Archive for the ‘art and work’ Category
Seattle Pike Place Market
Among barkers and pitches and queries over price.
Prunes and potatoes and fish packed in ice.
A tiny man sat on a low stool
Lonely notes sounded, a string his tool.
One lone string sang strength and long-life,
And crossings and family and a well-loved wife
Of war and of peace
And of work without cease
In the market and deep in the throng
I heard clearly every man’s song.
###
Is Print the New Luxury Buy?
Wow—You Own a “Copy”?
As I write another check for the rapidly-shrinking StarTribune, I’m reminded how our lives will be diminished by the absence of the printed daily news. I see this day coming. I look at news aggregators all day on my computer and I am thankful for the information. But there’s something about settling into a chair at the end of the day with the funnies—a computer screen just doesn’t duplicate the experience. A Pocket PC screen certainly doesn’t come close. Makes me sad.
I was showing the gorgeous San Francisco Panorama to a journalism professor recently. It is a kind of newspaper on steroids. Fabulous writers. Intriguing topics. Big old art and photos. It will be big (broadsheet: 15 by 22 inches), full (380+ pages) and pricey (I thought I read it was $35, but now I can’t find the reference).
In short: a luxury. Kind of like The New Yorker (which I ordered recently only because I had a gift card), only more so and originating from a different coast.
Was print always a luxury? Maybe. But the daily paper never really felt that way. It was always the way we saw what was going on in the world, even if we understood it was as subjective as anything touched by humans. That’s all changing. I suppose there will come a point where the newsprint dropped on our porch at 5:30am every day will just not be worth it. I’m hanging on, but it’s feeling like a luxury, which binds it to the question: “Do we need this?”
So far the answer is still “Yes.”
###
Adland: A Global History of Advertising [Book Review]
The storied lives of creative talent.
The marvel of the Mark Tungate’s history is in how interconnected are so many of the storied agencies. The formula gets repeated again and again: agency hires young creative talent who eventually finds the place too stuffy and goes to start his or her own firm. I like hearing the backgrounds of many of who are now household names: Ogilvy, Burnett, Chiat, Hegarty.
Every local advertising scene has its own particular nuanced and storied development. Certainly this is true of Minneapolis (of which there is no chapter in Adland). While there are certainly national and internationally known agencies in the area, the surprise to me is how little of a creative dent local agencies have made with one of the main exports: medical devices. Certainly budgets have been smaller and consumer advertising for these firms has been nearly non-existent. But it is also true that larger medical device firms are wooed into the unexceptional pockets of agencies on either coast.
I expect a particular creative knowledge to rise from the creative milieu that is the Twin Cities—in much the same way that older established medical companies spawn one company after another. Perhaps creative applications of social media may help establish the Twin Cities communication agencies with the knowing and much-needed human voice in the dialogue between medical device firms, clinicians and consumers.
###
Medical Device Firms Using Social Media, Step #3: A Busker’s Tip for Making Friends in the World
Studio perfect or street-corner authentic?
When thinking about social media or advertising, there’s a familiar hurdle for every medical device marketer: a narrow audience. Unless you are marketing consumer goods, most target audiences need to be found through existing channels that cater to the specific needs of that particular, well-defined audience. It was a function of our old scarcity economy, where there were few channels that spoke directly to, say electrophysiologsts. So we ponied up our advertising dollars to buy a double-truck ad in PACE.
But communication is changing as fast as media opportunities emerge. How to take advantage of them? Let a busker answer the question. For Rob Firenix, a fire-dancing comic I met in Windsor, Ontario at the International Busker Festival, the best part of busking is “speaking directly to the audience.” Standing before an audience he has gathered lets him tweak material and get instant feedback.
Glen Hansard, the Irish musician, “Once” actor and Oscar winner (with Marketa Irglova) for best song started his artistic life as a busker. “When you are playing in the street, you are open to the street around you. The street becomes your club and people start to trust you.” Hansard describes the difference (around six minutes into this World Cafe recording) between making music in the studio and making it on the street. The studio allows the opportunity to perfect the sound while putting together something light and airy out in the public has a different kind of authenticity.
