Horrible group members

Painful (but necessary) working sessions this week with various groups have shown me how I behave in group settings where power is shared and there's no single leader.

My group is strong. We're all strong students. But one thing I've noticed is that we all occupy different roles that change from meeting to meeting. Some days I'm facilitating a discussion. Other days I'm introspective and could even be perceived as apathetic. Some times I'm angry and enforce the rules, other times I have a relaxed attitude to deadlines or protocol.

It's like a sociological petri dish. Everyone has shifting patterns of behavior. A really funny dynamic I've noticed is that we can side with another group member's ideas one day, then disagree with them the next. Overall, I feel we have to listen more, but this whole experience has provided me with an insight into the different archetypes that I become from one day to the next depending on the tone of the meeting.

So this is not a reflection on my group, it's a reflection on me.

Here are the horrible group members who I have been:

THE DEFENDER


None of my ideas ever seem wrong when I'm the Defender. Nothing I say can be refuted and if you try, well then you're just being a dick. Speak to me only when you have to say you're sorry for disagreeing with me or when you finally understand the superior point I'm trying to prove. I come into the meeting with guns blazing, eyes closed, and ears shut. I make my point as aggressively and loudly as possible, interrupting anyone who wants to contradict me.

I hate being this role. When I'm the Defender, I should chill out and appreciate the fact that other people have perspectives and insights that may be stronger than my own because of their own unique knowledge.

THE WEEKENDER


When I choose to meet with the group, I do so grudgingly. It's a pain in the ass for me to be dividing my time between school, work, homelife, and 601. My attitude to working is that it's best accomplished on one's own time rather than wasted for hours trying to press through a group document together. I cooperate, smile, and cheer people's ideas - but I'm dying inside! I can't wait until I get to leave the meeting room and go to do my own things.

I strongly identify with this archetype because I take a very rational approach to group work and don't see the benefit in wasted time. I work efficiently on my own. The problem I face in this role is that no one takes my ideas seriously and I never end up contributing as much as I'd like to in meetings. The group is worse of as a result of my not 'bringing the thunder'.

THE CHEERLEADER


Things are great when I'm the cheerleader! Nothing is ever a problem that can't be expediently buried and forgotten about! I help the team out my succinctly rephrasing something that someone else has said and I passing it off as my own! At the beginning of our meetings, I am animated, upbeat and motivated to do work, but by the end I quickly lose interest and go off to doing my own things! Nevertheless, the team loves me and I can never do anything wrong!

I'm rarely a cheerleader, but when I am, I find that the things I have to share with the group are unsubstantiated and lacking in any deep insight. I use happiness and stoking the group's energy as a cover for my own lack of knowledge about the subject matter. Recognizing this, I think I could do a much better job sometimes of coming prepared to meetings.

THE DEPUTY


We agreed on rules and dammit, we're going to stick to them. Conveniently, we've forgotten rules that no longer make sense, but have yet to establish new rules that can prevent subversive group behavior. I rally the troops, set plans, and oversee action. My foresight is perfect but ability to guide the team through difficult times needs some improving. When I lose control over the group, it's like a lone soldier taking a stand against an army of zombies. I just wish they all thought as clearly as me.

My needs for stimulation and chaos in life often mean that I dislike rules - or at least I dislike the rules that I have to play by. As the Deputy, I have limited authority to enforce the rules, so it might make sense for me to develop more constructive ways of facilitating a chaotic group dynamic which obviously doesn't work well with structure. When I become this archetype, I need to find ways of innovatively applying my natural goal-setting abilities to create an appropriate framework for the meeting.

THE DEFEATIST
Life is pain, and pain is life. We're put here on this Earth to suffer, especially during group meetings. I work hard because I see it as penance for my sins and misguided belief that someone will notice me. I act out and make scenes to draw attention to myself but spend a lot of time reflecting on how things got so messed up. The problem is that I've gotten so down that it's hard to see the way out again.

Recently I've noticed that I take on this role too easily. At one meeting I snapped and sarcastically commented that "my opinion obviously doesn't mean anything" - something I really shouldn't have said in retrospect because it only deepened the animosity among the group at the moment. I need to do more to lift my spirits so that the group can benefit from my insights without feeling like they have to begrudgingly accept them.

THE ASSHOLE


I stir shit up.

My comments are jagged and rapid-fire, without a lot of sympathy for the audience. My brain works really fast and I can see your next move ten moves before you. I speak to hear my own voice and demand that I be heard, even if I say something that was discussed earlier and neatly resolved. I am 100% focused on the group and my mental energies are absolutely committed to the task at hand. It's not like I'm a bad group member, I just have a lot of power which is sometimes negatively used.

