Minute by minute, assignment by assignment, as communicators we must focus on getting through to people. There's no sense creating a piece of elegance and beauty if it is not noticed, if it is nothing more than wallpaper.
More often than not, breaking through, getting noticed, being intrusive involves being a pain in the ass. It's so much easier for clients, agencies et al to decide simply to blend in. No one is offended. I've heard it expressed this way--from an ex-client: "Fly low, fly slow and try not to crash."
I'm thinking about this this morning as I picked up my next book, Freeman Dyson's "The Scientist As Rebel." Early in Chapter 1, Dyson quotes a rebel who changed the world, Albert Einstein:
"When I was in the seventh grade...I was summoned by my home-room teacher who expressed the wish that I leave the school. To my remark that I had done nothing amiss, he replied only, "Your mere presence spoils the respect of the class for me."
I bring this up because often creatives and creativity "spoils the respect" of the best-practice-ites, of the incrementalists, of the status-quo-ers.
But it is our job. Not spoiling respect. But questioning, challenging and in the ungrammatical words of Apple and Chiat/Day do(ing)something different.
