thinking about agency models, my future, collaboration + orchestras

Part A:  I suspect I am joining a number of soon-to-be college grads in my quest to figure out what the heck I will be / desire to be doing with my future.

Part B: The recent trip I just took to New York with the ad. program for the one show helped me reach a number of conclusions regarding my future career.  At least for now – I’m sure plans / ideas / mentalities will change with time.

Part C:  Both my high school orchestra and choir recently won their respective state competitions. best of the northwest. the overall program won a grammy signature school title. again. freaking awesome.

So, adding all these parts together, I’ve been thinking of where I want to end up post-school and why I want to be there.

The wonderful thing about choir/orchestra, was that we were all there around a common idea: music. Not competition, but making music because that was our passion. Coincidentally…or I’m fairly confident, not so coincidentally at all, the reason the Sprague music program is so strong is because it’s not based around winning, it’s based around a community and a passion for the “work” aka, creating music.

Reading all the articles in the paper of the recent successes, it’s interesting to note the quotations of the students – this is a huge window into the core structure of the program:

“He [Mr. C, choir director] told us this morning to make it our goal not to impress but to inspire.”

“”Mr. C’s” advice: “Make the audience feel something.”

Possible one of my favorite cheesy (or maybe “feel good” is a better term?) Mr. C quotations – but honestly so entirely true – not just for music, but for life: “The voice is located halfway between the brain and the heart. Use them both.”

Of course the Sprague music program is competitive; however, competition was never and appears to still not be the primary motive of what they’re doing.  Mr. C and Mr. Nelson always said – we’re not in this to compete, and if that’s the case, we’re doing this for the wrong reasons. HOWEVER, if we are in this competition – we’re going to compete to win.

Huge. Huge. Huge. Doing things for the right reasons. Having a purpose. Common goal. Camaraderie. This stuff can’t be found in many places.

…so…transferring this to my current life…the struggle I have with working in an agency is that it’s very competitive…but not necessarily around that common core point like I spoke of above (categorizing all agencies together, I know there are a million various agency models, I know agencies w this structure exist).

Not to say this is bad. Just maybe not for me, at least at this point. I want to collaborate with a team around a common shared goal/idea/passion…such as in an orchestra or choir.  Of course there are commonalities in agencies…clearly.  But it’s not the same. Clients/accounts are consistently changing…I’m not sure I could work for an agency on an account I wasn’t passionate about.

And maybe this means I need to look into client side work…or maybe I really need to join an orchestra for awhile. Or maybe this is all just food for thought.

…while I’m lauding my past high school’s music program, check out this year’s Camerata at State:

small world

I believe I recently mentioned the unusual phenomenon that continually seems to happen to me. Wherever I go in my travels, I run into someone I know in the most random places:

1. During a family trip to Disneyworld, of all people I ran into my best friend and her family at Epcot with no plans to see each other.

2. While in Europe, I spent a day in Venice and randomly ran into my high school choir director in front of St. Marks.

3. I was on a flight to Mexico City and I look to my left and who do I see but I friend I’ve gone to school with throughout high school!

4. This past May I was in NYC walking home on a random street about this exact topic – mid conversation and guess what? I run into two friends from high school who I haven’t seen in more that three years!

5. When I was moving into my building here in Portland a few weeks ago, I passed a girl on the elevator and we both did the double take, I know you from somewhere but I can’t put my finger on it look – we get to talking and turns out, we were friends in elementary school but the she moved and I didn’t see or talk to her since. Not only do we live in the same building but the same floor and we are actually neighbors!

6. Most recently – This past May at one of the One Club‘s One Shows in NYC, I met a group of men who were from ID Branding in Portland. We chatted for awhile about about branding, it’s future, how their agency applies these ideas to their work, etc. I actually found what they had to say quite intriguing (not to mention I was loving the LoveJoy Vodka table topper (not sure what to call it!) I had earlier found and photographed in the bathroom!)

Here’s the pic. – not the best quality, but it works!

Anyway, fast forward to this past Friday, the agency the CoLab interns visited was…ID Branding! Not only that, but the first guy from ID Branding to welcome us/talk with us about the agency was Mike Mirkil – one of the men I met at the One Show, and later that afternoon, the 2nd of  people we met that day, Doug Lowell was also someone I had met at the One Show this past May. Small world, huh?

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