Free Agent Adventures

There are new bedfellows in the world of communications.

I had an interesting week of facilitating workshops and guest lecturing. Standing in front of people and trying to add value – acting like (as my late uncle used to say) I knew what I was doing.

Two key takeaways from the week of acting like I knew what I was doing:

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You can disregard the underlying conclusions of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s book Manufacturing Consent. But you have to admire their ability to delineate between systems and conspiracies.

The media, from my layman perspective of Chomsky and Herman’s central point, is a business. Like any business, it operates to generate a profit. Anything that acts against that fundamental premise isn’t tolerated within its system. Like an ecosystem that works to destroy a threatening virus, stories that dissent against the media’s main drivers of profit (thus the elite that gain the most from its prosperity) simply aren’t tolerated.

Chomsky and Herman are saying that it’s simply a systems issue with the media: resources are funneled toward their prime purpose. It creates a set of filters that allow or disallow stories to be told. Again, disagree with their findings. But the idea that there isn’t a backroom group of people that make decisions based on political agendas is helpful when looking at governing systems in general.

Like any enterprise, business schools are governed by a system. We can split hairs about the exact nature of their system, but one thing is certain. For many business schools, rankings help define it.

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I know someone with volunteerism in her blood. She’s sat on just about every board in her profession – sequentially, that is. She doesn’t board-bag. She ads value.

She’s starting her own organization now. The natural progression from member to leader to creator. It isn’t easy. She’ll be the first to tell you.

To make room for her new pursuits she had to quit a board with a cause she believes in and a president she admires. It was going to be hard, something she wasn’t looking forward to.

So how does someone so involved, so committed, quit?

She committed – gave her word – to the president that she would start the organization she’s working on. And that by so doing actually be able to help his organization more sustainably by feeding him new young leaders with an understanding of community involvement.

A great learning moment for me. Quit something by continuing to add value beyond your commitment. Quit something by remaining dedicated to the purpose – ensure it isn’t a fleeting interest.

Mos Def gave an interview at the end of a performance with K’Naan on Austin City Limits not long ago. (You can view the episode here and the interviews here.) Apparently this was the first hip hop episode for the venerable country-cum-Americana-jam/hippy-band show. It was also the first time I heard such a genuinely honest response by a creative mind to the all-too-common question of inspiration.

You could see Mos Def hesitate at first. A self-censored moment where he wondered if a transparent answer would somehow mitigate the fantasy we put around artists in the entertainment industry – the necessary fantasy for him and those like him to sell records and fill concert halls. But he came through, mos def:

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As a newly self-employed guy, I very much appreciate blogs that catalog the trials of the free agent. To name a few: Steven DeMaio, Erik Proulx and recently (I hope)Chris Spagnuolo. I guess this is my contribution to some already-great thinking out there, for whatever it’s worth.

Oh – and Happy Indian Republic Day!

Everybody looses things once gained. It can be terribly depressing and deflating.

Your books are a mess despite once having the perfect accounting routine and system. You can’t run five miles anymore even though you once ran a half marathon. You used to network regularly but have been out of the scene for so long you can’t imagine going back to a room full of strangers. You lost sight of your kids’ soccer games this summer after getting to all of them last season.

Happens to all of us. As sure as we’ve all sent a regrettable email, open the refrigerator again, skim stuff we should read.

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I had a conversation this morning with an up-and-coming consultant who I’m sure will set the world on fire once she finds her stride. It was a conversation about bad things happening to a good someone with even better intentions.

She was burned as bad as I’ve heard someone getting burned with a trade agreement. It was a harsh learning experience for her, the kind of pill anyone who’s a free agent has been forced to swallow at one time or another. She asked for my perspective and since I had never articulated my guiding principles for this kind of thing, it was something I learned from as well.

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A few cows I ran into during a recent trip to Naskik, India.

Here we go again. Another joke at the expense of the ever stupid and boorish client providing me with another opportunity for my soapbox: the ad agency industry is struggling to demonstrate its value in today’s radically changing marketing landscape. It needs to put an end to its practice of openly disrespecting those who look to them to add value. It doesn’t help.

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