#9 – How to start out in the creative industry, how to build a team, and how e-commerce is rupturing the social fabric
Good morning/afternoon,
it’s sunny in London today – and soon British people will complain about the heat and trains will stop running. But for now, everyone is enjoying the lightness of early summer. So here is some light-ish reading/viewing for your inspiration on a Friday covering top tips for people starting out in their careers in the creative industry, a view on AI (of course), some management advice from an unexpected place, the struggle with selling creativity, and the problem with e-commerce.
Enjoy – and feel free to share this edition with two friends.
Here we go:
Hands up who’s heard of TOM LICHTENHELD? I had started reading this piece a few weeks back but a patchy internet connection struggled with the shedload of inspiring pieces of advertising in this post so that I gave up before I reached the bottom of the post which boasts ten tips for people starting out in the creative industry today. You’ll get cramps in your thumb for scrolling that much but it’s absolutely worth it.
The most interesting thing in tech. Recently Marc Andreessen published a very bullish article on the power of AI and how it’ll save the world. This is The Atlantic’s CEO response/reaction to it. It’s a video – so you don’t have to read anything. (Thanks to Simon Domone for sharing it with me.)
Serious Management Advice From Mel Brooks. I’m not a big fan of management advice literature because in most cases it somehow doesn’t seem to apply to your specific case. This piece of advice, however, struck a chord. Particularly in light of the ongoing conversations about the superiority of in-person versus remote versus hybrid ways of working we’re now blessed with:
”What's most critical about having out-of-town tryouts is that they're out of town. Not because the audiences there are less knowledgeable, critical, or even more forgiving, which they probably are. But because it's not about the audiences at all -- it's about the actors and bringing the team together. Taking the team on the road separates them from everything familiar, typical, and ordinary and, in such an environment, they quickly learn that whatever support, comfort, and appreciation they're likely to get will come from their team members who they'll need to count on and rely upon in the ‘wilderness.’”How agencies are selling themselves short. This is largely a piece about how agencies should find new ways of getting paid for the value they create. Because selling hours ultimately sells creativity short. But the line that really struck me in this piece is the observation that “great ideas are usually discovered backward, with a phenomenon observed before it is understood.”
Hometown’s Finest. Anne Helen Peterson anecdotally observes what makes a business a Place and not just a commercial space.
You Will Miss Bed Bath & Beyond. A thoughtful piece on how e-commerce challenges not just the stability of brick-and-mortar businesses but also social life. And, in that way, also is connected to the above mentioned idea of Place: “Shop all you want without ever leaving your home, and if you must go out, get everything you need in a single store. But as this new way of shopping becomes dominant, it also flattens out the some of the social and physical texture of life.”
Read you all next week.