CANNES. TWINNED WITH AUSTIN, TEXAS?

Since returning from the South By South West Interactive Festival last month a few people have told me they didn’t bother going all the way to Austin because they’re planning on going to Cannes, “and they’re basically the same kind of thing really aren’t they?”.

To me the two entities seemed so wildly different these comments appeared misguided to say the least. 

These people turned out not to have actually been to both, but perhaps the subject matter alone might have given a bit of a clue: Cannes, despite having changed its name to The Festival of Creativity is basically about advertising, whilst SXSWi is basically about stuff you can do and make in the digital realm.

However, when you set aside the cost of a delegates pass (£2400 for The Cannes Festival of Creativity / £370 for SXSW), the accommodation (The Ritz Carlton on Le Croissette / The Holiday Inn, Downtown) and the locals (Ferrari driving playboys in Cannes / Harley riding bikers in Austin) you know what? There are plenty of similarities.

They both have seminars and panels.

Cannes has around 60 events. Clients, agencies and production companies discuss case studies and talk about valuable lessons learned.

SXSW has around 2000 events. Philosophers, journalists, designers, neuro scientists, TV stars, writers, buddhist monks talk about how the world is evolving due of technology and how human beings are evolving in turn.

They both have awards ceremonies. 

At Cannes, for those who have managed to blag a delegates pass or are sober enough to pick theirs up, these are the highlights of the week: the fruits of the hardworking jurors labours. They offer the opportunity to view winning work, and boo the winning creatives on their way to the podium.

The prize giving in Austin is a little different. It’s on the last night, tucked away in one of the many event venues. No one really knows it exists. Indeed there’s no guarantee the winners will bother turning up. The recognition that comes from winning things isn't why they’re there.

They both have exhibitions.

In the basement of the Palais de Festivals are laid out all the entries the Cannes juries have deemed worthy of awards and commendations.

In two massive hangar like spaces at SXSW are demonstrated all the apps and games that will be changing the world over the coming months. (Things like the next Twitter or Foursquare, both of which were originally launched there.)

They both offer excellent networking opportunities.

Cannes allows creatives from agencies all over the world to meet with old friends, make new ones, and, with a bit of luck, get offered their next job.

SXSW allows entrepreneurs who have an idea, but no financial backing or partners, the exposure to potential investors and tech businesses that could make their baby fly.

Yes. There are many similarities. 

But there is one big difference.

The look in peoples’ eyes.

Most of the Cannes-ites are in relaxation mode. When they’re not lying by the pool at their agency’s villa or playing golf, they’re having lunch. Or dinner. Or cocktails. For the Cannes ad fraternity business and pleasure do mix.

The only people with a slightly predatory stare are the ones who believe they’ve done a piece of work that year that might just sneak a Lion.

The Cannes festival is all about celebrating the past year’s greatness. Looking back on the best work the world has produced and giving credit to the craftsmen behind it.

The SXSW-ers on the other hand are far from relaxed. 

They couldn’t give a flying fuck about the past. Last year? Pah! This morning was decades ago. These are serious business people, most of them have their livelihoods on the line, having brought to life some idea or other with nothing but sweat and code. They have a look of controlled panic in their eyes as they rush from panel to panel (there are a lot of them remember) desperate to learn where’s next in tech and human behaviour, how they can add value to their existing products, how they can make new ones and, and hopefully, how they can make a bit of money. 

They may take a few hours off to relax as the night draws on. Once they’ve filed their blogs, fixed a few bugs and gathered as many business cards as their wallets can carry.

These guys'll will celebrate when they fulfil their dream. When their business takes off. When they make their first billion.

If you haven’t been to both Cannes and SXSW you should. 

If only to experience the contrast.

For all their similarities they really are two wonderfully different worlds.

My biggest and most satisfying challenge at RKCR.

So, Friday was my last day at RKCR.

And when I reflect upon the four years I spent there, probably my biggest and most satisfying challenge during that time was not helping the agency win awards or new business.

It was something far more profound.

