Sometimes, Big Picture sucks

May 26, 2010


A project is made up of smaller parts. Each smaller part is developed on its own. The success of the project depends on the smaller parts, working together, doing their smaller part thing and being of general use to everyone involved.

A Web site or a marketing campaign or a book or anything creative – they’re all created using some combination of strategy and action and implementation, and within each of these stages is a billion more pieces, and after those pieces are thrown together there’s another round of revision and .. seriously.

What a lot of work, right?

It’s no wonder we often let little mistakes slide. We go through a lot to get it close to a final project, and we fall in love with our mistakes because they came from us. They’re part of us. They make it us.

So we ignore them. And we chalk it up to seeing The Big Picture.

The Big Picture Screws You Up

I’m the kind of person who looks at the complete picture. That’s important. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what it says in all of those fancy marketing books, and that’s what you learn in college and, so, you know, it’s got to be true, amen.

But sometimes, looking at the big picture can distract from the details.

Sorry. Did I say sometimes? I meant all the time.

The Big Picture blurs the details. It allows us to forget the mistakes. It projects success to areas it may not belong, creating a net effect not unlike an optical illusion, our mind filling in the holes with what we assume should be there. It’s an effective way to plan, but an awful way to execute.

See, here’s the reason the Big Picture sucks sometimes: every detail matters, and when you’re working Big Picture, you have a habit of forgetting the frames therein. There’s a balance, dude. A balance.

A Real World Example: The Albums of Pink Floyd.

Yeah. I’m going there.

In the annals of Rock Stardom, Pink Floyd is often pushed into the top 10, especially by those who grew up in the 60s and 70s. They were innovative and wrote some great albums and opened up the airwaves to weird experimental stuff.

Growing up, I loved Pink Floyd. Could not find a single item of fault, from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn to The Division Bell, I was utterly in love. They could do no wrong.

Essentially, it was a Big Picture fandom. At the time, I didn’t possess the filter that allowed me to love a band while simultaneously hating an album FROM that band. I couldn’t do it. So while there were certain albums I’d never listen to – because, you know, I didn’t really like them – I couldn’t transfer it to the band as a whole.

There’s a reason Pink Floyd isn’t mentioned in the same breath as The Beatles. Outside their stretch of five albums in the 70s, in which no one could touch them (Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall), they put out a lot of crap.

Big Picture, they’re a classic band. Look at the details, and you’ve got The Final Cut. And that album is an absolute piece of shit.

Which Brings Us To…

Okay, so here’s the awful truth: changing our process from campaign-driven to detail-driven is impossible.

Well, hey. It’s POSSIBLE. But it’s not RECOMMENDED.

Because, when it comes down to it, we need the Big Picture. Without it, we have no direction.

But we need to change our mindset, understanding that the overarching strategy and plan is a roadmap toward a final product, not the final product itself. And, we need to understand that the Big Picture may change as we wade through the details, and we need all parties on the same page, realizing that the Devil’s in those details, and the Devil never wants to make things easy.

The Devil would just as soon you not notice him at all.

Tags: Career, Music, On... |

Comment

Devils Tower on the horizon

May 25, 2010


Devil's Tower (c)AAA

There’s a stretch of Interstate 90 – near the Wyoming/South Dakota border – where, on a clear day, you can see Devils Tower on the horizon.

When I was young, we’d drive past it in the early morning on the way home; our trip from Jackson Hole to Sioux Falls always included a break for the night in nearby Gillette.

It looks no bigger than a thimble. But there it is. Just a few miles away, promising something fantastic – that is, if you’re willing to veer off track and head in a different direction.

There’s a lesson there, I guess. About the limitless potential of traveling the nation’s Interstates. Or about following your dreams.

Whichever works for you this morning.

Tags: Career, On..., Travel, Vilhauer |

Comment

Jupiter’s Band

May 21, 2010


Jupiter lost a band.

Jupiter. The planet. It lost a band – a band that measures thousands of miles across. Just woke up one morning and it had gone away.

