The Memories I’ll Carry with Me

My week in New York City was a rollercoaster of experiences and emotions. It began on Monday morning when I received a call from my mom telling me that my grandfather passed away. I felt, and still feel, heartbroken. However much I wanted to fly back to Oregon to grieve and comfort my mom, she told me that I needed to stay in NYC (and I agreed). I am so grateful to have had the opportunity of spending Creative Week in New York with 107 other talented young professionals. In one of our last conversations, I told my grandpa about the New York trip and my upcoming internship. I know he would have wanted me to stay too. 

I am truly glad that I stayed. I shared the news with some friends and a few professors on the trip, and I received so much kindness from everyone. So many hugs and kind, loving words from my fellow Ducks. Even though I didn’t have a very close friend with me in New York, I felt comforted by the friends around me and the close friends and family who were with me digitally from across the country.

Like a rollercoaster, the dips in life eventually go up. While my sadness still hasn’t gone away, the rush and excitement of being in New York helped mitigate it. Later that day, my team and I worked for hours to perfect our campaign for the Spirit of Gander. At that time, I felt exhausted. Then we presented the next night. Nervousness. Then we won the pitch! Excitement, gratitude, pride for my teammates. The rest of the week was full of emotions.

Exploring the city and networking with professionals gave me a new sense of independence and inspiration. My path is becoming more focused as I discover where I want to go and who I want to be. This week taught me that no matter where I go, I’ll have my grandpa, and a network of advertising family, watching over me.

Emily Foster.

05.15.17.

Brooklyn left a good taste

Heading into Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon, I really had no idea what to expect from our upcoming visits to Big Spaceship and Huge. Aside from knowing that my good friend Chris Puma is working at Huge, both agencies were relatively new to me-but boy was I pleasantly surprised. 

At Big Spaceship, I was impressed by Brandt and Austin’s (two former ducks) no BS approach to showing us some of the work they do and telling us some really awesome factoids that are unique to BSS. One of them being that BSS is an independent agency of about 120 employees-something you don’t see all too often these days. One other interesting thing I was moved by at BSS was the fact that they really encourage people to slide and adapt to positions that are out of one title. For instance, a copywriter could also dabble in strategy, or vice versa. 

At Huge, they spoke about some pretty real thing that moved me. One was to, “make general observations about everything, all of the time.” Another was to be curious like a 6 year old kid that likes to “ask why. and then ask why again.” Lastly, they reminded us to not just dislike something, but to understand why you dislike it and to figure out and devise ways to make it better.

-Noah Wilskey

Make your own luck

Luck to me is preparation and opportunity. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to meet a lifelong idol of mine, Casey Neistat. We visited his wife’s pop up store for her jewelry company, and ended up helping her decorate her car and attending the after party. At the after party, I connected with a guy from Texas with a mineral water company. We are discussing on how I can help expand his business to Portland. On Sunday after the week of touring agencies ended, I found myself talking to two advertising people in central park. The first is a producer for still production at BBDO and the second is a strategist at twitter. Both of these interactions were serendipitous, and for that reason felt more genuine than any other connection made this week. NYC is full of opportunity and plenty of time to prepare as long as you don’t sleep in.

-Justin Hartney

Turtles in Central Park. Who would’ve thought that was a thing.

I like this.

Facebook was full of quick and dirty takeaways. Here are my favorites: Meet people, reunite with teachers, win and learn, don’t be comfortable, keep hobbies, reflect on learning, do what you can’t, content is communication, chase bigger dreams. Facebook takes the cake for the lesson that will influence me the most: “Don’t give up on what you want to do until you actually do it.” To me this means that I won’t give up on being a freelance photographer, until I am a successful freelancer. I may want to give up because I haven’t met my goal and it seems impossible, but until I reach my goal I have no idea what life may be like. No more quitting halfway.

-Justin Hartney

360i: The Five Defining Strategic Principles

Chelsea Coleman, Strategist and former duck, dished us some wisdom of 360i’s strategic process.

1.) Research-> “Always the first step,” 360i Suggests doing the 4 C’s research exercise.

        A: Culture B: Category (research about the competitor/industry trends etc.) C: Consumer D. Company

2.) Storytelling-> “We have to be able to define and frame problems and solutions to the audience in ways that are interesting and inspire new ideas”-

3.) Connecting the dots->”We have to have a larger vision for clients that goes beyond just traditional campaigns and thinks long term.”

4.) Making-> “Our job is to push strategies & creative executions to go one step further”

5. Counsel-> Building trust with the team is vital. We must understand everyone on the team’s motivations. Sometimes the strategist needs to be the adult in the room and be blunt with teammates when needed.

-Noah Wilskey 

“We are experts at things we’ve never done before.”

Code and Theory is a one of a kind agency. Their intelligence blew me away. My biggest takeaway is to focus on the atomic particles of a story. This doesn’t mean the specifics of the story, but rather the parts that make the story a story. The parts that are present throughout the whole story. To think on such a minuscule and broad level simultaneously is a perspective I will work to have one day. Another takeaway is to be visibly motivated. This will lead others to help you, and will help you identify people you want to help. With this, people can leverage each other’s skills, creating a sum greater than the parts.

-Justin Hartney

This place is really huge and small.

I had the fortunate opportunity to meet up with my friend from high school on Tuesday evening. We picked up right where we left and an epic night was ahead of us. We removed ourselves from Manhattan only to shoot photos of it from Brooklyn. All of us enjoyed talking camera tech and helped each other get the shots we wanted. The night was still young after my high school friend went home to pack for her flight. We shot underneath the Brooklyn Bridge until every composition was captured. On the walk back to the subway, I noticed a one in a million composition. Excitement took over me, and I ran up the road to get the perfect vantage point. By now, my two other friends couldn’t see me and assumed I was lost in the streets. After spending 20 minutes shooting the scene, I searched for my friends. A dead phone was no help, but I knew where the subway station was. To my surprise, my friends were waiting for me outside. They are still my friends to this day.

-Justin Hartney

The Empire State Building aligns within the Manhattan Bridge.

The Last Thing You Want to Hear is What You Need to Hear

Graduation is knocking on the door for many of us. Portfolio ready, or at least we think, we head out looking for an internship or ready to grind long nights to turn that internship into a full-time position.

No matter what you’re doing after graduation, the work is just getting started.

According to Matt Eastwood, the man in charge of all things creative at JWT, graduation is more the time to reinvent your portfolio than anything else. Matt’s biggest piece of advice was that you won’t always succeed. You can have your  sights set on your dream agency, and you most likely won’t get hired first try. However, you CAN and SHOULD keep trying. Don’t make the cut? Keep working on your book, and come back with new material.

This seems daunting. But like Matt Eastwood says, “Ideas are what we do!”

Let’s go do our thing.

- Jason Lane