The way of the bootcamp

The way of the bootcamp

by | Aug 10, 2018 | Copywriting, Strategy

Are you in charge of your work or some shrinking violet? Meaning are you walking into your office with Robert de Niro confidence or are you a lamb asking for permission to breathe?

Because if you are (a shrinking violet, a lamb, etc.), it’s alright. We’ve all been there. I certainly see it around me. But I see beyond it, too.

And know this: there’s a gateway. The bootcamp.

Here I am in the middle of nowhere in Romania, surrounded by 15 bright young things on a jaw dropping mission: deliver a (festival quality) doc in 5 weeks. Find a story, persuade the characters (village people) to surrender into an adventure they may have only seen on TV, film, edit and present to an international jury.

No wonder they’re not that enraptured with the postcard mountain scenery. To them it’s all story, story, story.

So they sit around soul searching for what makes them tick, and they scout looking for the character that will call them to action. Nothing an innovator or a thought leader hasn’t done. Except in office speak it’s stare at the empty page. Surf the web mindlessly. Streamline the email inbox.

There’s a galactic difference though. The bright things have a deadline. It’s all going to happen somehow. In a few days’ time they’ll have to pick something. Anything. And make it into a movie you may actually enjoy. Make it really good.

When things go right, it all seems so easy. The subject was obvious, the characters willing, the camera ready. How often is it like that, though?

How many glorious days do you remember? No, seriously. Take a moment and count.

There was that one when I went surfing and I caught seven waves. Also an epic aikido practise I had one Thursday in October a few years ago. I left the tatami all wet and light. There’ve been some amazing talks with my closest friends, mostly in London parks (not that we were too taken with the landscape at the time). And the elation of cracking some solid tag lines, hyped on White Snake tunes.

The rest is all a stream of days and weeks trying to pick the right battles, stay the course, score, pay the mortgage, and not take myself too seriously. (Don’t you just love it when people ask “why so serious?”. And when has the cryptic “Relax!” line ever worked?)

So I play a game of frameworks now. And that’s what the bootcamp is. It’s one sprint. (Or two, with a respite in between.)

For the 15 bright young things, it’s one month to the result: the screening for the jury. For me, it’s nailing the copy on one website. Structuring and getting a course off the ground. Nailing one thought leader’s voice.

Replicate it like fractals and you’re there in a place where performance does not exhaust you, you do it while munching nachos. Because the wiring is in place. You’re not wrestling with the bootcamp, you’re riding it.

My guys will find their stories. Historically, one in three films done in this setup ends up winning awards and hearts on the festival circuit. The framework is such that it takes (occasionally) shrinking violets and turns them into Robert de Niros, completely in charge of their work.

It’s not smooth. It gets messy at times. But it sure gets done.

PS: the pic of me riding into the sunset is taken by Ioana Ophelia, one of the bright young things, as we came back to base after an afternoon of scouting. We’ll hear from her again.

PPS: but the one with me and my 4 year old friend peacocking to a peacock (how more Bob de Niro can we get?) is taken by my best friend on one of the days we’d won the lottery. Because we were together.

Curving back onto my nature, I create again and again

Curving back onto my nature, I create again and again

by | Jul 27, 2018 | Copywriting, Design

I started this blankly staring into the computer screen, determined not to budge until something came out of it.

And frankly, when I started out on my own, four years ago, I had no idea where I was going. I’d love to make up a story about how I always knew I’d be a copywriter and strategist one day. Nope.

All I knew was that I was out of the corporate bubble and that I’d never work for a day in my life. I was going to do what I’d always postponed to do. The stuff you muse about on the midlife crisis wintery nights. I was hyped.

I also had money in my bank account for at least half a year of exploration and flight tickets lined up for a month of places I’d never been before, including my first surf spot ever.

And explore I did. I plunged into filming a documentary about my aikido buddies. That flexed my create-from-nothing-with-tools-you-never-used-before muscle. Also, the look-like-you-got-it-while-you-clearly-don’t. All in all, excellent practice.

