Another reason to love Mad Men

Yesterday, I met with someone for networking purposes and he asked me to explain what services we provide, exactly. I went into this long, drawn out case study of our latest project, which you can check out here, and I'm all, "We whittle the client's advertising objective down to one palatable line, we prop our feet up and open our notebooks to a blank page, we dream up some ideas for a campaign that makes sense (hopefully), we write some scripts, we present them to the client in a very enthusiastic way with flailing arms and fancy words, we hope they buy it, when they do, we go talk to some directors, we present the scripts to those directors with high hopes that they envision them the same way that we did, we gather bids about how much the production will cost, we then choose one of those directors to bring the scripts to life, we work with that director to cast the most talented actors or at least the ones with the best hair, we go to the shoot and make sure the director gets it right while we stand around eating too much and gaining 5 pounds, we sit in an editing suite for a week making sure the editor gets it right while we eat breakfast tacos every day and gain another 5 pounds, we traffic the spots to their proper channels and then we high five and say Yay! a bunch."

And I paraphrase, but still.

Then I get a little self-conscious that maybe I'm talking too much and not making sense, so I try to lighten the mood by saying, "Do you happen to watch Mad Men?"

His eyes light up and his head nods. Phew!

"We're Peggy and Don," I say.

And he says, "Ah. That helps a lot. Now, I get it."

Now, who represents Peggy and who represents Don on any given day changes around here, and also depends on who you ask.

But you get the gist.

---Stefani

Rework

So, I just finished reading a great book on the nitty-gritties of starting and running a small business. It's not a How-To, by any means. It's more of a Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. It makes a lot of sense and it put many things in perspective for me. Mainly, it made my heart quit racing for half a second and now I feel like everything might actually be okay.

It's called Rework. Here is an excerpt from the conclusion that especially hit home for me:

Inspiration is perishable

We all have ideas. Ideas are immortal. They last forever.

What doesn't last forever is inspiration. Inspiration is like fresh fruit or milk: It has an expiration date.

If you want to do something, you've got to do it now. You can't put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can't just say you'll do it later. Later, you won't be pumped up about it anymore.

If you're inspired on a Friday, swear off the weekend and dive into the project. When you're high on inspiration, you can get two weeks of work done in twenty-four hours. Inspiration is a time machine in that way.

Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won't wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.

Amen y'all.

--Stefani

Amen, brother

Good article here:

http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=142726

I got into this business because I didn't want to take calculus in college.

I stayed because it's fun.

But Marc Brownstein is right. If you're not careful, this business can squeeze the life out of the best and brightest.

And you'll find yourself wishing you had taken calculus. Ouch.

Ballet Austin

We have been sitting on our hands, trying not to talk too much about our latest client project. Now that the news is out, we can blab. It's been an honor to work on this business for Ballet Austin. And humbling. Oh, so humbling. Stand in a room full of dancers (and mirrors!) for a two-day shoot and you too will be on a salmon and veggie diet. Read the news story here.

Addys!

As this is our first year in business, it was also our first year to enter the Austin Addys and we are very pleased to announce that we won 3 awards this year: two bronze and a silver, for our website, our logo and our LifeSize Communication DM piece.

YAY! Go team.

It wasn't without it's disappointments however. Not to be greedy or anything, but we were saddened to learn the work we were most proud of -- our Velocity Credit Union work -- didn't get any love. Very very disappointing indeed.

BUT, we are happy with what we got, and we'll just have to work harder for our Velocity client as well as others in 2010.