(post from early August)
I think the hardest thing for me in advertising, and as a creative, is to willingly giving my ideas away and be okay with people claiming it as their own specifically when working on a team. This next bit has got to be one of the best, most frequently repeated piece of advice I’ve gotten from this whole summer of seminars, webinars, “intern Tuesdays” (more seminars), and networking: Give your ideas away. There are plenty where those came from and those are the things that get built upon. I’m still drilling into my head that in advertising everything is about collaboration (pretty much life, too).
This post stems from that fact that my agency has an intern program where every other week or so we’re split up in groups and we have to make pitch. We have 4 days to create everything. Today we got our assignment and we present Friday.
My group met up twice today. In the morning, we talked about what we were working with. Throughout the day, the other intern who sits by me and I talked about a bunch of things. I threw a shit ton of ideas that, at the time, she seemed “meh” about. When we get to our second meeting she pitches the things I threw at her as “things I (as in she) thought of”. I know, I know. I’m being petty. I’m marrying my ideas. Seriously though, she could have said things “we” talked about. I would have positioned it as “we”.
So, this is where “giving your ideas away” comes into real life. I responded by saying “yeah when I told you that” and “when I told you this.” That wasn’t the right way to respond, but I was so stunned by how she positioned it that my perspective and judgement were a bit foggy. Looking back, I could have easily just ignored that and built upon it without mentioning that it was my idea. It was petty of me, but at least I learned instantly… right after that meeting anyway.
In the end, our idea ended up being based off of something I just blurted out and they liked. Who said I needed to marry my ideas in the scheme of things? We’re a group. All of our ideas meshed together is what will make this pitch, THE pitch.
Kids, the moral of the story is that when you collaborate don’t be an asshole. Even if you really are a huge asshole pretend that you’re not a huge asshole for the sake of collaboration. Nobody wants to work with an asshole. Give your ideas away. Give them with discretion and good judgment, but give them away. The more people you can get your arms around the more you can do with an idea.
Two heads are better than one and all that crap. Let’s just say it takes an army to make an idea real. By sharing it, you recruit and you cultivate.
Get sharing.