This is an easy archetype for me to slip into. It's full of qualities which I despise in myself and a mindset that prohibits me from actively learning from others in my group. I also am limited in how much I can synthesize from previous group meetings when I'm wearing this role because I'm so caught up in the moment. Stepping back, taking a breath, and closing my mouth are techniques I should try when I find myself becoming the Asshole.

Loyalty? We don't need no stinkin' loyalty!

I've been doing a lot of on-site research with a particular marketing agency right now and have learned more about the industry than ever before. From all this work, there's one odd quirk which I'm starting to get a better handle on: turnover and employee retention.

Agency culture is very fluid. Employees typically last only 1 1/2 - 2 years in one place before moving on to the next big opportunity. It's like I'm Spiderman and I swing from building to building, each time getting enough momentum to grasp on to a higher floor on the structure.


My old agency was Wunderman and I look back on it fondly. Culturally it was a hoot with lots of Gen Y like me who had a lot to prove and wanted their chance to cut their teeth on big projects. Operationally, the work permitted lots of risk-taking, ownership, and collaboration with diverse teams.

But by the end of my 15 months that I worked with the company, I had more tenure than probably 40% of the employees there. This is not a function of growth. It's a function of immense mobility of employees among agencies, and among agencies like Wunderman and related data-based organizations (the big banks, Air Miles, research houses).

Initially I stacked this churn up to the fact that "it's a marketing agency and this is just what it's like", but as I learn more about the industry I'm realizing that it doesn't have to be this way.


One consequence of churn is that among middle and senior levels in big shops there's a palpable dearth of good talent. The kind of good talent that can't be codified or seen in the effectiveness of MarCom projects. It doesn't matter how skilled you may be as an analytics project manager, senior art director, or digital account director, you still lack valuable abilities as a manager and an employee.

A lot of my coworkers see high turnover and mobility as a cool way to quickly advance and get your name recognition up. You'll leapfrog between roles based on your networking prowess and ability to distinguish yourself as a non-supporter of the team. Your resume will read like a rolodex of advertising agencies because you spent only a few short years at each place.

And what have you gained?
Credentials, a client list, knowledge of different industries, accounts, and agency functions (e.g. digital, retail, CRM, print).

And what have you lost?
Interpersonal and leadership skills because no one worked with you long enough for you to truly help the develop themselves.

So I'm not suggesting that people should remain at shops they hate or in roles which give them no new challenges, opportunities, or satisfaction. I really support the inidividual in deciding what's right for them.

But just temper your optimism for looking elsewhere with a rational assessment of what you'll stand to gain (of lose) by leaving. Never leave for the sake of leaving. Turnover is high in the agency world and has resulted in selfish managers and a general feeling among all levels of gamesmanship. In that environment, culture really can't thrive. Warmth and inclusivity are really only superficial labels attached to the mission statement to form some perceptual distinction in the minds of presumptive new hires.


I'm sorry if any of my Wunderman friends felt evicerated by this rant!

Understanding project strategy

I’m not quite sure what we’ve gotten ourselves into. B!G has seven projects this semester for six different clients. It’s rather daunting and the scope of organization needed to complete these projects is larger than we’ve ever had in the past.

I met with a B!G project team today working on one of our more technical research projects and I was thrilled by their enthusiasm and professionalism given how ambiguous and open-ended the client objectives are.

After listening in to their status meeting and giving a few words on the client, I asked, "is anyone confused?”


“No no, everything’s fine”, they replied.


“Really? Cause I’m absolutely baffled by this project!”


I can only begin to understand our role in it by stepping back and understanding the project as a single objective – not an amalgam of separate, interrelated objectives. In fact, this is how I approach most of what we’re working on, including our own organizational strategies. It’s easy to parse things and chunk out work into chewable deliverables, but it’s infinitely more clarifying to take the harder route and elevate the scope to see how each project, each person, each client fits into overall business strategy.

I find that forming mental maps before really digging into the work and involving yourself in the hard facts of the project acts as a north star. It allows you to see how your work, no matter how trivial or irrelevant it may seem, fits into the larger picture. Knowing this positively affects personal motivation and keeps the research insights aligned to a single tone.

Agency marketers: the coolest people you know

Agencies attract weird characters. Maybe it’s the inclusiveness and diversity of the place that invites the fringe and bizarre among us and becomes self-reinforcing. I’ve also noticed that agency folk can be incredibly talented and have fascinating, unique interests. These quirks and idiosyncrasies are endearing and give a lot of shops their mosaic quality of employee mix. Here’s a few of the people who you can find:

(Images are courtesy of YourSceneSucks.com – an AWESOME site for your Williamsburg hipster stereotype fix)

CLIENT SERVICES

Client Services is usually identifiable by their abrasive and up-front demeanor when dealing with internal people, but polished and accommodating style when managing the client. Dead giveaways for an Account Manager could be a desk full of lots of client swag, a calendar of upcoming campaigns, and a general confusion of the activities going on in other parts of the agency. Account Executives, by comparison, can be easily identified by their dark sexy clothes, familiarity with the business and industry of their client (to be strongly contrasted against the more junior Account Manager), and no nonsense attitude when dealing with other members of the agency. Did I mention that Client Services is a great place for over-confident Gen Ys to start in the business?

