I’ve had a lot of time for introspection lately; as I write this, I’m 2.5 days away from unemployment. I’ve discovered that looming outcome invites a range of thoughts—that’s even more true when you have a baby at home and the myriad of responsibilities that are part of adult life. But it also gets you thinking about your chosen field.
My work has spanned a number of industries, but I’ve been involved in marketing and communications for more than a decade. That’s enough time to either cash in by kissing the right hands or cash out and go teach; I won’t do the former, and my wife does the latter, so I may be stuck with freelance work until a new position opens up. Until then, I have plenty of time to look and document important lessons many of us in marketing have forgotten:
Remain humble
When I was in corporate (read: mostly traditional) marketing, I got to hear how all that new-fangled, upstart interwebs stuff was full of punk kids and techno geeks who have better relationships with their computers than they do with markets. On the digital side, I’ve had to listen about how people who read print on paper-based materials and create display or broadcast advertising don’t understand market shifts and are simply wasting time and money. Guess what? Both sides are wrong.
As marketers and communicators, we all must remain humble about our position in the world and our abilities to divine what will help our clients or employers. We don’t know it all; a 25-year-old social media devotee, bike rider, and hourly blogger may offer as many insights and solutions as a 65-year-old ad executive who stubbornly drives a ’77 Cadillac and doesn’t even own a computer. Avoid thinking you’re smarter than everyone else, and please—oh, please—stop saying things like “They don’t get it.”
Clock out and unplug
If there’s one lesson here that I often forget, it’s this one. The problem is that it’s becoming harder and harder to do, especially as each one of us is carrying a mini computer in our pockets that checks the weather, streams video, updates Twitter, geotags photos, and—just every once in a while—serves as a phone. Plus, we spend our days behind bigger computers that we treat better than family and, occasionally, give names to (you know who you are).
The funny thing is that many of today’s marketers insist these tools bring us closer together—we’re connected worldwide, 24/7, after all—when the truth is the reach, lack of boundaries, and overwhelming number of connections tend to result in shallow relationships with everyone. Just as we’re information rich and knowledge poor, we’re acquaintance rich and relationship poor. Unplug and spend time with those you really care about, or you may find yourself as the loneliest person in the world with thousands of online fans.
Have fun
To be fair, I’m not just talking about marketing folks here—everybody needs to remember to have fun. Business should be fun. Advocacy should be fun. Life should be fun. Better yet, it should be done in a way that doesn’t seem scripted by a brewery or feature Jim Carrey. If you think that’s just a bit too limiting, take a look at how companies like Houston-based Jenni’s Noodle House keep things lively.
A friend out of the Houston area mentioned them to me, and while I don’t necessarily have a tremendous love for noodles, I do appreciate when a business has fun. I’m guessing Jenni didn’t conduct a ton of focus groups or market tests before running with the “It’s all good in the noodlehood” slogan or writing out noodle-inspired haiku on her site. My apologies, Jenni, if you did—it just seems like spontaneous fun to me. We’re all entitled to laugh, smile, and squeeze every bit of enjoyment from what we do.
I save this one for the last for a couple of reasons. For one, I didn’t want this post to sound preachy. Moreover, this is the most important point I can make; after an extended job search, I might be tempted to revise it, but it should remain at the front of my mind. This is fun stuff, everybody.