Audience Participation.

As my legion of readers know, I'm as prolific as Typhoid Mary (and about as popular.) 

Not only do I write this blog every day, I also usually post a "GeorgeCo" ad for my business almost every day. These ads get me probably one-third of my business, which is nothing to sneeze at--assuming sneezing is still allowed now that a madman is our dying nation's doyen of health.

Also, ensconced as I am with a slate of clients (touch wood) as long as the menu in an old Greek diner, I prolific-ize for them as well. 

If the way you boiled down the brief or the positioning or their attitude is good, rich and fecund, coming up for clients with fifty ads is as practicable and doable as coming up with the holding-company anachronistic belief that three ads is an adequate amount.

There's a little bit of the bible that Forbes magazine had stolen and used to use on their backpage--a page on which they'd print timely and wise quotations. Here's the whole thing, from Proverbs 4:7-9, with the part Forbes used as their page header highlighted. 

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: And with all thy getting get understanding."

Often when I am writing something, whether for this blog, my business of for a paying client--or to get a paying client--I have another writer look over what I've written.

That's how I get understanding.

In the early 1960s, the Chicago Cubs--the woeful Chicago Cubs fired their manager and replaced him with a "College of Coaches." After almost a decade-and-a-half of second-division finishes, they decided to try something different to see if it would reverse their fortunes. The Cubs would no-longer have a single manager, instead they'd be guided by an eight-man committee.

I have something of the same scrutinizing every bit of copy I write. Even if the people involved don't know it. Some of them are even dead.

Call it the College of Crotchety.

I always have my friend Rob Schwartz read my copy. By that I mean, I look at it through what I perceive is his perception. His quick, wise and astute view of the world. I always have Steve Hayden look over everything. Is it "correct"? Is it smart? Is it bigger than the assignment? Chris Wall reads what I write too. But that might just be me being mean to myself--in trying to live up to his nearly impossible standards.

My friend Debra Fried looks at things, too. I find her judgment especially important if I am using, as I do rarely, a writing scalpel as opposed to my usual bludgeon. Debra is a craftsperson and her taste is refined and adroit and, yes, demanding. She wields a sharp pencil. My wife, Laura, too, is a fine barometer. She often warns me when my words could cause some rough weather. 

Ed Butler and Harold Karp, bosses from the 1980s and 1990s read too. They were both "writers" who happened to be in advertising. Theirs are standards that cannot be ignored.

I'm not sure today that such super-ego-ism exists in advertising. Maybe this is an old man talking, but today people praise work not for its essential quality but just because it's made it out into the world. The standard has changed, from producing something notable to producing period.

The modern agency structure has something to do with that lowering. As does the predilection of our age, where everything cruddy piece of art deserves a place of honor on the refrigerator. To see the decay of taste and standards, you need look no further than the vomit of gold filigree puked onto every wall within 32-miles of the white house. You can put a laurel wreath on a donkey's ass, it's still a donkey's ass.

When I was young and working for the aforementioned Ed Butler, one of advertising's best writers in the 1970s and 1980s, Ed would, about four times a year see a print ad or a commercial he'd like. He'd drop everything at that point and find out who wrote it. Once he did, he'd write a hand-written note to the person. He wasn't after any quid pro quo--he looked for no recompense.

It was just a cosmic reminder that someone's watching. And pleasing that someone--and yourself--counts.

We lost something when we lost that.