Category: OPs Nerd

I’m sorry, but the focus on mindset as the critical determinant of our personal and professional value, while super-critical to anyone’s career success, doesn’t trump experience and expertise. There’s been a number of posts on LinkedIn, though, claiming exactly that, and it plays into big corporate exploitation of professionals – both young and old. I…

I recently witnessed a leader constantly tasking her team with difficult requests that impacted their ability to do their “day jobs” and required them to work long hours that ate into their personal time and consistently stressed them out as they were all dedicated employees who valued their ability to do a good job even…

In the beginning there were 3 facets of the creative services value proposition – speed, quality, and cost. The adage was that a client could pick any 2 and have to compromise on the third. In-house agencies (IHAs) sought – and have often succeeded – in allowing their host companies to have their cake and…

It’s pretty obvious that the implementation of AI to speed up and supposedly democratize the creative process in the execution of marketing and communication materials will lead to job losses in the creative fields. (I do smile though when AI proponents and vendors talk about AI “freeing up resources who can then be assigned to…

It’s discouraging how in-house agencies often have to suffer with poor process, dysfunctional org structure, insufficient staff, and inadequate infrastructure but must accept these circumstances that are seemingly outside of their control (and budget). To add insult to injury, they many times have to stomach it when upper management pounds them with criticism about poor…

As Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao posit in their new book “The Friction Project”, some activities just take more time than others and are inherently inefficient, but that inefficiency is integral to the process. They specifically point to the creative process as one of those time-consuming activities. But don’t take their word for it. When…

In-house creative teams and their leaders really need to get this – you can have the best equipment, technology, talent, operational and organizational structure in the world, – and if you don’t have a supportive, appropriate, empowering, and collaborative culture, YOUR TEAM WILL FAIL – ABSOLUTELY. It may not happen right away. Your team in the…

Do NOT EVER look to your clients for professional or worse, personal validation. Please notice I didn’t say feedback. We should always be looking for information to improve our performance. But don’t conflate project-based comments from clients with confirmation – or not – of your expertise and professional acumen. Whether they’re evolved collaborative partners or…

It may seem counterintuitive to propose that a phrase like future-proofing that implies innovation, analytics, and cutting-edge technology is actually best addressed by basic best practices that an in-house agency should already have in place. Foundational ways of working like robust operational infrastructure including documented workflows, SOPs, and collaborative guidelines, as well as a flexible…

In his FastCo post promoting the value of self-control at work and at home, “Be yourself and follow your heart is BS career advice. This one thing can help you succeed, according to science.”, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, posits that “However, self-control has its limits, and is, like anything else, most helpful in moderation. Our capacity for…