Shut up.

Yesterday I had one of the worst days in a career marked by hundreds, if not thousands of worst days. I was forced to sit in perpetual meetings about work I will ultimately have to do populated by people who mouthed words that were almost completely devoid of meaning.

In one, a planner-type kept talking--endlessly talking--about doing things for one brand based on something a brand from a completely different category, with a completely different place in the market was able to do. It was like hearing someone talk about selling bicycle tires based upon the taste of Wheat Thins.

In another meeting twelve or so people on various phone connections across the country miscommunicated about something called a content strategy. I heard about editorial calendars. I heard about content creators. Until I spoke I heard nothing about consumers and what would interest them.

I read briefs, emails and comments from people and I might as well be reading Swahili, a language I do not comprehend. To wit, this note based on a simple solution that I proposed. "The only problem I see here is that these sorts of journeys (specifically on the consumer and client side [not treated in the attachment but anyway]) bump up against the content syndication model's consumer/client journey. The question is: do we accept the content syndication model as the roadmap (for lack of a better term) for the journey."

I have always known that the world can be divided, simply and decisively, in two. There are simplifiers. And complicators.

Bob Hoffman, that sage Ad Contrarian, has written about this better than I can. http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2010/02/age-of-complicator-part-1.html 

Pause.

I have just now happened across an interview with Milton Glaser, probably the world's foremost graphic designer and someone I had the absolute pleasure of working with for about a week one year or so ago. You can read the interview here: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/04/milton-glaser-21-questions.html But here's the question and answer I really liked:

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job? 
"I sit around pushing pieces of paper until they look right. "

In fact, I don't want to write about complications any more.

I just want complication to be over.