Breaking In: Advice from 100 Advertising Rockstars

Phoenix from the ashes of advertising, or what the big idea has to do with collaboration.

It’s a tumultuous and uncertain age for many industries and cultural facets as we grapple with difficult questions about the future of publishing, education, art and many other aspects of humanity. Media and advertising are among the industries most deeply unsettled by “the digital age” and all the new modalities of social communication. But if the industry itself is shaken by a profound identity crisis, unsure of what creative merit means anymore, what’s left for those hungry and wide-eyed young guns looking for a dream job in that industry? That’s exactly what Breaking In, an ambitious new anthology by William Burks Spencer, explores through over 100 interviews with advertising insiders, who share experience-tested, credibility-stamped insights on building an exceptional portfolio that will get you hired.

The project took over four years to complete and, though certainly a boys’ club, features a formidable roster of agency rockstars the likes of Dan Wieden, Gerry Graf, David Droga, Bob Greenberg, and Ari Merkin.

What a lot of people are looking for these days is 360-degree thinking. So I’m looking for someone who is not bound by medium but bound by the idea, and media is there to support that idea.” ~ Ji Lee, Creative Director, Google Creative Lab, New York

If the writing is absolutely brilliant, people will forgive anything. We all hear stories of this great guy that was discovered by writing concepts on a napkin, and I think that’s awesome. I actually know that great guy. But that’s probably in keeping with the rest of his or her personality, naturally. It can happen, but if you’re one of those people you probably already know it, and you’re not reading this.” ~ Monica Taylor, Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy, Portland

It’s an interesting time. The industry has changed so much, but clearly, the principles in the industry are still very much the same. But there are so many different influences now. We can influence so many different industries and collaborate with more industries. I think it makes it more exciting.” ~ David Droga, Founder & Creative Chairman, Droga5, New York

Ideas are really important, but the way that the traditional side of the business values “the big idea” is completely out of balance with the way that you actually produce work in the digital space. I say all the time, ‘The Greatest idea in the world, unproduced, has no value whatsoever. A mediocre idea, produced, has some incremental value.’ So why is the value always placed on the big idea when getting this into the world is so important?” ~ Michael Lebowitz, Founder & CEO, Big Spaceship, New York

(Sound familiar?)

These are strange days for our business. Massive shifts are taking place and nobody is entirely sure what the agency of the future will look like. I imagine there’s a ton of pressure on students to demonstrate their ability to keep up with everything new. But proceed with caution here. Sometimes, the best idea isn’t about new media, it’s simply a new idea. There’s no substitute for a smart human insight.” ~ Ari Merkin, Executive Creative Director, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami

Breaking In comes with a fantastic companion site, where interview excerpts and award-winning work by the interviewees are being posted daily.

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Enchantment: Guy Kawasaki’s Guide to Success

De-fluffing authenticity, or why your cause is your only yellow brick road to success.

Why is it that we caress our iPhones so tenderly? What is it about putting on a pair of Nikes that makes us run faster and jump higher? How come merely seeing Facebook’s blue logo gives us a rush of connectedness and belonging? Business guru Guy Kawasaki may be equally celebrated and reviled for his unique brand of media entrepreneurship, but one thing is certain: The former Chief Evangelist at Apple knows a thing or two about stirring passion and building cults around it. That’s precisely what he captures in his new book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions — an essential handbook for making ideas resonate, sitting at the intersection of business, creativity and persuasion.

It causes voluntary change of hearts and minds and therefore actions. It is more than manipulating people to help you get your way. It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility. It reshapes civility into affinity. It changes skeptics and cynics into believers.” ~ Guy Kawasaki

Kawasaki offers a thoughtful guide to transforming both personal and professional interactions from transactional what’s-in-it-for-me’s into lasting, trusting, meaningful connections. Ultimately, he makes a case for what we all intuitively believe — that success is the product of, above all, being a good person — but wraps this ethos in grounded case studies and examples from some of the world’s most passion-driven brands.

Enchantment of others, or yourself, is a process, not an event. It’s like fitness: you don’t stay fit without continuous effort. Maybe it’s an Asian thing: simple to learn but a lifetime to master. The best way to keep yourself enchanted is to enjoy the process. We had a saying in the Macintosh Division: “The journey is the reward.” If you can embrace this attitude, you’ll be enchanted and enchant others for a long, long time.” ~ Guy Kawasaki

We couldn’t help but find Kawasaki’s thinking remarkably similar to the ethos of Polaroid inventor Edwin Land circa 1942, perhaps bespeaking an essential ingredient of entrepreneurship.

The 99% has an excellent interview with Kawasaki. Still not convinced you actually need to read it? Take Guy’s Realistic Enchantment Aptitude Test — a 23-question self-exam that tests just how masterful your enchantment skills are and where you may need help.

The pillars of enchantment are likeability, trustworthiness, and greatness. Greatness refers to the quality of your product, service, idea — in other words, your cause. Sharing your dream is a key part of enchantment.” ~ Guy Kawasaki

Enchantment is out this month and is already shortlisted for our selection of the best business books of 2011.

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The Art of Immersion: Dissecting the Future of Storytelling

Groping our way into next-gen entertainment, or how the original Star Wars trilogy birthed Lost.

Audiences expect more from their entertainment in 2011. Twenty years into our collective online experience, every genre of traditional popular art — books, film, television — is undergoing profound changes in form and function. A new book from Wired contributor Frank Rose called The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories assembles case studies that both analyze the past and predict the future of fun.

We stand now at the intersection of lure and blur. The future beckons, but we’re only partway through inventing it. We can see the outlines of a new art form, but its grammar is as tenuous and elusive as the grammar of cinema a century ago.

Through interviews with the co-creators of Lost, über-director James Cameron, Sims creator Will Wright and others, Rose describes the new narratives enabled by the interactive possibilities of the Internet. Call it transmedia, gameification, cross-platform convergence, or any other cringe-worthy neologism coined by marketers, we do participate in our pastimes more than ever before. And Rose’s book also contains the critical heft, historical scope, and recent research into brain science that take it beyond these trendy tropes.

[E]very new medium that’s been invented, from print to film to television to cyberspace, has increased the transporting power of narrative. And every new medium has aroused fear and even hostility as a result.

For an authoritative tour of the frontiers of amusement, read the just published The Art of Immersion. Perhaps the 3-D game version is forthcoming?

Kirstin Butler is writing an adaptation of Gogol for the Google era called Dead SULs, but when not working spends far, far too much time on Twitter. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA.

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