VOICES: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

I just contributed a piece to the new "Voices" section of Canada's Ad Buzz, my favorite new industry blog. It covers what I wish I had learned starting out in the business. It's terribly candid and most of it quite true.

New posts up at The Faster Times, The Nervous Breakdown and This I Believe

Vacation in Israel got me behind in essay writing but now I'm catching up.

First, to be timely, it's politics and election season. I know it's not a very nice (and admittedly, possibly naive) thing to say but here's the new The Faster Times ad column: Advertising Politics: The Best Ads are the Negative Ads. In it, there's also a personal anecdote from a college campaign which just came back to me. 

On a more personal side, a recent overdue visit to the dermatologist had me thinking about our expectations when we go to the doctor. So up is my second post at The Nervous Breakdown for which I'm now a contributor in the memoirs and essays sections. I love this online magazine, some really terrific writers, writing, book reviews and even a book club you can join. On the trip, I started TNB creator Brad Listi's novel Attention. Deficit. Order which I recommend. Quite good + funny. You can also keep track of my TNB posts here.

Separately, I just learned from This I Believe that my essay was accepted. Really honored; it's such a storied show and project capturing voices and deeply held beliefs. Mine is about an important lesson I learned from my very first boss, Dennis Ferrone, which has stayed with me. You can find the essay here.

Faster writing

Excited and honored to become the first advertising columnist in The Faster Times. Great paper. I try to lay out my principles for it in the first post. I'm trying to do it weekly or bi-weekly depending on how much of a groove I can get into but Tuesday looks like it'll be my regular publishing date.

Support The Faster Times by becoming a member, and choose me as your writer! There are great bonus gifts too for all levels of membership from $12-60.

There's a slew of good columns so I must be in good company.

• The Generic Foods Investigation (readers voted among two choices the investigation could be between)
• Brief Observations by Sarah Silverman (!)
• Unsolicited Advice by Rachel Shukert
• Nostalgia by Eryn Loeb

Advertising Week 2009

This week is Advertising Week; if anyone had any sense, they'd rebrand it Marketing Week. But advertising is more glamorous so we'll let it own the week (just as it's hijacked brand ;-)).

Tuesday, I'm on an OMMA panel at the Marriott Marquis called "Best 2009 Creative Campaigns in Social Media" if you're attending. Come and cheer or jeer. Probably will mention Skittles.com, as most would expect.

Digital pays Direct back

New piece just published in AdAge's CMO Strategy column, "How Digital Marketing Can Help Reinvent Direct Marketing." It talks about digital as good apprentice who has grown up, while direct is a bit stuck in one-to-one of a perfected past. Provides some lessons which we're going to apply at OgilvyOne to direct marketing and unstuck it for the modern era.

I had submitted it with a more provocative title from Bryan: Digital has learned so much from direct. It's time to pay it back.