After my agency offsite last night I went to one of those Ted-like lectures where people who have never done, made or thought anything tell you exactly what is wrong with the world, how to fix it and why they're right and everyone else is wrong. It made me think of a previous post of mine.
I've never had a re-run post before and I've written over 2,000--but I can't shake the quotation below from my head. (BTW quotation is a noun. Quote is a verb. Almost everyone uses the word "quote" incorrectly. Another spike of the ass of literacy.)
Anyway, the rerun post, it was called "Scoundrels."
Reading people is an important skill. Not pre-judging, but reading. If you're in advertising I have a simple thesis. Don't trust anyone. Especially anyone that uses words like "model," "monetization," "process," and a few others. They are scoundrels, plain and simple.
In "The Captive Mind", Czeslaw Milosz's memoir/essay/study about artists and intellectuals living under Communism in the early 1950s, he attributed the epigram below to an ancient Jew from Galacia. Makes sense doesn't it?
"When someone is honestly 55% right, that's very good and there's no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it's wonderful, it's great luck, and let him thank God. But what's to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever says he's 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal."
2 comments:
Jesus George, you're back channeling the dark side. Its not all life and death, black and white. There are some great presentations Ive seen at TED. I like you much better when you're not channeling your inner curmudgeon. I doubt you can live up to the stringent and unyielding standards you expect others, industry to conform to. Live a little. Manichean Sturm un Drang gets boring. You're alive not dead. That;s an awesome thing. Let's start there.
Yes, by all means we should avoid words like "model". Let's use "a woman who wears clothes she doesn't own in order to demonstrate the shape" or "a small version of something big so that we might get an initial idea of what the boat/building/plane might look like".
And monetization? Yes, let's avoid that as well. People shouldn't pursue anything associated with making money in the world of advertising. Some big holding company will buy us and we'll all be saved!
It's not words that are flawed, George. It's incorrect use of said words.
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