better than gold gets you through times of no food. If it comes to that, gold is worthless in a goldmine too. The medium of exchange in a goldmine is the pickaxe."

Terry Pratchett in 'Making Money' via Virtual Economics

Photo Credit: CayUSA

Chaos & Creativity

"Chaos does this amazing thing that order can’t: it engages you. It gets right in your face and with freakish breath issues a challenge. It asks stuff of you, order never will. And it shows you stuff, all the weird shit, that order tries to hide. Chaos is the only thing that honestly wants you to grow. The only friend who really helps you be creative. Demands that you be creative."

Dan Wieden of Wieden & Kennedy (via Steve Hardy)

Picture Credit: Sangenjaya Sunset, Tokyo Japan by Altus

The McNamara Fallacy of Measurement

On the subject of effectiveness and measurement once again, this is an extract from management thinker Charles Handy 's book 'The Empty Raincoat' where he refers to 'The McNamara Fallacy':

1. The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured.  This is OK as far as it goes.
2. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading.
3. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness.
4. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist.  This is suicide.

Anyone would think I might be preparing a presentation on this theme at the moment ;-)

Original ideas cannot be assessed based on what was successful in the past

I'm going to start my day with a little quote from Bill Bernbach ...

“However much we would like advertising to be a science-because life would be simpler that way-the fact is that it is not. It is a subtle, ever-changing art, defying formularization, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation; where what was effective one day, for that very reason, will not be effective the next, because it has lost the maximum impact of originality.”

This quote appears in the new best practice guide to 'Judging Creative Ideas' which was launched last week by the IPA, ISBA, MCCA, and PRCA. Sadly the IPA has chosen to hide their guide, as ever, in their members-only section but ISBA have kindly posted it here [PDF].

The guide is part of a series of publications jointly commissioned by the four industry bodies which are designed to improve client-agency relationships. If you liked the Bernbach quote above, you can find many more nuggets from Bernbach here, in DDB's 'Bill Bernbach Said'.

"You don't create by waiting to be inspired"

Just came across this quote from an interesting interview with Andy Hobsbawm of Agency.com in The Independent from back in 1999 on the subject of creativity:

"You don't create by waiting to be inspired. The road by which you get to wonderful things is intrinsically as interesting to me as the final creative product."

I was actually looking for Andy's blog Small is the Next Big Thing at the time. He told me about the blog a few months back (it's a blog to support the eponymous book that he's working on) and I had meant to read it back then but it unfortunately slipped my mind. 

The first chapter of the book is now up if you want to take a look. Andy appears to have slowed down on his blog posts a bit though since taking on the role of president of international operations at Agency.com last month. I think I can forgive him. I'm sure he's been busy.

The Sound of Voices

This is a great passage about what makes the Web tick from David Weinberger's passionately written 2002 book about the impact of the internet on society, Small Pieces Loosely Joined:

"[Sometimes] we use the Web as a reference llibrary ... but we can't explain the pull of the Web if we view it simply as an online almanac and gazeteer. What pulls us in is the sound of voices, like the sound of the parties our parents used to throw that we listened to from the top of the stairs. And, just as at a party we migrate to those who are interesting and we move away from the spouters of facts, on the Web we find those we enjoy conversing with and hearing from".

Steve Jobs and the power of oral history

Ernie Schenk posted a video of Steve Jobs' famous speech to a 2005 Stanford graduation ceremony the other day. I sat and watched it again last night in preference to the tat that was on TV. One bit really stands out for me:

"You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle."

I first came across the text of this script in January 2006. I had just been to MacWorld in San Francisco and was flying back to New York on American Airlines. I was sitting in Business Class and dressed quite casually and this seemed to stir the curiosity of the well built and smartly dressed businessman in his 60s sitting next to me. When the conversation turned to Apple and MacWorld he conspirationally pulled out his Blackberry and showed me an email he had been sent with the script in it. I read the speech and when we were in the air we got to talking about his life, his ambitions, his loves and his family and how his life hadn't turned out quite as he planned. It was by far the most interesting 5 hours I had ever spent on a plane and it reminded me to ask more questions and spend more time listening than talking.

Martin Sorrell on Moving Upstream

“The agency of the future will reclaim upstream marketing consultancy work by delivering a seamless service; one that starts with the most fundamental of market analysis and ends with the finished creative artefacts.”

Martin Sorrell, Campaign, 9th September 2005