A while back I posted Random observations - Part 1. This is a follow-up. As noted earlier, these are personal ruminations on patterns I’ve uncovered through my professional practice. Some are topical, while others may feel rather disconnected. That being said, they all circle around the same things in my mind.

I used to think that a great idea was enough. We’d carefully run the process and develop a strategy and solution to help solve our client’s challenge. After all of this analysis, exploration and plain hard work, I figured that everything would take care of itself. In actuality, however, nothing could be further from the truth. If you can’t effectively sell your idea, it will die.

I’ve now been involved in some kind of creative activity for the bulk of my life. From design to running a business, I’ve found that certain patterns have emerged. Clearly there are parallels, and I’m slowly learning a few lessons. About a year ago I started to document these thoughts, with little notion as to what to do with them.

Introducing a new party to an existing design process can present serious challenges. A case in point: Two years ago, I was caught off guard. Our firm had been working with a start-up company whose owner was referred to us by a past client. Having completed our research and assessment, we had developed a name for the company and were nearing the completion of their identity design. All seemed to be proceeding well.

You are working hard and are dedicated to running a good studio but it never seems to be enough. You’re not getting the contracts you want, staff are burning out and it feels like you are falling behind. Your studio isn’t as fun as it once was and you’re wondering if you should quit and just get a job at a high-paying ad agency instead. Before you do, I’d like to share some thoughts on focus.

I try to make a habit of not responding to replies to posts on ideasonideas. I feel that I should make my full observation in the initial post. From there I believe that each topic should be left open for the community to discuss. Quite simply, I feel it’s my role to present some ideas, not defend them.

I was pretty scared when we started to build our firm. The possibility of failure was never far away. We had little experience in running a studio, and even a little less money. When Eric Shelkie and I first planned smashLAB, all we had was a computer each, and about $200 for a make-shift server. I always knew that if worst came to worst, I could sell my car and squeeze a bit out of that.

There are two people who I consider to be my closest friends, and I share very different relationships with both of them. One is my business partner Eric Shelkie (there are two Eric’s here), and the other is a fellow named Hans Saefkow. They represent different aspects of my life, and in many ways couldn’t be more different. The one thing that both of them share however, is that both are naturally gifted, but sometimes seem to not know it.

Following is something that’s not really a blog article. Rather, it is the written version of the content I presented last Monday at a little event for the HTCE, here in Vancouver. I’ve always been a bit of a fan of what Catherine Ducharme has accomplished with her marketing events.

…is such a flawed statement. It’s the kind of phrase I can only suspect that some deceptive salesman concocted in the early days of American hubris. It reeks of that complete insincerity, which ultimately only says, “I’ll say anything, as long as you buy it.”