STRAT_SCRAPS v173

ego death and lizard skin furniture

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New Years Classifieds:

There are two people I’ve worked with in the past who are currently looking for their next full time gig.

Justin Davis: co-ran the strat dept at Virtue for the better part of a year while also acting as GSD overseeing accounts and recognized by leadership as having been in more successful pitches than anyone at the agency. most recently he went in house at Upwork and helped launch like 10 million new product features. He’s also super nice.

Pen Binet: First time I met Pen I asked if he was related to Les. He said he was not, but I’m not sure I believe him, because he was far more capable than he had any right to be a few years into his career. Maybe its the MBA. Anyway, Pen is even nicer than Justin. (Sorry Justin, but Pen is like super nice).

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Musings

Last year I wrote a fair amount of about the importance of people. How process is often used to minimize the importance of the people involved and how much I value helping teams make the best work of their lives.

Freelance life has been incredibly beneficial to my abilities as a planner and as a client partner. 2024 seemed to be the year of shifting from being hired for deliverables to being hired for consult.

This transition in tandem with thinking about working with people has been a really interesting journey into the role of counsel in the first place. the recurring question of “who do we serve” is even more pronounced. But so is the satisfaction in new found capacities in building up the work of others.

Writing a best seller and everyone knows your name. but help an author publish a best seller through edits and counsel is somehow more fulfilling (this is a metaphor because I’ve never actually done either of those things).

LINKS

(A different) Alex's Strategy Resource Library

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https://leaflet.pub/ is a fun little online tool I want to play with more.

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Studying Yourself (essay)

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Here are several images offered without (much) comment. most are not relevant to strategy or advertising outside of the fact that everything actually is.

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ok this is pretty directly related…

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I am sure this is relevant but I cant quite figure out how.

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draft newsletter cover images from last month…

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1. Collect references

2. Creative stewing

3. Apply intentional and personal filter

4. Refine

this is the most important thing to learn as you progress from mid level to senior in your work. this is true of strategy and creative, but less considered with strat.

What is the filter you are intentionally applying to your work? A point of view is just a random window unless you are intentional in developing it.

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the apple in the garden of eden should be retconned as a clock.

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When Creating things, the traditional suggestion is to be Liberal first, conservative later. Or as it is often said in regards to writing – write drunk, edit sober.

But playing with order of operations… conservative first, liberal later (i.e. write sober, edit drunk) actually feels more interesting… and possibly a path to better results.

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WEEKLY MONSTER:

there is a lot I could share of things made over the holidays, but I am going to stick with this. A picture I found at my mom’s house in an old sketchbook of mine… my favorite part is the random butterfly.

I am not currently available for new projects for the foreseeable future, but if you have a need, please reach out. I’m sure I know someone I can recommend.