When I accepted the job I hadn’t set foot in the agency. I didn't feel I needed to. I’d met Richard Exon, the CEO, and liked him. We shared the same vision for the agency and agreed there was a huge amount of potential that needed to be tapped. That was all that really mattered.

When I turned up in January 2008 however one thing was blindingly obvious. Something needed to be done with the environment.

There were cubicles and corridors and offices and meeting rooms and little cut-off corner areas. On different floors.

And despite its bright primary colours and jaunty angled meeting room windows, it felt corporate and old fashioned.

Worse, the place encouraged segregation. Bigger offices for 'senior' staff making them appear more valued than others. Not good if you’re trying to build one big, powerful, conjoined team.

Also, rather tellingly, when I polled the staff, asking if the place inspired them and they felt proud to bring their mates or their mums into the office the answers weren't positive.

The first mountain to overcome was getting a budget.

The Finance Director went to work and after months of negotiating with head office managed to get a pot of money specifically for the refurb. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.

We invited three architects to compete, eventually choosing Spacelab.

They understood the way space could and should be used in an office such as ours, offering opportunities for random encounters as well as space for concentrated thinking.

They also shared my feeling that we should bring back some of the original integrity of the building. It used to be The Black Cat cigarette factory (hence the two big, Egyptian style statues out the front). It was also the first reinforced concrete building in the country of its size with massive beams and uprights.

At my previous agency I’d experienced the benefits of open plan working both culturally as well as operationally.

No walls means no politics - no corner offices for the management; it speeds everything up - if you need to speak to someone you don’t need to get your PA to call their PA and arrange a time, you just stand up and walk over to them; and most importantly, open plan encourages chance encounters, helping make new friends and with them the possibility of fresh cross fertilizing of ideas – you can’t simply walk, head down, from the lift to your office door without bumping into people in the morning.

But… open plan working spaces do have a few issues. And if we wanted to take advantage of its good bits we needed to overcome these.

Open plan working. And the world's largest welcome mat?

Planners and creative people think for a living. And most of them like a bit of peace and quiet to do that. That’s why, traditionally they like offices with nice doors you can close to ward off unwanted visitors.

The truth is, of course, they don’t really spend every second of their day sitting in zen like contemplation.

Much of their time is spent in briefings, client meetings, presentations, reviews, edits, on shoots, paying bills, buying stuff on Amazon and ASOS, buggering about on Facebook, surfing YouTube, up-loading shit to Pinterest and chatting.

There are basically three types of work that planners and creatives do. I ended up created a traffic light system to help define the spaces they needed:

Pootling about on the internet, researching, paying bills, writing emails. Low pressure stuff. This required 'green space'.

Thinking. Discussing ideas. Concentrating. Writing. Meetings. These needed 'amber space'.

Action stations. “You’ve got an hour to crack this!” Total immersion. Do not disturb! 'Red space'.

If we were going to take away people’s walls we needed to provide everyone alternative spaces for these three types of working.

Green was easy. A section of desk and a chair.

To avoid corporate drone syndrome we went for a variety of surfaces, sizes and shapes: wood, steel and laminate, rectangular, round, six seater, 12 seater, 36 seater.

Amber spaces was where things started getting interesting.

We created various areas that could be used for informal meetings as well as places to sit alone and work.

These were:

Areas of the main ‘factory floor’ sprinkled with sofas, arm chairs and coffee tables.

A high level ‘kitchen counter’ to encourage drop-in chats.

A circular booth, furnished in red buttoned leatherette. (This quickly became known as the 'Strip Booth'. Don't know why.).

The Pit, a sunken amphitheatre, with bean-bags, grass carpet, projector and write-on walls.

But my favourite amber space ended up being The Club. A dark, sexy and surprising, wood floored antidote to the stark white and steel of the ‘factory floor’.

For cost reasons I'd been asked to choose from a selection of furnishings from via the 'preferred corporate suppliers'. But these weren't particularly nice, or particularly cheap. For the main space I'd sourced all the old Danish furniture myself from eBay etc, but for the club we needed something a little special.

