Evolution

Thank you for reading.  

Once a week, for a very long time now, I've spouted off about advertising.  Mostly interactive advertising.  Before that, I spouted off more often.  An awful lot of you read my spoutings regularly.  Thank you.

I also spout off, though less, um…spoutingly, on adotas.com once a month, and whenever I can (which, I'm told, isn't often enough) on the Brunner Digital blog.  That's a whole lot of Ernie-opinions to digest.  And I want to sincerely say, "thanks for reading."

I also want to say I'm thinking about evolving this particular blog.

A funny thing happens to you when you're a creative.  If you're good -- meaning, if you win lots of business, or lots of awards, or lots of both, you get promoted.  Then you get promoted again.  You get wiser, and older, and if you stay good, you continue to move up the agency ladder.  Except… 

Except the things you're expected to be good ad change.  Your job changes.  If you're a great art director, or a great writer, or a person who's great at making great things, there's a sure bet in the agency world that you will quickly (or, at least, eventually) find yourself in a position in which you make exactly nothing.  Except phone calls.  And meetings.  The wisdom is, "You're such a great creative, we simply must turn you into a manager."  Why that's wisdom, I don't know.  I'm too resigned to fight it.

What I'm getting to is this:  Blogging is kinda the same thing.  Or at least, it has been for me.  When I started blogging, it was on the heels of my eBook, Use A Stick, and it was at the very beginning of the groundswell of forward-thinking agency people blogging about how backward-looking agency people were going to have problems in a world where people can blog about the fact that you're having problems keeping up.  That whole groundswell turned into a tsunami, and the problems are still there, and people are still not keeping up, and the changes just keep coming, just like I and countless others continue to blog about.  It's kind of a sea of the same thing.  Occasionally, real solutions are offered up, but more often than not, the juicy stuff is too good to blog about -- at least until you can prove without a doubt that it cannot really be monetized, and therefore is fine to share with the world.

In short, I miss making stuff, just for the joy of making stuff.  And I want to spend more time making stuff.  So something is going to have to adjust.  Not go.  Adjust. 

I'm thinking about evolving this blog to be a little more personal, and a little more filled with stuff I make, just because I want to make it.  Some of it will be advertising.  Some of it will be art.  A lot of it won't be either.  But all of it will be something I make because I want to make it.

I hope you'll hit the archives, and read through some of my opinions on the state of the industry at any given point in time.  I'll probably do a post that highlights some of the stuff I think is most worth your time.  And then I'll post a picture of something I made, or saw, or thought, just because.  Because I don't spend enough time doing that -- at work, or otherwise.

I hope you'll continue to read, subscribe, and share.  Because this is, after all, an evolution.  I want to use the blog to enhance my craft, by giving me a place to expose what I craft, rather than just giving me a place to talk about what I craft. (I'll, of course, continue to do that on adotas and Brunner Digital, though.)

It makes sense to me.  Hopefully, as it evolves, it will to you, too.

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Comments

[Patty Soffer]

Hell yes Ernie!

Blog about things that are real. Enjoy it. You're pretty cool. No way I'd let you manage anything. That would be a complete waste.

You have inspired me. Now it's time to inspire yourself again. Tell me about fishing and your son and how your wife spends too much money and how a great barbeque makes the day better.

Check out the site too. soffercollective.com

Wish I could afford to not have you as a manager!

xoxoxoxo and tons of admiration as always.

[Eric Gilbertsen]

Do it. Do it. Do it.

As an account guy who was once a boy, I miss making things too. I make lots of calls, emails and meetings, but I only make stuff when I'm traveling with my Nikon D50 in Bolivia or Croatia.

Do it. Your truck is sweet. What else can you make?

[Peter Corbett]

I think you're going in a good direction. You seem to have plenty of places to 'spout' about ads out side of this blog. So, maybe this is a good place for making stuff as you say. Make some more vids! Use 12seconds.tv and seesmic.com and tokbox.com to post up some cool stuff!