Google Street Scenes: Hittin' the Bricks

I've taken a new tack in letting agencies know I wouldn't mind talking to them about any opportunities they might have open for a guy like me. (Lord knows the traditional methods aren't working.)

I find their buildings on Google Street Views and post my mascot, Major Mike Adams, outside their places of business. Then I send them a note, usually though Twitter, letting them know I am stalking them virtually. I'm sure it creeps them out at first, but then hopefully they see the picture and say to themselves, "Well, never seen that before. This guy is thinking outside the box. I'll bet he'd fit quite well into our unique culture. He seems to be a platform agnostic thinker with an eye for strategy and creativity. And he's also kind of a dick for blogging about us this way."

Below are two "leading" Orlando agencies, or so their sites would have you believe - though I have my doubts about one of them, whose Twitter account hasn't been updated since October. You can't really talk about how adept you are in the "social media space" when you don't use it yourselves.

In the second photo, we seem to have caught a local resident on the way home from a sleepover at a friend's house, pillow under his arm. I also wonder how old that "For Lease" sign is and whether or not the agency still occupies this building. Might explain the dormant Twitter account.

Job Seekers Who Do Not Meet All Requirements Need Not Apply

It doesn't matter that you can demonstrate award-winning skills in a variety of disciplines. They know exactly what they want in a candidate, and you are not it.

What few job offers that are out there these days have a specific specialist in mind. The days of the creative generalist seem to be winding down. I saw a quote from Tina Brown in the paper today:

"No one I know has a job anymore. They've got Gigs."

In today's "Boys of the Credenza" comic, The Creative Team meets with the Human Resources Director. (Based on an actual ad I found on Career Builder. Click for the big.)

One Size Fits All and the Death of Creativity

(Click it for the big picture)

Everyone's a Creative

No, I mean it. Everyone really is. In some way or another, everyone is a creative. But in this business, it'd sure be nice if there was a way to keep everyone's opinion out of every job. Production by committee...you know the result...a watered-down and usually ineffective piece. Client's always right? Rarely.

Bigger is Better

And I thought I recognized that multicultural group from somewhere.

Notes on a Meeting #5

Billboard meeting this morning. We didn't really get anywhere. I did, however, come up with a new character. He is "F-Man^®" I'm sure you know the guy. He exists in all creative circles, telling everyone why their ideas are lame. (Actually, I am him more often than I'd care to admit.) At F-Man's side is Existential Dawg, another character from a while back.

If I keep this up, I'm going to have an entire cast of characters for a comic soap opera before long.

Follow the trail of "Notes on a Meeting" here.

Low Tech Super Creative

As I'm fond of pointing out, it doesn't always take a giant budget and a huge rack of servers to create some of the best stuff. This is very good.



Seen at.

I Blog, Therefore, I Am

I tend to think of this blog as an online magazine of stupid and sometimes interesting stuff. That's one of the reasons I never do a post without an image in it. (This ain't The New Yorker. It's more like Highlights for Children or Mad.) That's also the reason I will go back and edit a post if I later find misspellings or half-baked thoughts not fully fleshed out. Or if I find some twisted language that makes no sense, such as using "half-baked" and "fleshed out" in a sentence together. Baked flesh.

Traffic to this little corner of the World Wide Waste of Time has crept up slowly, but there is no way to "monetize" that light trickle and you will never see contextual ads in the sidebar. Maybe someday when I reach 100,000 hits a day I can start selling t-shirts and plastic awareness bracelets. Until then, it's just a place to create, because oftentimes my job doesn't allow me to do that.

Here are some of the things being said around the world about Where's My Jetpack?

"Brilliantly subversive."
Advance, a Danish agency

"I'm quite fond of Mr. Jetpacks."
Stan Lee, Melbourne, Australia

"It must be nice typing rants to yourself."
Some anonymous commenter

The Art of Lawn Maintenance

I did a summer on a landscaping crew once. It was probably the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had. Reason: When you’re done, you’re done. No one can tell you otherwise. And if you do it right, the resulting yard looks like a cake, a living work of art. Dallas is full of well manicured office parks like the one pictured here, digitally enhanced to a dreamlike state. I look out the window and see the crews riding those two wheeled chariots as they sculpt the berms and grassy knolls. I wonder how many of them know they are artists.

Twenty horses pull him through the grass
He’s makin’ hay – makin’ it fast
He seldom lets a day go past
Where he don’t pray that this don’t last


Earlier in Everyone's a Creative