As one of my favourite people to ever walk the earth said, “it was the brave thing to do. I was marching into the unknown armed with nothing.”

Then my first batch of would be clients emerged. Friends who needed websites or were launching products. And so the kitchen counter writing frenzy started.

It felt a bit off not to dress up in the morning and curse through traffic. I got used to it. (Now I have writing practice, meditation and yoga instead. Woo-hah!)

I was staying up tinkering home pages and making sense of their course materials. I’d been doing that in my corporate jobs for years, anyway. Now it was online.

So I got educated. I went to B-school, wrote with Laura Belgray, who also recommended Selena Soo, and charmed me into the Money Boot Camp (worth it). At her workshop I met my friend Monicka, who’s got this cool retreat for supergirls, and couldn’t shut up about the 90 Day Year.

I took the 90 Day Year, too. There’s life before and life after. But more on it some other time. I’ll just say all the odd bits and pieces of paper on my desk I used to make lists on are gone.

Then Amy Posner came along and opened the Copy Hackers era, where I actually learned the ropes. To the point where I can say in seconds if the messaging is off. Then where to look to fix it.

Looking back I remember the landmarks: first day out of the job. First client. First copywriting and strategy client. First course. First time I called myself a writer in public. In groups. To strangers and to people who knew me. First website. First serious breakdown. First client I never knew before.

And especially first time I called myself a positioning and messaging strategist for innovators and thought leaders.

This is not a your-heart-will-lead-you-home piece. Although it will. This is a jump-in piece.

If you’re struggling to voice out your choice from a sea of options out there, you have my utmost and complete compassion. I’ve had my guts massacred with the agony. (I had bills to pay so I kept going.)

But I know this: I can’t catch a wave from the shore.

So if your idea is not that clear yet and you only have half of an innovation or the embryo of a thought, get it in front of the people it’s for. It doesn’t have to be big. Work it. Test it. Get the right pair of eyes on it. I’ll reason with you for 20 minutes. It’s a start.

PS. The line in the title is from Bhagavad Gita. (I finally came down to reading it.) To me it’s a crisp way of saying you have a core. And you replicate it again and again, like a DNA. That’s your work. And while you’re alive, it never stops. Book.

Say what you do in one line

Say what you do in one line

by | Jul 7, 2018 | Copywriting, Strategy

I dare you. That’s your UVP.

I call it your DNA. Because it replicates again and again and becomes your work. (Turn it on its head for clients, and it becomes a tagline.)

It’s the hardest thing. I did a short documentary once, about my aikido friends. Do you know what the toughest question was? What’s the movie about. When I started mumbling, I knew I was in trouble.

Nail that, and you have a shot. You graduate to the realm of execution Minecraft. No guarantees there, either, but at least you get to play.

Yes, you got that right. Without a good UVP and a good tagline, you don’t even get to play. You’re in the sidelines, hoping to score with no ball coming your way. There’s no ball in the sidelines.

Can you figure out what these guys do?

Can you be as crisp about your business or your idea (if you’re treading in start-up)? No worries if it’s not fancy or smart. You don’t need it, samurai’s honour.

And if you can’t, grab pen and pad and scribble a bit.

I help X with Y, where X is the client you can’t have enough of till the end of time and Y is the thing you would regret most not doing if the world came to an end tonight. That work.

(If it’s not that intense, it’s not the end of the world, I promise. I mean, I don’t think it’s coming tonight. Just work with what you’ve got going.)

Unload all that and look at it. Have you just blurted out some giant frog? Are you strangely proud or relieved? Scared out of your wits or still very, very confused?

By the way, this is not hard for start-ups only. It’s hard for everyone. Because your business evolves and you understand your client better or differently, and that needs to show in how you name your game.

That’s what the DNA says: it gives shape and form to your game. The tagline communicates that same shape and form to your client.

Your tagline is your DNA in clientspeak.

And if you can’t figure it out on your own and look for a translation bureau, that’s what I do.