Food: Sushi
Music: Wolfmother
Destination: New York
School: Bachelors of Arts, Psychology (can also be replicated with History, Philosophy, English, Religion)
Things to say to the team: "Great job on the presentation/campaign/creative!" (Note, client services will likely have worked on none of these)
Things to never say to the team: "Didn't you see the latest email from the client?"

STUDIO

The studio stays to itself. Mostly it’s because they’re under a time-crunch to get projects completed and have limited time to shoot the breeze with bored coworkers from other departments. The studio is the creative powerhouse of any agency and as such, its employees are as fringe and as cultured as it gets.

Easily identifiable by tattoos, piercings (visible and non-visible, both of which usually appear after hours at the bar), But they’re also incredibly approachable and balance out the more frantic departments.

Food: Jamaican – something spicy, esoteric, and threatening to ill-prepared stomachs
Music: LCD Soundsystem
Destination: Montreal
School: Diploma, Art Design, CAD, Illustration
Things to say to the team: "Dude, your hat is dope, let’s go for lunch!"
Things to never say to the team: "I think the font should be larger and left justified. It just looks better." (Do not say this, especially if you happen to work in Client Services!)

DIGITAL TEAM

You better hope you understand the Digital Team when they start speaking in acronyms and jargon. FTP, SEM, SEO, CPC, DMOZ, CPM, CTR, SERP, AJAX, API, CMS, and XML are some terms which the digital team will never fully explain and probably doesn’t fully understand itself.

This team is overworked and it shows. Clothing is loose and non-bunching and desks are organized so as to be ergonomically efficient for the marathon stretches of coding, testing, fixing, testing, fixing, deployment, and fixing that is inevitably required from any online campaign.

They’re also incredibly web-savvy themselves and know more about social media, online marketing, and good web standards than anyone else in the agency.

Food: Italian – comfort food is a plus
Music: The Eagles – or something else that’s easy to listen to and not too loud
Destination: Cuba – think relaxation, not stimulation
School: Diploma in Graphics Design, Software Development, or Web Development
Things to say to the team: "Can you believe the timeline they’ve set us to? Doesn’t the client team understand the testing and debugging that needs to be done for this microsite?"
Things to never say to the team: "I’m not on Facebook, I think social networking is a fad..."

DATA TEAM

Poor data folk. Poor, poor data folk. Relegated to a dark corner of the office and given limited interaction to the rest of the agency. No wonder then that the Data Team can become a little insular and somewhat of a monoculture within the broader organization.

When you meet someone at an agency with their shirt tucked in, they’re likely in the Data Team. If they mention any analysis function in Excel, Access, SAS, SQL, or SPSS, stay away, they are from the Data Team. If they offer to explain how to properly perform QAT but they swear that it will be a simple explanation, then by all means…STAY AWAY!

But they’re remarkably friendly despite their isolation from the rest of the agency and the tight deadlines under which they operate. Like compatible signs on the zodiac, Data actually gets along best with the Digital Team because of commonalities in the work process and a shared understanding for nerdy things like Flash, CRM, and Family Guy. Additionally, intimacy with the consumer campaign data – at the core of modern marketing based on optimizing for relevance – means that analysts on the Data Team have a zen-like clarity with the issues that must be addressed in the account. It’s illuminating to sit with the Data Team and hear about data-based account issues including churn, low activation, or behavioral trending. They’ve often got great suggestions.

Food: Chinese – something greasy and tasty
Music: If they listen to music, which is rare since data entry can be so engrossing, then adult contemporary or generic hip hop is popular
Destination: Camping in Algonquin Park – there’s no spreadsheets and queries there!
School: Bachelors of Science (Chem and Bio are popular), Bachelor of Commerce
Things to say to the team: "Did you see those clickthrough rates for the English Family Existing Self-identified segment on Client X’s last campaign? Crazy!"
Things to never say to the team: "Why doesn’t the forecasting model work properly?"

RESEARCH AND BRAND DEVELOPMENT

Unfortunately I’ve found that these experts are rarely as qualified as they claim to be and neglect the critical responsibility of listening to the feedback from other parts of the agency which also have direct interaction with the account.

Nevertheless, the Research Department can lend considerable insight to the account about customer behavior, industrial trending, and messaging. They’ll know the right words to say for the copy and the right slogan to use in the header. The client loves them because they get a chance to talk openly and honestly about how the account is evolving without the saccharine effusiveness and stifling sycophantism of the Client Services team.