We called on interior design firm White Linen to help us out. They designed bespoke sofas and chairs covered with lush, dark velvets and found some amazing wallpaper and curtain fabrics which finished the area off nicely.

The Club

The quiet working space, the red space, was the final, and possibly most critical challenge.

We designed banks of smallish work-pods, which ended up being known as Panic Rooms, that were big enough for two. Useful for creative teams who want to shut themselves away and talk the nonsense creative people need to talk with impunity.

Panic Rooms

For the planners, many of whom wanted total silence to operate, we created The Library. A silent space in which to really get down to some top level, high level musing.

The Library

The main works only took six months, but the ‘finalising' took a lot longer.

Magnetic paint, write on walls. Projectors to show stuff we found inspiring. Rugs. Light bulbs (don't get me started on light bulbs...).

Galvanised conduit baby, yeah.

The re-furb was basically a second job for over a year.

But it was worth it.

The new environment made staff proud to work there and clients enjoy being there.

Did it help make the work better?

Who knows?

Yes, it's true that soon after the office was finished the agency won a couple of BAFTAs, its first D&AD pencils, became the most awarded agency in the country and reached the top of the new business league.

But hey, that was probably just a coincidence.

Look straight ahead and shout like hell.

OK. So here’s a deep, dark secret.

I failed my first black belt grading.

I was 20.

I’d been training for months and was incredibly fit.

I knew the syllabus inside out, and had even been helping take the class when my instructor wasn’t able to.

So I was ready.

The grading took place down in Cardiff and the dojo was packed.

It was four and a half hours long.

We went through every technique, every strike, kick and block. Every kata.

We did all the stamina excercises, the jumps, press ups, sit ups. And the fighting.

By the end I was exhausted.

But pleased it was over.

And pleased with my performance.

However, despite all the hard work, I still failed.

Coincidentally, so did the guy on my left.

And the guy on my right.

And the girl in front of me.

And the bloke behind me.

And the guy beside him.

In fact everyone in the whole dojo, about 30 students, all failed to get their shodan grade that day.

Grading us was Shihan Steve Arneil (since promoted to the title Hanshi), the president of the organisation. He was, and still is, the most senior person outside of Japan in my style of karate, Kyokushinkai.

As we stood there sweating and spent, he explained why we'd all failed.

“There was no spirit here.” he told us.

An important part of karate is something called the kiai. Shouting, basically. Shouting at the point of impact tenses every muscle in the body helping release an explosive amount of power. It also forces air out of the lungs in turn forcing you to breath correctly during intensive training.

Importantly, a deafening kiai in the room proves that the students really mean what they’re doing.

What happened in that grading all those years ago was simple.

One person stopped kiai-ing.

He influenced those around him, who felt unsure of whether they should be too.

And so on.

And as the sound disappeared, so did the energy.

Until the room was just going through the motions. Without really meaning it.

We all influenced each other. For the worse.

It was a crushing disappointment and took a while to get over.

But it was actually one of the best things that ever happened to me.

It taught me something that would profoundly affect everything I did from that moment on:

Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by those around you.

That doesn’t mean arrogantly ignore everyone presuming you know better than them. There’s loads of great things and people out there we need to be open to and learn from.

It means, once you’ve figured out what you yourself believe to be right, set yourself going and don’t waver. For anything.

Once you’ve explored and learned and worked out precisely what you need to do...

Do it.

Don’t check what everyone else is doing to fit in with the throng.

Plough your own furrow.

What I learned that day has helped me since then in my personal as well as my professional life.

In both, there are challenges and temptations thrown in one’s direction that a clear vision of where you want to get to can help you circumvent.

When I tried again for my black belt grading a few years later things were different.

I had tunnel vision.

I knew exactly what I needed to do.

And I did it.

All the while, shouting so loud I couldn’t speak the following day.

People around me may well have thought I was bonkers.

If they did, I certainly didn’t notice.

Or care.

Don’t you dare squander your talent.

The other day I went to the funeral and memorial of a friend who recently died of cancer.

