Notes from the Backyard

I was listening to a dharma talk the other day about the Buddhist concept of Anatta or “not-self”. I had just finished reading through Hugh Dubberly’s new book – “How do you design – A Compendium of Models” which I enjoyed thoroughly. I’m a sucker for diagrams that offer to map out the creative process and he has them a-plenty in his book. Yet as I was listening to the description of Anatta it occurred to me that though interesting bits of eye candy the models presented by Dubberly suggest a process that cannot be mapped. The purpose of each model is, I suppose, to prescribe and replicate a process which is essentially that – a process. So the concept of Anatta as described in Wikipedia is the “rejection of the metaphysical assertions “there is a self” and “there is a not self” as ontological views that bind one to suffering”. It pertains to Dubberly’s collection of models in that the model could never be the process and to expect them to be such would be to induce the same stresses inherent in the attempt to describe them as such. “The map is not the territory” is an apt description. Yet what I found so enjoyable in the models themselves is the creative attempt to map the territory. It is very much like looking at old maps of the world – or current ones for that matter – as documents that reveal more about the author than the subject. Thus the need to map the process is a fascinating one and an expression of our time and place. It is characteristic of an essential pragmatism that dominates our space – the space of marketing and branding – and a desire to describe and make replicable the process of creativity through boxes and arrows. They are also an expression of the anxiety of an organization that cannot “figure it out”.

In my unpracticed meditation practice there are moments when I sense the moments between the moments –the spaces between the rise of emotion and memory, anxiety and judging. It is as if I was listening to the overtones of my nature. I’m sure this is a first step in a meditation (un)practice, and perhaps a distraction, but the experience of the overtones seems to me to best describe a creative practice. For me – creativity is a practice and not a process. The way into the overtones (the process) is multivaried and the description for me reveals more about my state than my truth.

Organizationally it seems to me that a company that desires to be “creative” reveals more about their anxiety that they are perhaps quite the opposite. While the desire is genuine the prescription is usually misleading. Like Dubberly’s models, the map is not the territory. And, as we know, the best creative shops are the best creative shops because they practice creativity and are able to achieve the organizational overtones (seemingly) without effort. An organization cannot aspire to creativity without embracing the practice itself.

Ahhh - agency life. I’m still hearing the mumbles and grumbles and the echoes and groans of primordial ooze being spilled and sloshed around at traditional agencies as they try to “figure out” the digital space. I’ll probably hear it for a long while as a generation of eCDs look for a way out - or a way in - and a new generation proves themselves to upper level management that they are, indeed, the future.

Amidst the onslaught of digital technologies that seem to replicate like lemmings each and every day agency creatives don’t know where to focus. Is it television, is it print, is it interactive, is it anything familiar? The technophilia of a culture hell bent on electronic salvation makes for a miserable day in the halls of agency creatives at work. Hunkering down the typical creative reminisces  for the day of the well defined channel - television, print, outdoor - anything to simplify and glorify “the message” and that Clio for that ever oh so deserving fireplace mantel. And on the client side - the battlefield is more irregular and undefined. What is “the message”? New business models are crushing the old. Stock valuations for a pure digital play still make the business news more than the old industries.  36,000 advertising messages are supposed to bombard the average citizen a day. So what is a CMO to do? And what is an agency to do?

Ironically enough, on the other side of the fence, the so-called “digital” agencies are facing the same problems. Enmeshed in their own business model - of selling digital solutions to their clients - creatives hunker down and offer what they’ve been asked to do - and hope for a day when the wonderful world of marketing tips in their direction and digital takes over the world. Because that’s what everyone is talking about, right? Out with the old and in with the new? Yes?

So the marketplace breeds and encourages a schizophrenic message. To simplify a client will go to a traditional agency for everything traditional and a digital agency for everything digital. It is shifting and yes, there are a few excellent examples of overlap and creative interplay but the majority take the easy way out and play by their job descriptions and spend their marketing dollars in the tried and true channels - whether online or offline - in a process that is deeply embedded in organizational process - and the message reflects the schizophrenic nature of the marketplace and the organizations themselves. And what happens to the frustrated creative desperately thinking of her next career move? Or the CMO?

The mantra, “never before in history”, is oft repeated. “Never before” have we seen such a seismic shift in marketing tactics. “Never before” have we seen such opportunities to measure and size up the consumer - as if the consumer was some sort of soul-less bucket that wandered around as an opportunistic receptacle for whatever product or service was thrown it’s way. Pundits of all flavors throw it out there till we emerge with our ears bloodied, and we - disoriented and confused - mumbling something under our breaths about tactics and digital and marketing and history and “oh well - might as well check my email and see if any one has responded to my resume posting”. The truth of the matter, however, is far different. Whenever there has been a market for any goods or services there has always been someone out to there looking to convince you that theirs was better than the other guys. What is different though is the underlying pretense of the digital age. It is said that the behavior of each consumer can somehow be disassembled and re-configured into small informed bits - that can be re-assembled like a pointillist Seurat with the same marketplace intelligence of the master painter himself. Such a pretense ignores the modal relationship - and essential power - that the customer wields in the marketplace. At a gut level all creatives know this. Yet most organizations in which they work uphold the mastery of the numbers. Creative is too fuzzy, nuanced and touchy-feely to foster - so let’s look at the numbers. They tell the real story, right? Lurching forward - propelled by their own mass - most agencies lumber onwards towards an unknown destiny and lack any vision or goals other than to just-lumber-on and make it through the next financial quarter.

The by-product of this organizational and institutional struggle is anxiety. It can rule - and ruin - a creative group and an agency. Especially when the organization itself becomes vested in the pretense of the numbers game - attempting to figure out the customer with pointillist accuracy. Often times the creative output of an agency (traditional or digital) thus biased ends up lifeless and dry. It should come as no surprise then that not a single agency, digital or traditional, has ever been named by Fortune magazine as one of the Top 100 Best Places to Work.

Doing well creatively is hard work. In a fragmented multi-channel and multi-modal (and now multi-lingual) marketplace the directed message is dead. The power has shifted from the marketing message to the customer’s message. The angles are more oblique and challenging.  The best creative seems to come from the corner of your eye - something you may have spotted inadvertently - subtle rather than blaring. The old adage of the true value of real and communicated customer service is winning. We are human - and value human relationship. And we are human and despite our demographic - can see the worth in a great creative idea.