Overhead

For years I have been toying with an idea.

...shit, forgot it...

No, I've got it back:

Here we go...

...nah, gone.

Playing with you.

Creative people - don't mention your ideas to anyone. That's lesson number one.
Until you make it plain that your idea belongs to you keep it to yourself.
In the creative economy the most significant way of profiting from your ideas is to deny others.

You don't need suits.
They need you. You may feel that granting power and control to someone who is more comfortable with the people with the money Will save you grief then I need to put you straight. Most suits are crooked. They Will take your ideas; they will either appropriate them, distort them or make a deal which makes it seem like you were irrelevant in the conception or execution.

I have a terrific book (somewhere...I have to rent storage for books) called Chiat Day - The First 20 years. Brilliant. In it there is a story that relates how Steve Jobs of Apple made a visit to the agency. As he met and greeted he asked people about their roles. This is from memory, so spare me ...

"I'm production manager, I ensure art is correct and distributed to the right magazines at the right time, on budget." "I'm a copywriter I conceive ideas with my art director..." You get the picture. Gets to the suit who offers up a description of his role. Jobs says, "Oh,…I get it…overhead."

I get it.

In my next post I'll tell you how to protect your ideas...

Comments

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

ThoughtSpurs

Search This Blog

Overhead

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Johnny Bunko competiton

Why billboards must go.