His name was Adam Green.

He was 43 and one of the most talented people I’ve known.

As a young boy in our school assemblies he’d strum a guitar and sing like an angel.

As a teenager we’d jam together in my parents’ garage.

And as a man he led a true rock star life. Touring the world with Eric Clapton, Grace Jones and his own band, Saint Jude.

Unlike so many of us, Adam lived the dream.

He found something he was truly great at and was brave enough and stubborn enough to realise his potential.

Adam’s funeral was incredibly sad. He left behind a wife, two beautiful little girls and many friends whom he’d helped over the years.

But it was also incredibly inspiring.

How many of us really make the most of a god given talent?

What could we achieve if we took what we are really good at and ran with it, 100 miles an hour?

You can recognise the those who do.

They’re the flames that burn the brightest.

And light up the world for the rest of us.

Why January rocks!

I love January.

Not the weather of course. That’s revolting.

Especially if you run, or ride a motorbike, like I do.

And not the dark, dark mornings. They’re horrendous too.

No, the thing I love about January is the wonderful sense of fresh beginnings.

Of possibility.

January’s all ‘out with the old and in with the new’.

It un-boxes a brand new year.

Revealing 12 months of potential fabulousness that await us.

Things we might not have dreamed of.

Who knows what joys this year holds? 

The iPad 3? 

The iPhone 5? 

Yet more new technologies that will change the way the human race behaves?

Not to mention, perhaps, the odd exciting new start-up business. Ahem…

January gives us the opportunity to dream of perfection.

Of stuff the way it should be.

Sure, by December we’ll be hanging in rags drenched in the reality the past 365 days has dumped on us. 

Hindsight is not always a wonderful thing.

But dreaming is.

(That’s the reason I’d never consult a fortune-teller. That and the fact they’re total charlatans.)

In January the future is unwritten. 

Anything’s possible.

Except, possibly, skiing through a revolving door...

Remembering Ron.

Last night my three brothers Joel, Elliott, Daniel and myself held a memorial event for our father Ron, who died earlier this year.

We decided to hold it at the Royal College of Art because the place meant a lot to him. He’d studied there from 1959 to 1961 alongside, amongst others, David Hockney and Ridley Scott. It’s also where he met his first wife; my mother.

It was an emotional day.

It had taken five months to organise.

We’d invited a load of people and had a load of acceptances.

But despite that, aware of Ron’s brutal reputation, I truly was expecting many of those who’d said they’d attend to end up ‘busy’ on the night.

I was honestly astounded at who did turn up.

Alongside many friends and family were his ex boss from both DDB and French Gold Abbott, David Abbott. His ex boss from CDP Sir Frank Lowe. His ex copywriters Tony Brignull and Gray Jolliffe. All three of his ex WCRS business partners Robin Wight, Andrew Rutherford and Peter Scott. Cathy Heng, who without doubt enjoyed the longest and most fruitful working relationship anyone ever had with Ron. Not to mention the likes of luminaries such as Mike Everett, Paul Smith, Brian Watson, Peter Harold, Jerry Hibbert, Dave Trott, Alfredo Marcantonio, John O’Driscoll, John O’Donell, Nigel Rose, Ken Hoggins, Mark Roalfe, Barry Lategan, Paul Weiland and Sir Alan Parker.

These were people who, though pride may have prevented him admitting it while he was alive, really meant a lot to Ron.

A few of the crowd gave speeches, sharing memories, good and bad.

There were a lot of laughs. Many, quite rightly, at Ron’s expense.

And there were a few tears. Us boys managed to keep our composure. But only just. I myself was a hair’s breadth from ending up a blubbing wreck in the corner.

What stopped that was the amazing outpouring of love in the room.

That so many people were there who actually felt so much for the man despite his many and varied faults made our hearts soar.

Ron was a troubled soul.

He’d had a tough childhood. One that left him with heavy baggage that he carried round with him to the day he died.

He desperately needed to be loved.

So I’m convinced he would have really enjoyed last night.

