Better people make better communities - and run better businesses. Had I understood 1/2 this stuff in my formative I would have been a much better person, employee and employer.

While I’m not a fan of reposting, these lessons on life by Andy Rooney are worth sharing. Mr. Rooney was an American radio and television writer who was best known for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," a part of the CBS News program 60 Minutes from 1978 to 2011.

“1. The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

2. When you're in love, it shows.

3. Just one person saying to me, 'You've made my day!' makes my day. 

4. Being kind is more important than being right.

5. Never say no to a gift from a child.

6. I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in any other way.

7. No matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

8. Sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

9. Simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

10. Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

11. We should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for.

12. Money doesn't buy class.

13. It's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

14. Under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

15. To ignore the facts does not change the facts.

16. When you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.

17. Love, not time, heals all wounds.

18. The easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.

19. Everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

20. No one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

21. Life is tough, but I'm tougher.

22. Opportunities are never lost; someone takes the ones you miss.

23. When you harbour bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

24. I wish I could have told my Mom that I love her one more time before she passed away.

25. Keep your words both soft and tender because tomorrow you may have to eat them.

26. A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.

27. While everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

28. The less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.”

And my favourite:

29. “The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.”

Because of my depth an breadth of experience people think I can come up with better ideas faster than those with less experience. As a result I get a lot of requests to turn a project around in a few days rather than a few weeks.

Here’s a little creative process argument breakdown you can use with your clients to help them understand why two weeks can make the difference between good + great creative (money + talent aside).

• When your project arrives on my desk, it competes with a bunch of other personal and professional work; some of which I need to do and some I want to do.
• When you give me short lead times and I need to “drop everything” and jump on your project, you’re moving me into commercial crisis management mode. The solutions that I come up with will make sense and play well with your other communication elements, but because there is no time to immerse myself into your brand's or your user’s life, I’ll show you three very different communication solution options. My work will not be very insightful because your creative brief was long, vague and not (operationally or functionally) insightful.

• When you give me time and a short, insightful brief, something very different happens. I get to read the brief, ask you questions about it, digest it and then forget about it for a while. Over the next few days ideas and solutions will “come to me” that I can mull over. A few days later all of the ideas that have bubbled up will begin to sort and shape themselves as direct and oblique solutions to your creative brief. Then, when I’m caught up with other work on my desk, I can address your brief quickly and effectively because I’m not “thinking up” ideas, I’m just jotting down and sketching out the completed options that I’ve come up with.

The kicker:

While the client billable and non-billable hours for the crisis version (three good options) and the 2-week version (a dozen good options distilled down to the best two or three) are about the same.

The bottom line:

Crisis clients who only “know what they want when they see it”, usually don’t see it in the first session and ask for multiple rounds of revisions (that they don’t feel obligated to pay the agency for).

I sell in the 2-week versions of my work the first time round 95% of the time (often with-out even being in the room)!

The other day I was asked to assess two online campaigns and one e-newsletter marketing campaign and provide optimization recommendations.

The two online campaigns, while set up right, were poorly targeted. Further, the messaging, while SEO, was awful. There was no human engagement factor. Both of these clients were using online Text and Display media because they saw it as a fast and cheap way to build their business. It hasn’t been working very well because they don’t know their audience well. They think they do but I know they don’t.

The e-newsletter marketing campaign on the other hand had wonderful performance metrics. The newsletter is beautifully designed (by me), thoughtfully written (by them), and sent to a short list of known and well defined clients and prospects.

The difference in the performance metrics can be worked back to the client and agency knowing, or not knowing, their audience well. This is just ONE example of a scenario that repeats itself millions of times each day when you don't.

I bought a MAC product at my local Mac retailer who in turn asked for my e-address (for warranty purposes).

I was added to their “data base” which probably looks like an old bucket.

Because they did not collect my demo or psyco profile, they throw everything at everyone – hoping a small fraction of the messages will stick. Imaging what their metrics look like!

The model in their Mother’s Day Gifting Newsletter is about 35-40. My mother just turned 95. She is not interested in celebrating her character with a new ipad, fit-bit, or other device. Nor is she interested in a knap-sack to wheel them around in - she already has one (she rarely uses) clipped to her wheel-chair. 

At this point in her life, my mother, and many of her vintage, celebrate when they wake up in the morning and make it to the toilet before their bowel movement begins.

Save time, money, effort, your ass and the agency's account.

Know your audience.

A lot of agencies fall over each other trying to outdo themselves with their insightful creative briefs (that no one ever reads).

If you want to cut to the chase and do some relevant work for your client, your agency and your portfolio, then start and end the conversation with these two questions:

1.  What can your brand claim, and defend (operationally) that will get it to where you want it to be?

2.  How much time and money do you have to make this happen?

What do you mean; “wear a plain, white suit or dress”?

The last episode of American Idol featured a scene where contestants from the previous 14 seasons took the stage together to pay tribute the show in song.

I can just imagine the show’s creative director asking all contestants to “wear a plain white suit or dress”.

What they got is a wonderful visual example of how different people interpret and respond to the same information in different ways.

For those who like to keep all the puppies in the box, this scene must have been a bit of a disaster because no two people on that stage were dressed alike.

For those who celebrate diversity this must have been inspirational.

I love it because it helps me illustrate why it’s so important to know more than your product and your audience. You need to really get into the wide variety of ways your product can be used and hacked and adapted for purposes you never dreamed of.

P.S. If a uniform understanding of a physical or mental state is important to success in your organization, do what really smart organizations do – invent your own new terminology and carefully define the new word’s associated meaning.

https://youtu.be/8L_iKgkFqsY