Jeff Stevens, Creative.

One of the best parts about being in the creative industry is hanging out with creative people. I started a podcast so I could interview them.

Listen here. 

Clean and Sober with KLĒN + SŌBR and the Since Right Now Podcast.

Much of the best work on this site, I’ve worked with two gentlemen, Chris and Matt. Last year, Chris started KLĒN + SŌBR, a site dedicated to shattering stereotypes and stigma of addicts, addiction and recovery. So the three of us, recovering alcoholics and addicts each, do a podcast, Since Right Now, once a week and do some shattering. 

Check it out right now.

I Love Working on New Business.

The process. The feeling of going to battle. The bonding. The going off to slay the mammoth and bring it back to the tribe. But mostly the jawdropping work that always seems to comes out.  The pitch is the purest expression of the agencies thinking there is. Most of the best work I’ve ever done is on the hard drive of my computer having seen the light of day once for that glorious hour when we walked the client from their brief through our strategy to the it-couldn’t-be-anything-else-but-this creative.

A Top 5 Greatest Last Line to Any Movie

This slide came to represent the part of the pitch where we were leaving the grey and numbing charts and graphs they gave us and we're making the turn to show them the sunshine. Because nobody really cares about your brand. Brand managers do. But nobody else really does. What they care about, what we all care about, are the things we all care about: the human connection, the emotional insight, the soul. Everything is else is just clutter.

A Few Things I've Learned and/or Lifted About Creating Great Work and Running a Creative Team:

Hire people that are better than you are. Go after great work. It keeps great talent happy.  Lead. Fill in. Be the Chief one-day. Be the Indian, cheerleader, interference runner, air cover provider, copywriter and creative champion the next.  If you want someone to make you happy, see your therapist. If you want someone to make your work better, see me. I take your ideas and remix them into something better. I give you mine and expect the same.  Your strengths are also your weaknesses Don’t worry about what other agencies are doing. Worry about what you’re doing. Let the accountants catch up to you. We’re in the idea business. Not the accounting business.

Everyone reports to the work. Including you.