This team also has the ear of the agency executives who see research and brand dev as the company’s soothsayers. The Research and Brand Development team is usually identified by loud noise and laughter, usually from the YouTube clips, commercials, and open-door conference calls they have all day.

Food: All-day breakfast – how indulgent and attention-seeking!
Music: Jazz
Destination: Europe – so when they return, they can tell everyone about their perspectives on Europe vs. North America
School: Bachelor of Business Administration
Things to say to the team: "Are consumers using less traditional response channels?"
Things to never say to the team: "Why did you need 100 slides to say what could have been said in just 10?"

So there’s a quick and dirty rundown of who you’ll meet at an agency. It’s almost like going to the zoo and seeing every animal in its habitat. However, to see the full safari of marketers, head to bar that’s closest to the agency’s offices. Swinging from vines, mating calls, and excessive lounging in the sun are all to be found!

Creative spaces for creative faces

Marketing culture is unique in many respects. In the workplace, there’s a high need for interactivity and stimulation to catalyze innovation. Additionally, the multi-team collaboration required on client projects means that openness and team participation must be cultivated. Style wise, this translates to open-form offices, lots of public spaces or ‘idea rooms’, and a design aesthetic that often runs the gamut between edgy and exposed or frosted and futuristic. In Toronto, the head offices of Cossette or Capital C might be good examples of the former while Wunderman is a good example of the latter.

Of course, it would be nice to have a space like this for B!G and not have to work out of the dark basement of the Schulich building, but as we’re a non-profit, I’m happy for whatever we can get!

I am saying all this because today I stumbled across a really amazing workspace downtown, called 401 Richmond. This is a converted 1899 factory that has been restored and now houses about sixty arts and media related tenants, including ad shops. Creaky wood floors, 15 foot ceilings, and big open windows invite casual passers-by and tourists into the 401 to walk through the floors and see the boutiques and bookstores. On top of the building is a beautiful flower-filled roof garden with terrific views over the neighbourhood and downtown core. But really, it’s a space for artists with working studios and galleries side by side.

Thrown into the mix are a few small boutique media and marketing shops (Boxx3G, Agito Internet Marketing , and Meta Strategies.

I can appreciate why these companies would want to set up business next to artists and creatives. Not only is the building beautiful and occupies a fantastic site in downtown Toronto, but it’s also the model of the agency interior design taken to a larger, macro level. Idea diffusion and new visioning among creative heads is far quicker and clearer when you’re working next to each other. Think of this like a perpetual motion machine that moves faster and faster, it’s the same reason why research universities and technology firms always seem to be grouped together (e.g. Stanford, MIT, UNC Chapel Hill). Innovation spreads faster when the relationships among individuals and firms are mercurial and proximate.

You cannot be creative if you’re in an artistic and cultural vacuum. Agencies should learn from examples like 401 Richmond and internalize this to mean not just sleek, sexy desks with exposed brick walls, but also collocation with artistic people who will inspire and tickle the imaginations of their creative employees.

Getting mad

I’ve been in a really great mood lately, but let me explain why it’s great to be in a rage when designing creative and writing content.

1. You work faster. Being happy means that you have time to smell the roses and enjoy what you’re working on. Being in a rage lets you fly through the project and only concentrate on the important details, completely missing the larger scope of the task
2. You say what you really mean. Everything is on the table and anything goes when you’re angry and ready to write. I also find that the words flow better because you’re firing on more cylinders. Feel free to include slang, personal attacks, and other forms of verbal abuse in the copy.
3. You develop hyperfocus on the task at hand and are able to block out all distractions that are preventing you from getting the work completed.
4. You don’t have to proofread or edit the work later on. If you were angry, you wouldn’t have made any msitakes. Besides, it shows a creative edginess. Reviewing work when you’re not in a bad mood is always a poor decision because you may find that the work has to be redone!

So here are some helpful tips to get really angry for when you have to write copy and mock up an ad or an email:

• Think about the last huge argument you had. What did you really wish you had said but forgot to?
• Think about the bureaucracy and mania of office politics that prevents you from getting noticed for your hard (read: rage-fuelled) work
• Think about that driver who cut you off then acted like it was your fault when you blasted your horn at them in frustration
• Think about the professor who antagonized students and contributed to a stifling learning environment – shout out to Prof. K!
• Think about how a coworker accidentally ate your sandwich even though it was labeled and said “Max’s Sandwich, HANDS OFF!”

So go ahead and get angry. Take it out on the client’s work. Everyone will be so impressed by the maturity with which you handled such a difficult situation. They’ll learn not to mess with you when they see that vein throbbing on your forehead and those fingers pounding away at the keys. They’ll understand that it’s not venting, it’s progress…