Still in college I found out how to derail the automatic pilot at McDonalds. Just ask for a cheeseburger without cheese. 'Oh, you want a hamburger!' No, I want a cheeseburger without cheese. The policy was (at least in those days) that they had to make one for you using all the cheeseburger ingredients without well... the cheese. Do they taste different? Oh yes and the cheeseburger without cheese was at least fresh. I haven't tried this trick since. Now living in Paris I should maybe go out there and ask for a Royal Without Cheese...

‘How many of our engagements really, really take advantage of true data sources and provide us and our clients with informed thinking and planning? How often do we just let it go because “they” won’t let us at it’ David Sable Too often the problem is not how many of us just let it go - but rather how many of us really WANT to know ourselves?! How can we expect our clients to make the time or give true importance to these elements if we ourselves do not? Just as we need to believe in what we are selling to the client creatively – we need to believe in data and planning before the client will. With a Director of Planning as a brother, and having spent a good month whilst freelancing seated in the Planning Department (it was the only desk free), I feel I am able to say (hand on heart) that many of us in client services do not appreciate or understand the time it takes to craft these insights – and therefore let it go because we don’t know the arguments to make to change “their” minds. To truly get the most out of our work – we should push back and start training the client to understand how much better a campaign could be with a little extra planning. In our lunchtime sessions we learn how to run meetings, how to sell creative, how to write a brief – but we haven’t once heard – how to get the most out of Planning for your client…. Is this not a shame? We creative endless plans based on production timelines and how long we need to give our creative teams to come up with that ‘hit idea’ but do we actually know how long it takes to analyse data? 9 days is often a good indication I am told. With enough forethought, and a budget, our planning departments can discover new customer avenues, tell us why our ‘hit idea’ may not work with the supplied data list and ensure the quality of the finished project is first rate. Understanding the creative process is a must for Client Services – we’d never baulk at taking the time to understand it – but along with new marketing mediums (remember how hard selling interactive was to clients at the start) so too must we take the time to understand the role planning and data analysis has in the future of our work. And whilst I may have just undertaken Client Services suicide – I know at least my brother will be proud *grin*

I believe the concept extends further, into Language in general. Each language is not 'owned' by anyone - individual, organisation or company. It is there to serve a purpose - to help us express ourselves - to convey ideas, thoughts, emotions. As such, the best communicators are often those who use language in the most effective way to both express their thoughts and to be understood by their intended audience. It is not always necessary to adhere to a set of perceived rules or standard convention (althgh mny rools are bst adhrd to a lot of the time in ordr to ensre evryne undrstnds ur msg you can often still be understood and may differentiate yourself by demonstrating language originality). Language has always, and will always, be adapted by the best communicators. I have heard many English people criticise 'Americanisation' of the English language and smart Americans retort that standard American English language has preserved "old" or 18th Century English 'rules' better than current English. True. But neither side of the argument is right, and as David points out, Microsoft Word is not the arbiter of correct language or spelling use in any one continent. It is merely a guide, so ignore the squiggly red and green lines under your text if you believe what you have written best conveys what you have to say!

Body language and actions speak louder than words and are globally understood - perhaps we should be using these more to sell our business to existing clients and new clients - afterall anyone can 'say' they are the best at something or the 'world's leading....' yawn yawn. Seeing is believing - perhaps we should be offering more 'free trials for x period' of our business service in order to bring on board more new clients and indeed for growing existing ones where there are too many 'closed doors'...

I have thought about this issue for some time now. It's my feeling that the nature of the agency, and in particular the direct marketing agency, contributes in large part to people's fear of creativity, individuality, risk-taking. In my view, the agency (any agency, or most agencies) is extremely conservative as a place of business, because success is attained through systemization and process. You need to execute, get the work out the door, quickly. The only way to do that is to have very set processes, rules to follow, clear delineation of roles and responsibilities. And that means very specific, fairly rigid career paths (you are Creative, Account, Strategy - and so you will remain). That is how agencies survive - by getting it all down to a science, this art of marketing. But the more formulaic your output, the more narrow your professional growth choices, the harder it is to think outside of the agency box. I sense this is more pronounced in direct marketing, where formulas play an even more critical role in decision-making, planning, projecting ROI. It is a Catch 22. Chaos is unacceptable, but so is an excess of order. Order left unchecked can take over as the mental default, the cognitive override that stops ideas from getting from their nascent state to a PowerPoint chart and ultimately to a line item in your client's marketing budget. Order becomes protection from danger - to your client's sales, to your agency's fees, to your career. So what is the answer? It seems to me that if agencies want their employees to seek out danger, then they must do what any company (even a services company with shrinking margins) needs to do to change employee behavior: encourage, enable and reward that change in behavior. In other words, take clear, concrete, specific steps to loosen the perceived reigns on risk-taking. Agencies just might begin to loosen the grip of ingrained ORGANIZATIONAL behavior as well - the largely unchallenged behavior that places structure, form and order above all else.

Deb makes a very valid point. It is possible that it is less about the fear of change more about the fear of disappointment in performance. It is about the nature of business. We are often asked to perform quickly and to base ideas, strategies, campaigns and tactics on previous success so that our supervisors and clients are comfortable with the risk and so that we can manage expectations. Most agencies are full of smart, forward thinking people that would cherish the opportunity to try something new but do not have the time to prove to their clients that it is worth the risk. While it is admirable that we work to be stewards for our clients’ success it does at times follow a pattern in which new ideas are not allowed to be tested. However, this will have to change as the tried and true of yesterday may no longer work tomorrow. Many agencies are seeing that we no longer have a choice but to try new ideas as consumers begin to shift their communication behaviors. We will not be able to ignore the reality of media fragmentation. To reach consumers we will need to be innovative and leverage new technology to break through and engage consumers. Our clients will hold us accountable for being able to change as their consumers change or they will find agencies that can. For those individuals and agencies who already understand this it promises to be a very exciting adventure. “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill

I disagree that a great idea has to be a dangerous one. An idea is an idea, whether it is safe, dangerous, weird, interesting...etc. I do agree that 'fear' does hold a lot of people back and I think the reason varies with the individual - from fear of the unknown to fear of being judged to fear of fear... HOPE is the feeling that conquers all fears and that pushes people along their journey of discovery. This is why it is important that an organisation always dangles the 'carrot' to motivate their staff along their various career paths. It is also true that there is no point in sitting back and waiting for life/management/people to come to you - "don't wait for the ship to come in - swim out to it"...