“I help women tune-up for health beyond 40” or “I help innovators build unicorns” are the beginning of a matrix. The tip of the iceberg. The portal to a world of words that put you in the limelight for your business’s true love: your clients.

I love going there with you. I help thought leaders and innovators like you word out their product. Crisply.

For all thought leaders hiding out there

For all thought leaders hiding out there

by | Jun 22, 2018 | Copywriting

If you feel the mission bursting inside your brains, but coming out like frail thread of pure mountain spring, this is for you. I get you’re busy. I also get you may not see yourself as a blogger or content machine.

And still, how do you get that stuff out of you and into the world?

I’ve heard this quite a bit lately: “I feel I have something to contribute here.” Symptoms include insomnia, irritation at garbage on mountain meadows, pictures of petroleum drenched pelicans, or whatever sets you off. Or glazed eyes through chain meetings.

That’s the game crying to be let out into the world. You may not admit to it at first and that’s fine. That thing that makes you want what you do will take care of itself.

If you’re angry, that’s hope rummaging through your veins like Alien. Rejoice! The object of your affection is near.

Think of the person you’ve felt safest with. The one you’d tell the “I-like-Jeanie-in-5th-grade” x 10 kind of secrets. You’d let them in on your dream project, right?

“I have a book inside me,” “I want to change the way we think about midlife,” “I want my course to go international,” or “I want garbage free mountain trails.”

There’s an agony to keeping that in. But you can’t just process a website/course/new product right now. So where do you start?

Here. You start right here, right now. Open a new document and name it “What my voice sounds like” and then set the alarm for 20 minutes.

Now think of whatever exalted or horrified you in the last day or so and pour it on the page. Not much to think, just write. In fact, do that every day for at least 3 weeks. Ideally, do it for at least 750 words each time.

Here’s the trick I just learned from someone awesome: tie it up to something you do anyway. It makes you stay in the game.

Almost every morning I wake up and do my morning pages. (I wrote about it here.) It keeps my content machine churning.

So to make sure I do the 20 minute thing, I need to do that immediately afterwards. It’s like going straight into a second episode of Friends. Yours could be your first cup of tea or brushing your teeth.

Then each week, spend some time reading through the lines. Any common thread? Do you find yourself wandering back to bringing honesty to the big corporate finance machine? Or bitching about mansplaining?

There’s something there, so get closer and sniff a bit. Now you’re looking for an entry point.

All you have to do is see one hue that’s there. One detail that’s real. You’ll know if you find it. It will ring true and you will feel very, very awake. That’s Universe talk for you’re on the right track.

What’s next? You keep at it. You make a nice string of very, very awake moments. The rest will get handled in the process. I don’t know how. It’s a mystery.

P.S. You might need a website for it. I’ll figure you out. You know where to find me.

For when you need your creative juices to flow, baby, flow

For when you need your creative juices to flow, baby, flow

by | Jun 8, 2018 | Copywriting, Design, Strategy

First thing to do when under pressure, prescribes guru Don Draper is abuse whoever can help you. Then take a nap. Not sure I’d go that way, although the nap may come in handy. Way better than a Youtube binge.

Let’s not fake it in here, I know exactly why “I don’t know where to start” looks like: going through the luggage section of your online trap of choice just to see what’s on, when you don’t need new stuff. Scrolling down on Facebook on autopilot, your hand chain-feeding sesame crackers to your mouth. Before you know it, it’s been an hour. Taking 5 to reply to a quick email that’s really, really, oh, so urgent, generally takes 30.

I tell you, it’s like looking for shampoo in the fridge. Inspiration doesn’t live there. I have a few go tos instead. I treasure hunted through some of the finest minds around and gave them a try. Here’s what I got:

1. Tune in

Let’s just assume that whatever is doing the creating (the ear your daemon whispers into, your brain, your heart or whatever you think it be) is an instrument. A state of the art thing, but still an instrument. You will need to brush it up, oil the joints so that when you push the on button, it starts churning. That’s why you need The Morning Pages.