I doubt Jupiter has changed much since it first entered our lives, probably in a grade school science book, its massive gravitational pull represented by a tie-died circle in between the familiarity of Mars and the beauty of Saturn. The picture we saw then is much like the picture we still see today. Stable. A planet, right? A PLANET.

Well, until now.

The band will come back – it always does – but what if it doesn’t?

There’s a lesson here. It’s different for everyone, but it still follows the same pattern: you wake up, and several years’ worth of slow, incremental change comes rushing in at once. It takes a special kind of person to see that happening in real-time. Most of us simply end up surprised.

Ask newspapers. The traditional advertising agency. Yahoo.

Ask those in charge of shaping the political landscape. Ask the multi-millionaire rock star who’s failed to keep track of his money. Ask the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Ask someone who wakes up to find they’ve spent ten years at a dead-end job, wondering where the time had gone, frightened that they’ve let opportunity pass and, oh god, is it too late to turn back?

Our takeaway, I suppose, is to open our eyes. To make sure that, whatever it is we’re doing, we’re moving forward and evolving. Or, if moving forward isn’t a goal, to at least make sure we’re happy. Because, after a few years, after a glacier’s pace of adjustment, after the slow shift of tectonic plates, we might jar awake and discover what we’ve lost.

Ask Jupiter.

Tags: Career, On... |

Comment

Seek. Meet. Learn. (Repeat.)

May 18, 2010


You don’t know everything. I don’t know everything. No one alive knows everything.

Change “everything” to “everything in your chosen field” and it still won’t be true. Change it even further, to “as much as you need to know” and now you’re just fooling yourself.

It’s true that you know something. I know something. Everyone knows something. We all know different amounts of something – some are experts on one kind of something, and you might have a solid grasp on another kind of something.

But, when it comes down to it, we don’t know the same somethings.

This is where the greatest potential lies: in swapping somethings and gaining a more complete picture of the things that make up our world.

Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before

When we encounter people with a vast amount of knowledge, we ultimately have three choices: we can compete, we can defer, or we can learn.

Competition comes from arrogance and shows an unwillingness to grow. Deference is steeped in anxiety and a fear of being seen as stupid or dull or unskilled.

Learning is humble. It makes us better, while simultaneously giving a little dap to the person we see as the teacher. It builds relationships. Oh, man – there’s that word. Relationships.

Relationships, people. We’re not talking social media 2.0 synergy blah blah, but real relationships – built upon common interests, tied together by respect, unconcerned about whether you’re properly networking or if this is just a waste of time cuz you’ll never get funding from this sap without twisting the knife.

Nope. We’re talking real relationships. The ones without an agenda. The ones that benefit both sides.

Ask Stupid Questions

It doesn’t have to be all career-oriented and serious. It can be just an informal chat on something you’re interested in.

I don’t know as much about radio (or plants for that matter) as Ted from Rock Garden Tour, but I had a blast talking to him the other day about radio and plants and the art therein. I don’t know as much about indie rock as Scott, but that didn’t stop me from trying to follow along as he rattled off a billion bands I’d never heard of after recording The Ledge. I ask the photographers I admire about photography. I pushed into the world of Web and UX with expert knowledge and direction from one person who will become my boss in a few weeks and another who I only know through the Internet.

I’ve learned from all of them by asking stupid questions.

That’s. How. You. Do. It.

I won’t deny it. I’ve been that Competition guy. And I’ve been that Deference guy. I didn’t want to look stupid so I didn’t want to talk to people who were smarter than I was and in the event I did – watch out! – I tried to outdo them.

I’m willing to bet that you’ve been there too. Or maybe you’re still there.

It’s not easy to break out of those habits. To talk to people. To glean knowledge, not force it. But if I’ve learned one thing in the past decade, it’s this:

Stop trying to KNOW. Start trying to LEARN.

The Moral

Seek out the people you admire. Offer to buy them lunch or a beer or a pack or basketball cards or whatever it is that gets them excited and just talk to them about whatever they’re passionate about. Ask questions, but mostly just listen.

