How to plan your next career move

I assume you have thought about a what-do-I-want-to-be-doing-in-five-years career goal. Though for lots of us it has never quite formed into anything beyond "I want to be happy and in charge of my destiny."

Maybe it feels a bit vague and you can't figure out how you think you are going to get there.  So write something down; make it moderately specific.  And don't panic. It can change.  But find something to write down that you feel good about at least for now - don't feel you are going to be trapped by it.  If you have a few ideas write them all down and then follow these steps for each one.

Now write down three (or four or five) steps that you might have to make to get there.  They could be to move to a particular company or to get particular new clients. They could be taking on new responsibilities where you are.  Or picking projects that will strengthen your portfolio.  They could be investment you have to make or courses you have to take.  Write them down. And figure out the order they need to come in.

Okay: now you have a track to head out on.  So the next piece of the pie is staying on that track.  Here I want to introduce you to the idea of a cognitive dissonance.  I want you to stay on that track and I want you also to be open to other tracks.  Got that?  Since you now have the track marked out - you can on a daily and weekly basis pick the three sub-steps you will need to make to get to the next step.  And each of those steps can have its steps.  It is like producing a movie.  When you first read a complex script involving alien creatures and locations in Rio and Shanghai and Mars and a cast of thousands it can look daunting.  But a producer will break it down into tiny manageable steps: as small as booking the airline tickets or making a first sketch of the Mars base.  These small steps will be easy to take - and put together they will add up to a major Memorial Day worldwide release.
 

So set out on your track. It is very satisfying to know why you are doing what you are doing and where it can take you.  And pay attention when you pick your jobs or your clients or the color palette for your website or the typeface, or the charity you volunteer for - and  ask yourself if each little choice is taking you in the direction you want to be going.
 

The wonderful thing about this is it will get you into a flow.  Your neurons will be happy and you will be happy. You will not be floundering or guessing.  You will know where you are going.  You will feel justified in what you are doing because you will have justified it. 

Bogusky on the Advantages of Being Lost

I commend to you this smart article by Alex Bogusky.  It ran in MediaPost's Media Magazine - if you prefer to read it there, here is the link.

The only thing you know for certain is that you don't
Let me start out by saying that I know nothing about media. That's probably not a surprise to people who know me because I am thought of as a "creative" guy. But you might be surprised to learn that I know nothing about creativity. Furthermore, I know nothing about advertising.

Of course, there are little details I know. Like I do know a little about typography but remain ignorant about design. I know a bunch of chords and songs on the guitar but I remain ignorant about music. I know the process to create a 30-second commercial but I'm still ignorant about marketing. The big stuff remains a mystery to me. In fact, one of my very favorite clients recently said to me, "You don't even know what you don't know," in reference to her business. I liked that thought so much I printed it up on a T-shirt so it read, "I don't even know what I don't know," and I wore it to our next meeting. I gave my son one, too, and he wears it proudly to school. We Boguskys are proud of our ignorance. I love that T-shirt and that thought, but I could probably flip it around to make it a bit more accurate and say, "The only thing I know with complete certainty is that I don't know."

Not knowing has been a powerful ally and I have come to rely heavily on the power of ignorance. As a young ad dude, I wasn't comfortable with the lack of knowing that made up who I was. So like most young ad dudes I set out to become an expert at my chosen field. I had, like others before me, begun to confuse knowledge and intelligence. This great quest for advertising knowledge led me to climb up various mountains to meet and hear from as many industry gurus as I could. It was time well spent and I learned a great deal. But eventually I was lucky enough to come to the conclusion that nobody really "knew" anything. The best and the brightest were all just finding their way. And the most successful people seemed to be the most prodigious at making it up as they went along. So not knowing has become a formidable ally. An ally that is threatened as you gain years and years of experience. It's an ally that needs to be protected from dangerous threats like "expertise."

As part of this edition of Media, a blog was created and I had the chance to post some questions. Oddly enough, the one that created the most interest was around this idea of "an expert" and more specifically where did all these social media experts come from so quickly? What makes somebody a social media expert, anyway? And finally, why on earth would anyone want to be an expert? Expertise seems to require experience and the ability to use that expertise seems to require that the future closely resemble the past. As I stated earlier, I'm no expert and I don't know anything, but I highly doubt the media future is going to closely resemble media's past. Not even its most recent past.

Not long ago, I read a book called, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. Great book and I suspect it's as much a business book as a wilderness-survival book; the parallels are astounding. So after a lifetime of interviews with people who lived when those around them died, the author, Laurence Gonzalez, found some fundamental differences in survivors. The first being that survivors more quickly recognized and accepted that they were lost. It seems that people who continued to think they "knew" where they were and stuck with the "plan" died more often than the folks who recognized the rules had changed and that their old beliefs were useless.