And I’m sure he would have been delighted, if not a little surprised by the turnout too. 

10 sure-fire ways to get your creative department to loathe you.

Running a creative department involves a certain degree of power.

And, as Spiderman’s uncle, not to mention some bloke called Voltaire, warned: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’.

Well every now and then we creative directors have been known not to live up to that responsibility 100%.

And that doesn't exactly endear us to our staff.

I’ve spent some time asking the creative community what behaviours leave them less than enamoured of the guy in the corner office.

These are my findings:

Want to de-motivate, upset and annoy your teams? Read on...

1. On starting a new job fire half your department then restock with your own cronies. 

No one would argue hacking away dead wood is wrong. However there are invariably talented people in every creative department who simply haven’t been given the inspired leadership and encouragement they need to flourish.

Existing staff need at least to be given a chance to show what they’re capable of under someone who might actually make them shine.

There’s another behaviour related to this which is equally offensive:

Hire a new 'star team', telling your existing staff it was something you had to do because they 'just aren’t producing the goods'.

2. Form cliques.

Giving the good briefs to your mates will direct your department’s ire not only on you, but on your, soon to be unpopular chums too.

3. Don’t pay what people are worth.

Good creatives will always be able to get a job elsewhere. The reason they’re with you is because they choose to be. 

They’ll be understanding to an extent regarding things like the economic climate and account losses. But in the long term, if they don’t feel satisfied where they are they won’t stick around.

4. Allow late night and weekend work to go un-thanked.

Showing gratitude is not showing weakness.

A little recognition is the least people deserve for working above and beyond the call of duty.

If your attitude to your people is: “You’re lucky to be here. If you don’t like the way we treat people here you can sod off.” Hey, guess what? At the first opportunity, they will.

Treat them like you’re the lucky one and you’ve got a better chance of them staying.

5. Don’t fight their corner.

Creative directors have to be advocates for their teams. We have to go into battle for them, whether it’s forcing through their ads or forcing through their pay rise.

Having someone’s best interests at heart goes both ways. Don’t expect it from your creatives if they can’t expect it from you.

6. Give feedback via a third party.

Astonishingly, some creative directors apparently review work by getting a traffic man to collate work from teams allowing them to select work from the comfort of their own office.

This is lazy.

And cowardly.

And worse, doesn’t allow the teams to learn from their mistakes. 

Explaining why something isn’t right may not be easy. But it’s a massive part of the job.

7. Only expend your energy on ‘potentially award winning’ briefs.

A guaranteed way to disenfranchise a wide cross-section of your agency’s staff.

Bad for the agency. Worse for its clients.

And the truth is, you never actually know where the next award winner is coming from.

If you give each brief the same attention, you give yourself more chances of producing great work.

8. Ask more of them than you are prepared to give yourself.

If you’re not prepared to work late nights, through lunch, or over weekends or holidays don’t expect your staff to.

9. Take the best briefs for yourself.

This would appear to be the most heinous of crimes. And the worst possible reason for wanting the top job. If you haven’t got making your own ads out of your system it's better not to take it.

And the excuse that you're the only one in the agency who could possibly crack a particular brief is no excuse. If you can’t get award winning work out of your department it’s your fault, not theirs.

10. Leave.

(NB: This behaviour was mentioned well before news of my impending departure from RKCR had broken, so I’m presuming it wasn’t a personal swipe at me...)

There are a various reasons a creative director might up and leave their department: To go to another agency, because they were fired, to leave the business altogether (to retire or become a director), or to start their own business.

Of these, the first could leave a department feeling resentment toward their boss: “You chose them over me?!” 

The second could leave them feeling anger toward the agency.

The last two might elicit sadness, but hopefully not full-on loathing. It’s hard to be angry when someone wants to make a life-choice. That’s just, well, life.

And, that a creative department feels upset when their boss leaves them has to be a good sign.

If they’re all out celebrating your departure you may need to ask yourself a few serious questions.

So, that's 10 less-than-lovely behaviours.

I'd like to think that's the lot. But I suspect there may be many more.