You’ll get more. They’ll get more.

Everyone wins.

Tags: Career, On..., Technology |

Comment

On Spoon and white space

May 14, 2010


Why Spoon? Why can’t I get them out of my head?

First, they’re awesome. They’re unique. More than that, though, they have a hidden talent for doing an awful lot with only a few sounds.

Spoon – Written in Reverse from Merge Records.

Spoon, sonically, are the embodiment of effective white space. They get so loud, with such a deep groove, without wasting a single note; it’s as if they’ve carefully selected each individual sound, one at a time, like a real-life version of Mario Paint.

In doing this, they make the loud parts so much more dynamic – each long note allowing the song to come up for air, inhale, fill the lungs, and dive back down for more bursts of turgidity.

I have always had a hard time turning away from Spoon. Now I understand that, unwillingly, they’re steeped in good design. Makes perfect sense, I guess.

(And, dude. The bass player from The Get Up Kids is in the band, now. FROM THE GET UP KIDS. People, DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M SAYING?)

Tags: Music, On... |

Comment

The “Aha” moment

May 10, 2010


Sierra used to draw in scribbles. She colored to see the colors, not to make shapes; more interested in the basic elements of creation, she had no regard for form or development or art.

And then, one day, she began drawing people.

There was no in between. It was as if everything clicked into place at once, the idea of a body, the idea of a face, the idea of arms and legs, all in relative agreement and, though most of her drawings look like Ralph Steadman-inspired Humpty Dumptys, they are, without a doubt, PEOPLE.

These are “aha moments,” the currency of learning, when a concept suddenly snaps to grid. As we get older, these dynamic leaps become less common. Learning becomes gradual and the massive gaps from knowing to not knowing are filled in by experience.

As a student teacher, aha moments drove me to continue. Teaching science to junior high kids is a non-stop parade of aha moments. But they’re not groundshaking – an aha moment in a kid is a helpful byproduct of teaching.

Now, my aha moments are less about concepts and more about shifts in perception and principle. I’ll never rediscover the carbon cycle, but I CAN discover something I’d once thought impossible, or come to a realization that goes against my personal conventional wisdom.

Really, they might as well be called “Holy shit, that makes total sense!” moments. Or “You mean that’s really a thing?” moments. I had it the first time I realized you could make a career out of caring about content on the Web. I had it the first time I understood how much more fulfilling a day in the yard with your kids can be if you just let go of the damned yardwork.

What I guess I’m trying to say is that we never stop having aha moments. God forbid you ever DO stop, you guys. It’ll just mean you’ve stopped trying to figure out the world.

Tags: On..., Sierra, Vilhauer |

2 Comments

Why You Should Remember to Listen to the Radio

April 29, 2010


Radio, at its most basic, is free-form thought. It’s sound and sound only; your imagination filling in the color, erasing the blanks. When it’s good, it seems effortless, though anyone who’s done it live knows better: radio is a cruel mistress, unwavering in its ability to make you look bad, yet increasingly rewarding to those who can game the system and mold it to their needs.

At its best, radio is a stream of stories: music, commentary, editing, all layered to create a soundscape. Its ability to form around our experiences – like mud around a stuck boot, soaking into our thoughts and muddying our expectations – brings us closer to the elements of human communication than any other medium. Its mission isn’t to entertain as much as it’s to entrench, to leave us in the driveway waiting for climax, for a punch line, for satisfaction.

At its worst, radio is commercial. And when it reaches that point, it’s lost the ability to truly communicate, trading build-up for instant gratification, sacrificing creativity for popularity until it’s no longer palatable to anyone but the most middle-of-the-road; the most safe.

I guess what I’m saying is this: listen to the Rock Garden Tour.

And not just because I happen to make two cameos this week.

Do it because it’s probably time you were reminded how fantastic radio can be if you just manage to tune the dial correctly.

Tags: Journalism, Music, On... |

2 Comments

← Previous Page — Next Page →