STRATSCRAPS_v140

Monetized Existence

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For the first time, I planned out the topics of a newsletter in advance. In theory, this newsletter will contain the following;

1. Projects I worked on in 2023 (my one chance to somewhat organically self promote).

2. My biggest lesson from 1 year of being independent

3. New Scraps

4. Important old scraps

5. Goals for this year

6. Hire my friends.

As a result, this is a long one¹. You may will need to read on substack to see full post rather than in email.

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PROJECTS IN 2023:

The weird thing about freelance strategy is that you aren’t always around for the development of the creative work. Not to metion, I can’t share the work I’m most proud of. So I’m going to just list out some work and clients that I had a lot of fun with and maybe share some descriptions of what I did.

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Featured Work: Working New Zealand time with Motion Sickness. (A reminder that advertising should be fun)

My first official freelance client, I did a number of projects for Auckland agency Motion Sickness throughout the year.

I helped with a number of projects – although in a very different manner than I typically work with U.S. based agencies.

Strategy and Creative worked in tandem, and there wasn’t always “a strategy” that kicked off or even guided the creative work – Instead, I was plugged in as a thinking partner.

While none of my thinking made it explicitly into the final work for either of these projects, I’d like to think that I contributed to where they arrived. Because it is really good work. And that is more important than getting to say I came up with something all on my own…

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Project 1: Big Save (NZ discount furniture retailer)

Project 2: Auckland Transport Safety Campaign

Nice.

Shout out to Head of Strategy Hilary Ngan Kee, ECD/Founder Sam Stuchbury, and the whole Motion Sickness crew. 

I highlight these because of how good the work is despite as a result of how casual and fun the process was.

Working with Motion Sickness reminded me that advertising is supposed to be fun. If creative reviews aren’t enjoyable, the project already failed.

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Other Agencies I worked with this year:

• VIRTUE, the Creative Agency by VICE

  • New Client brand campaign brief writing and pitching

• STINK STUDIOS

  • New Business Pitch work (social)

• Day One Agency ²

  • Internal Strategy Training Program for all current and future Strategy hires to complete, as well as other agency departments to better understand how to work with Strategy team.

• BASIC AGENCY

  • New business pitch work (brand campaign)

• Party Land*³

  • Worked with creative team on the client’s behalf to make sure that the work wasn’t getting watered down but still hitting what the client was asking for in feedback.

Some Brands I worked on this year (some via the above agencies, some directly)

• Audible - User Growth Campaign

• Auckland Transport - Behavior Change Campaign

• Big Save Furniture - Brand Campaign

• eharmony⁴ - Comms Plan and Strategy for Brand Campaign

• Odd Company RTDs - Brand Relaunch

• Poppi Soda - Brand & Product Campaign

• Progressive Insurance - Social Strategy

~~ 75% of the projects I worked on this year came through this newsletter. So thank you everyone who subscribes, you made it possible for me to go freelance in 2023. ~~

🫶

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The Biggest Lesson I learned from my first year of Independent Strategy Work

I was going to try and make a list of things I learned, but there has really been just one thing that’s continued to stick with me (other than “save your expense receipts”)…

The lesson is the result of two unique things I came to understand

1. Strategy is not a necessary part of the process. We are a value add. We don’t make the thing. We make the thing more effective than it would have been otherwise.
   

2. If you are being paid to be somewhere⁵, you have an obligation to provide value.

These two truths came together in the following realization;

Compromising on strategy thinking or letting bad work get made without a fight is a failure of the strategist’s obligation.

Our job is to make work better and more effective than it would have been otherwise.

If you aren’t standing up for what you know to be true in that pursuit, you are ripping off the client.

Strategy is only worth it if we fight for the best work possible. Otherwise why are we there?

That doesn’t mean you should be difficult to work with. Strive for the opposite. But it does mean that if you’re on a project, the work damn well should be stronger than it would have been without you.