Well, let me be the first to tell you that you are lost in the new frontiers of media. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will get to surviving and even thriving. The sooner you let go of old rules, the sooner you will be able to put all your faculties of perception to work in taking in your new environment. I won't go into the laundry list of new landmarks in your new environment because that's like trying to understand the forest by counting the trees. There is a video that has been floating out on the Internet for a while and it's a test. The test is to watch and count how many times some basketball players pass a ball to each other. As you focus on counting, the video finally ends and you feel like you nailed it. I did. And then a question comes up. "Did you see a gorilla walk through the room?" I was like, "no freaking way." But as I watched it again a gorilla pretty much dances across the screen. This is an example of a pre-set plan blocking out the environment.

Another quality of survivors is that they don't look for safety in the emotional security of where they found safety in the past. The example they cite in the book is related to aircraft carrier pilots. With these folks pretty much every landing is an exercise in survival. So if a pilot is coming in at the wrong angle or speed there are a number of warning signs designed to get the pilot to abort the landing. First, his own instruments sound the warning and the lights on the deck of the carrier turn from green to red. And soon the flight controller begins yelling over the radio to abort. Yet with all this information, it isn't uncommon for a pilot to still attempt to land even though logically they know they can't survive the impact. The reason is that the deck represents safety and there is a strong emotional response as the deck gets closer that actually blocks out all the screams in the headset and the lights and the alarms. In the stress of the situation they literally don't hear it all as they reach for the deck that has always meant safety.

What I'm suggesting here is that with all that is happening in media today, this is no time to be in a rush to get down on the deck. I've probably "survived" several changes in the media landscape and I plan to float to safety on another raft of ignorance. So this issue on the future of media isn't about becoming an expert. It's about eschewing the emotional safety of knowledge and expertise, and instead sitting back in ignorance and wonder. It's about taking the time to carefully observe the gorilla as it dances through the room.

Advertising: is the very name boxing us in?

All my working life my passport has said Advertising under profession. Every time I enter England they ask me what I do and recently I've begun to hesitate. It used to be so clear. We made commercials and we made print ads - we were in advertising.

But what is it now? Can we really call it advertising when we do SEO or make websites or post videos or send emails or build the biggest mobile phone in the world or write scripts for telemarketers or track you on your cellphone? Is this advertising - is it marketing?

Are we held back because of the box of the business we thought we were in? Is the word "Advertising" constricting our thinking? What about the people who make TV shows or movies with Minis in them or Johnny Walker or Miller beer - are they in advertising? Or marketing?

What is the box that we have to think outside of? What is inside it and what is outside it? At a NYMIEG panel recently someone was talking passionately about thinking outside the box and the very very smart moderator Juliet Powell said quietly, "I didn't think there was a box any more."

"Polish here, Shine there." Huh?

A good friend and marketing colleague used an expression I was not familiar with: "Polish here, Shine there" she said as if everyone knew what she meant.

Here's what that's about: You are doing your thing - working it as hard as you can, but often the results can show up where you least expect them. So you were polishing over here and the shine came out over there. Nonetheless you made it happen, didn't you.

I use this now to encourage us all to be putting effort into plans and schemes, into new products and outreach, whatever looks like it needs polishing.

And then we have to be alert to see where the shine comes out and be ready to take advantage of it even if it wasn't exactly what and where we expected it to be.

Phew - let's hear it for extended metaphors.

Are you Shovel-Ready?

We should all have some shovel-ready projects on deck for when things pick up. Yours could be a plan to make a hire, or to open a new business. It could be a new marketing push, or a new service offering. It could be all of these things.

Just have it ready to go. You will know when the time is right. We all know that procrastination is easy - "when things get better I will figure out what to do" you say - but procrastination is a false friend. And having something exciting to plot will make these dreary weeks pass in a flash. And as I just heard from the dean of NYs Angel Investor community at a NY:MIEG event, "right now it is infinitely cheaper to start a new company."

We are unlikely to leap from the recession straight into a boom, so when credit and spending do start, there will be intense competition. So be there and be ready, with your metaphorical shovel in your hand.

New Year: New Business Model?

A leading film postproduction business owner talked in the press recently about "a whole new contemporary business model." The NYT tells of ad agencies (former ad
agencies, perhaps?) who make and sell chocolate and furniture and tee shirts. Bake sale, anyone?!

Jim Cramer says, "Recessions are game-changers. It's when those who are smart pass those who are not." Paul Krugman said in the NYT that late 2009 the economy will begin to stabilize and he is fairly optimistic about 2010. So hadn't we better be getting fired up to be a part of it?

At the highest level the new business model will be like the old. We will provide clients with what is wanted and valued, we will invest in our businesses, we will charge a premium for exceptional talent, we will value-price, we will market effectively, we will create better stuff than the next guy. We will make profits. What am I missing here?

