I have an interview lined up with the hottest interactive agency on the planet. When I first came to know them, they were a film production house brimming with hot new computer graphics technology and talent. Apparently they also were endowed with foresight. First they jumped into interactive design with both feet when everyone else was testing the waters, and then they developed an agency structure that foresaw the collapsing of the digital and traditional agency into one agency structure. All without compromising the incredibly high standards they started with. I can’t begin to tell you how impressed I am with them. They may not feel the same way about me but I am going to meet with them anyway. God knows I’ve learned how to take rejection and I believe that the smartest people in the digital industry may actually be the most fertile grounds for my own personal message: “It’s still about the customer”. Clients are enamored with new media and interactivity now but they are fickle and ruthless crowd when we aren’t moving whatever they are selling. While technology may be tough to learn, it ain’t nothing compared to learning the dark art of persuasion. I cut my teeth with Sal Devito, Bob Reitzfeld, Ralph Ammirati, and David Altschiller when they were the cutting edge. It was a less gentle time in the workplace back then and they bereted me and belittled me into thinking fast and thinking smart. I’ve never lost that desire to live up to their expectations—regardless of the medium. Every new tool I add to my tool-chest is an extension of what I learned from them, not a replacement. I am not going to pretend that producing stellar interactive work is simply a matter of having a good creative mind but it is the foundation upon which all else rests. After serious effort and a few missteps, I recently turned the corner with regards to my digital understanding and developed some new ideas based on new technologies in the new media space that I would walk into one of my old bosses office with. The thinking is up to my own creative standards and on the conceptual level of the company I’m interviewing. They will be expecting more digital work but I’m not going to show it. If I’ve learned anything in this business, don’t show really smart people anything but really smart work.