Demand what you need to make that happen.

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NEW SCRAPS

Shout out to Joel Stein. Check out his consultancy business which has a way cooler name than mine.

https://chaosand.co

As well as his newsletter Weirdness Wins

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via the very good book “Do Interesting” by Russell Davies.

A quote from this very good book:

“Don’t hunt for diamonds. Become fascinated by pebbles”

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My books of the year. Some were actually published this year. Some are new to me this year, and some are have just been especially relevant. (one isn’t actually publicly available, but I’m sharing because I like what it represents.

Do Interesting by Russell Davies. See quote etc above.

The agile comms handbook by Giles Turnbull. This is the kind of work I want to do more of. Inter-team communication consulting and org design strategy. Process and ways of working.

Offline Matters by Jess Henderson.. Possibly the most important book for those of us in the creative industry. At least it was for me.

Bad Manners. This is an a book on art theory. the whole book is a conversation between two critics (/artists?) about the concept of defacing other’s art to make your own. Much to be applied beyond the art world.

Reflections on Understanding Media. This is an artifact coming out of a book club Matt Klein hosted. I wasn’t even in the book club but I managed to snag a copy. More important than the content is the concept. Making things as a way of thinking as as a way of preserving thought. I want a book made from every post mortem I’ve ever been in.

Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Pretty mainstream at this point but the hard copy is worth it. Reading it is the most efficient description of being human I’ve encountered.

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I believe that one of the greatest mistakes made by human beings is to want certainties when trying to understand something. The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical absence of certainty. Thanks to the acute awareness of our ignorance, we are open to doubt and can continue to learn and to learn better. This has always been the strength of scientific thinking—thinking born of curiosity, revolt, change.

- Carlo Rovelli

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The fatal problem with poetry: poems.
- unknown

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I was served this ad. It struck me that the very thing they are referencing as a reason to use the product is the very reason I wouldnt want to… I don’t want my software to be an elephant-human-crocodile-trex-dragon-frog-creature.

I want things that do one thing really well. (and integrations, but thats beside the point).

»»

Every feature addition is another crack in the whole. Don’t make your concepts in chimeras.

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an oldie but goodie. Something I made once that I use as a starting point for thought relatively often.

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via Zen and the art of Cubicle Freedom, by Nicholas Bate

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everything can (and often should) be reframed;

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The hardest piece of my own advice for me to follow

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This is the kind of communication I want from brands. In a moment that could have been full of internal panic and stress, they had fun while still communicating the needed info. And I love them for it.

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Ask “what for” more…

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Have more than you show, speak less than you know.

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Efficiency is not the point. Not with ads. And not with doing the work. I can type faster than I can write, but outlines are more effective when done by hand.

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Computers are tools of execution. Writing is a tool for thought”

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HIRE MY FRIENDS

I’ve been wanting to put this together for some time. Realized I didn’t need to complicate it – a google doc is a perfect format for this…

THE LIVING “HIRE MY FRIENDS” document. Updated constantly with people who I have personally worked with and vouch for.

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And finally, some self promos;

The strategy Scrapbook, as always is available to buy in print here. You can view/DL the PDF here.

You can read about my freelance practice here. You can also read about what I am building as far as a business here.

I save most things to are.na, found here.

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Coming soon:

• Strategy Liner Notes Subscription

• FUNCTIONAL links to previously shared materials

• Working in public style google drive folder of WIP stuff and finished projects (you know, put everything in one place)

• Alem Labs Art collective relaunch and web store.

• Lots of stuff that nobody could have predicted.

• Heat Death of the universe.

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NEED STRATEGY? LET’S TALK. 📞

1. (so long in fact that I had to cut numbers 4 and 5)

2. the first ever agency I worked at, as the first official employee

3. Not hired by, but worked with via the eharmony project

4. this might be the work I’m most excited to see go live

5. Freelance or not, we are all being paid to be somewhere if we are employed.