Oh yes - what exactly is wanted,and what exactly can you and your company do to provide it.

Marketers will still want to get more cans in people's hands, more site traffic, more bottoms in seats, more customer loyalty, more revenue. Customers will want more things of beauty, more entertainment, more value for money, more ways of expressing themselves, more security, more hope. So what is the Customer Value Proposition that you can bring to your target customer? Know this, and you'll be well on the way to your new business model.

We call ourselves creative people - here is a great creative challenge. Are we having fun yet?

All the best for an exciting and profitable 2009

Reap Rewards from Strategic Partnerships

Creative people are especially protective of their ideas and they're famously reluctant to share. I understand that, I am such a person myself. But I see so much duplication of effort and overhead that surely in these days of tighter margins there could be riches waiting for those who make smart alliances.

I have seen some very productive work and significant revenue resulting from strategic partnerships. Lots of times you are slaving away on your own to climb the same hill others are also tackling. What if you pooled some resources and supported each other's efforts?

I challenge you to look at your business and think very hard about who is doing work that complements or supplements yours and which companies share interests with yours. Then project what the benefits of partnering with them could be. Besides, two heads can be smarter than one.

Might you possibly have to give a little but gain a lot? Think about it. This can be another kind of opportunity worth opening your mind to as you seize this troubled day.

Marketing/Brand Therapy

A Pollock Spark client - the artist/owner of a creative business - wrote, in answer to my question "Would you recommend (Pollock Spark) to others?"

"Absolutely and already have! I have said the experience was marketing/brand therapy. I hope we do another round 12 months from now. It's really as important to me as seeing your doctor regularly to check your blood pressure etc."

What your network says about you

What does your social network look like?

This remarkably beautiful image represents my own network of LinkedIn connections.

My genius friend Erich Morisse, who made this image, is developing products that quantify and value social networks. Here is what he told me:

"Social networks are as individual as we are, our own fingerprints of interaction with society. Turned into images, they remind us of everything from supernovas (see the concentrated brighter areas in this person's network) to beds of sea anemones (this one has many outliers, each with their own radiance).

Supernovas have the ability to get big and great things done with their close knit social group, but need to work hard at finding new ideas and opportunities.

Sea anemones are entrepreneurs, always finding new ideas and opportunities from their breadth of contacts; they have to rely on their contacts to find the right people to get big things done.

So which are you, are sea anemone or a supernova? And what do you need to change about your social network to meet your personal goals?"

You're still selling - even when you're working

I have had conversations with two different clients in the last week who were bemoaning the fact that when they get a big job they focus completely on it and are not out selling.

But they are missing the beauty of the opportunity. The client that already gives you work is very very likely to give you another job. She is the lowest hanging fruit. So everything you do when you are working on her job should be working towards securing her future business.

Yes of course your immediate task is to do an awesome piece of work for her. But your larger task can be considered as "turning this job into the next one and the next one". You don't have to hard sell. Just show her you are excited about her job, ask her about her hopes and dreams for her career, tell her about other interesting stuff you are excited about - all this is selling and you have a captive receptive audience

And there can often be an even bigger opportunity than that. In the case of one client - a film director who was shooting a commercial - he told me that everyone who worked at the ad agency had showed up on the shoot. All 15 of them. Better and better I said. Every one of them can become a client in the future. They will all probably move on to new agencies. What a magnificent sales opportunity - don't miss it.

Pollock Spark works...

...For a successful 22 yr old animation company.

Under new ownership, this company wanted to know where it stood in the marketplace, how it was perceived by its advertising agency clients and what it needed to do to reach new levels of success.

Pollock Spark was able to reach out to the company's former clients and potential clients. These senior ad agency creatives told this independent interviewer things they would never tell the company or its reps. We learned some things that “surprised” our client and were invaluable in formulating a new strategy. The learning and the analysis, inspired by Pollock Spark's insights, led to a retooled strategy for the company and a new marketing plan.

“I am excited about moving forward” said the owner after spending a day absorbing the results.

pollock|spark team enables stronger communications

The Pollock|Spark consultant team has created a Main Message for NFTE (working through The Cyrano Project.) The same team can bring the same level of insights and help to your creative business. Here's what David Nelson, COO of NFTE said about our strategic work for them:

"(They) worked with the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) on defining and honing our main message for communications. In the process of learning about NFTE and its work, the consultants demonstrated real understanding of our organization’s mission and came up with strategic insights which had impact beyond the message itself.

(They) helped our organization understand itself better and helped us resolve fundamental questions which are leading us to clarify our basic value proposition, as well as how we express it through messaging. This will lead us to more powerful promotion of our programs and enable us to attract more volunteers and donors over time.

I would recommend (them) to any organization seeking thoughtful analysis and stronger communications. (They) did a superb job."

Please get in touch if we can help your business clarify its value proposition and get more powerful promotion of your services.