After looking for dialogue partners and pursuing the important internal conversations, find a way to get your conversation going with the people you want to reach. You want to start a conversation that will attract the dialogue partners whom you would have only received 10% interest from with your PACE print ad. But engaging them the way a busker attracts and holds an audience is worth the effort. Find your dialogue partners with authentic posts, useful information and well, entertainment.
Why not start today?
###
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work [Book Review]
Alain de Botton (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, (NY: Pantheon Books, 2009)) is the guy you want on your next trip. He sees things the rest of us pass over as invisible: the electrical pylons running zig zag across the countryside, the huge grey warehouses plunked into industrial areas, the airplane junkyard in the California desert. And then he does one better by somehow inviting himself in to hear about the work and workers who made or use these invisible objects. All this curiosity is in the service of the question: What is it people really do all day with their time? And could I really understand even if they told me?
De Botton reveals the glories of tuna, from the Indian ocean to a grocer and table at home in London; the secrets of shipping (ships, warehouses, labyrinthine but well-timed world-wide movement); biscuit (cookie) production, rocket science, accountancy, painting and other things. Each a fascinating journey into the work practices and one psyche of the worker and artist.
De Botton seems to understand much, especially about the joy of finding meaningful work and the despair of having meaning sucked away. Where solitary baking for oneself or one’s family can be a joy, when the process is set on an assembly line with each stop isolated and optimized for the biscuit factory floor, when responsibility has been removed from each individual worker, it is up to the bosses and managers to re-inject purpose back into the work. Much like slipping niacin and riboflavin back into the stripped- down biscuit recipe.
Always entertaining, de Botton doesn’t mind climbing up on his soapbox from time to time to deliver mini-sermons about the nature of work. De Botton’s “School of Life” espouses the return of the secular sermon, so it is not surprising The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work does not mention the Creator’s involvement in our work. That’s too bad, because there is much to commend the (Biblical) notions that we were made to work, that when our work is harnessed to serve others (versus fulfilling our demand for meaning) we can find moments of transcendence. Plus the added bonus of the truth of the Biblical notion. De Botton does, however, offer robust hints about our current obsession with finding meaningful work. Namely, we add to the pressure when we expect our work to fulfill us. Another criticism may be the occasional flights of fancy de Botton takes as he verbalizes what may or may not be occurring in the minds of these workers.
A very entertaining read. Highly recommended.
###
Busking and the Urge to Hone Your Craft
Meet Rob Firenix. He’s a British showman, part juggler, part fire dancer, part street actor and stand-up comic who has traveled and worked in 55 countries. I met him last weekend in Windsor, Ontario at the International Busker Festival.
Rob Firenix is Captain Underpants
While Windsor city workers remained on strike (14 weeks plus), garbage piled high around garbage cans with parks and museums going to seed, Mr. Firenix and other buskers honed their craft for free (at least until they passed the hat), depending on delighting the crowd to earn their keep. It’s worked for the last eight years for Mr. Firenix.
With a background in corporate theater and experience choreographing large shows, he found he loved the freedom of performing live before audiences on the street. Pulling from another earlier job of working with people with disabilities, Mr. Firenix wants to make things accessible for everyone. It’s this attention to making the show easy to understand that also brings in the levity.
“I love it when people can have a laugh.”
One of the best parts of busking is “speaking directly to his audience” said Mr. Firenix. He is constantly tweaking his show to see what laughs he can get and how he can go further in delighting his audience. His current show is a character-based performance (“Captain Underpants”) that often features a pair of audience members in the ridiculous tights as well.
Was his craft comedy? Or was it the juggling or firedancing?
“The show is the craft,” he said. “Getting people to stay and enjoy the show is the craft.” He explained that a crowd may watch a person juggle for three or four minutes, but there has to be something more.
“It’s all about presentation.”
Willing Audience Members. In Tights.
As a communicator, I found myself in awe of Firenix and other buskers who worked on their craft out in the open, depending on impulse generosity for their bread. It’s a gutsy way to go about work—especially poignant in a city on strike because of limited post-retirement benefits. It says he is serious about the craft, that honing the craft is not a luxury but a necessity. It also points to the presentation as something of primary importance: people need to be engaged and stay engaged or they walk away.
