Patience.

One of the many things that has afflicted our industry over the years is the diminishment of response or reaction time. We have trained ourselves, in this "visual" era, to respond almost instantaneously to the messages we see. Visuals, after all, evoke reactions. Immediate and visceral.

In times of yore, which were more word driven, reaction time was a bit slower. We had to read the eight, 10 or 15 words in a headline. Reading demanded thought. Thinking was more important than reaction.

So what has been lost along the way is patience and the appreciation of the way the mind works.

What I've noticed over the course of my last ten commercial shoots is that many people--art directors, mostly--want to jump on the director and make comments within the first few moments of a shot. They want everything immediately. They don't give things time to develop. They don't think, they react.

Patience, consideration, mulling are all necessary components of thought.

Reaction is just reaction.