Buskers also show there can be more to work than money.
###
Care for the Communicator’s Soul
![517geRI9byL._SS500_[1]](https://conversationisanengine.space/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/517geri9byl-_ss500_1.jpg?w=300&h=300 "517geRI9byL._SS500_[1]")
As a communication manager for a medical device company, my colleagues and I understood the company would push as far as you would go, using every last drop of your energy. Oh sure, there was talk of work/life balance—that would be the official line. But the reality was that expectations constantly ratcheted up and, depending on the ambition of your director/VP, an imbalance toward life (versus work) was not well received. Given this set of conditions, where does the communicator get the courage to take care of themselves?
I thought of how to combat this set of conditions recently after conversations with two talented friends who had been sprinting through their work lives for the last two years—both of them at a medical device company notorious for burning personnel down to the nub. Two answers come to mind: craft and spirit.
Craft
In Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (NY: Penguin Press, 2009), Matthew B. Crawford makes the point that the trades are actually intellectually stimulating (writing from the standpoint of a philosopher/motorcycle mechanic) while the work of knowledge workers more often approaches the work of clerks as actual decisions and craft move up to the corner office or out of the office altogether. I think Crawford is right. I suggest that finding a corner of one’s work life to practice one’s craft may have a healing effect on the soul. For me it had to do with getting back to handling sentences and spinning out arguments with words that served clients and their worthwhile activities. But another friend’s craft is directly related to helping members of an organization live up to their gifts and the organization to its stated vision. Doing what we’re meant to do has a healing effect.
Spirit
There really is no one who will shepherd your soul at work—unless you have a pastorally-gifted person in the cubicle next to you. On the other hand, the gift of conversation is one of the deep joys of working with great people. And there is nothing like an honest conversation to refresh the soul. Of course, I’m not talking about the catty cynicisms that pass in gossip around the coffee station—those rob the soul as surely as the micromanaging boss. Our spirit is refreshed by honest conversation—it’s part of how God made us.
If we can carve out time to practice our craft and watch out for our spirit (and, perhaps, even the souls of the people around us), we may find ourselves with the courage to say “No” to running on empty.
###
Can a copywriter persuade without manipulating?
I’ve been teaching for the past seven weeks and have not had time to update this site. I’m done lecturing this week and hope begin adding content to “Engage Your Audience.”
One thing on my mind: can a copywriter persuade without manipulating? I see a difference, where persuasion uses reason and rhetorical tools and manipulation uses…well, I’m researching that. But my initial answer leads me to look critically at the way “brand” builds a pre-conscious image. My final freelance writing class at Northwestern College explores this potential ethical quicksand from the perspective of a commitment to how God reveals Himself in the Bible.
In the meantime, check out this commercial for Carlton Natural Blonde Beer. I can’t stop watching it. Is it persuasion? Is it manipulation? Is it pure self-mocking creative fun?
My favorite line: “Man friends with machine.”
###
Today is “Bring Your Self to Work” Day
Many communicators I know have some art in progress on the side. One paints with oils. Another writes science fiction. Another makes masks. Copywriters who sketch and art directors who write. It is a human thing, this urge to make sense of the world. Certainly it is an integrating impulse—when we take steps to portray the world as we understand it, in whatever medium we choose, the very effort has the effect of enlarging our vision. Even if no one ever sees the painting or reads the novel or puts on the mask, we have still accomplished something. We’ve understood more—maybe we’ve become more human—plus we’ve contributed to culture. We’ve left some integrating artifact behind.
But those acts of creation are not content to idle as we go off to work. They don’t sit quietly on the easel while we earn our bread. They pursue us and our work. Those acts of creation whisper vivid colors and paint sounds as we type. They interrupt with scenes of conflict and resolution projected momentarily over the spreadsheet before us. Our acts of creation hint at a rich interior life that refuses to live in compartments, refuses to walk the same path again and again, and thinks it can make specific sense of a world of input. It is part of bringing our whole self to our work.
What does your art say to your work?
###
conversation is an engine 