To cut a long story short, every morning, as soon as you get up, you start handwriting whatever crosses your mind for 20 minutes (about 3 pages). Give it a few weeks before you’ll catch yourself plunging into big work without the water-is-wet diva attitude.

I could go on for hours about this. Here’s what made me do it when I read about it in Tim Ferriss’s book: Brian Koppelman, the guy who recommended it, a great film producer and podcaster, by the way, said he’d give Julia Cameron’s book to 100 people. Out of 100, 10 would open it. Out of 10, 7 would go on to have TV and movies made, books published, and made out successful.

(I do not get a commission off this. But when you find something you love, can you shut up?)

2. Get rhythm and stick to it

Call me crazy, but whatever work I do has a vibe. Mix in the client’s, the project’s and mine, and you get a flavour. Not for a second do I pretend to be able to control it. But what works, works.

So let’s just say I noticed that every-time I need to dive deep for a tagline, for instance, some song will just land in my player. I go for it on repeat again, and again, and again. It gets my writing machine going like no other.

I just did a tech launch. I swam in White Snake’s Sailing ships for days. I switched to Johnny Cash afterwards. Pink does it for me, too. I dare not disturb the Universe with a why, I just get on and say thank you. Hail to the masters!

3. Go for a quickie with Greatness

It can be anything, as long as it’s really well made. Expose yourself to great work, there’s nothing like it to get your creating ducks in order and ready to march.

Youtube comes handy here for shorts (The Nerdwriter is a good option). So does Nowness, but it can be a podcast, comics or the series you’re binging at the moment.

It needs to get you in a state. It needs to make you see the wave and jump on it. Because, my friend, we are as good as the wave we get on. And when we catch one, we’d better make the most of it.

4. Meditate for 9 minutes. Everyday.

Sorry, buddy. That’s how it works. I didn’t make the rule, I’m just telling you what did it for me. Make it 15 or 20 if you can. But 9 is the minimum. Brace yourself for clear-headedness.

5. Ask the question, if you can stomach the answer

I learned about the I Ching when I was in high school. It’s my go to for major (strategy) questions. Not for everyone, though.

You may have to wrap your mind around taoist metaphors. Like figuring out what “it’s beneficial to cross great rivers. It’s beneficial to have a place to go” could mean (that was an easy one). So I make sure I only toss the coins if I do have a question. Think of it as a meet up with the wise. Don’t trouble them for what you already know.

But if you’re hardcore, here’s another: my friend Monica gifted me her tarot deck. It’s bring-it-on, is-this-for-real accurate. She devised an entire creative journey around it. Her book tells you all about it here.

Most of all, sit down and start.

I’m not being a smart ass, promise. I just read “things are not hard to do. What’s hard is switching gears to creation mode” and I thought you should know, too. Brancusi the sculptor said it, and he should know. I also personally heard one of the greatest painters alive I know say he sometimes doubted himself. But then he paints anyway.

It’s the crispest I can put it: show up. It’s enough to start with.

(Then go to item #1. I’m telling you, it’s dynamite).

Now you.

 

What the guy from Vogue taught me about politics

What the guy from Vogue taught me about politics

by | May 11, 2018 | Copywriting, Design, Strategy

It’s why I decided to start something on my own, by the way. Politics. I binge on it on House of Cards, not on my agenda. But even for deaf ears like mine, this guy brought home some solid points.

The guy, by the way, is the tall, cryptic editor of British Vogue, Johan Svensson. It was, yes, the same brain spa with creative direction aromas at Frieze’s. Let’s plunge.

1. Don’t pitch when they’re miserable, sit on stuff until they’re ripe.

Assuming you have the time, of course. But would you go for it if you knew you’re headed for Noville, or would you rather wait until planets align?

Here’s what Johan was implying: you would read the signs like Sherlock.

You’d know when [replace fashion icon Carine Roitfeld, his boss at Vogue France, with your designated other] was happy and ready to say yes to you and when to shut that thing, smile and wait.

2. Always go over budget.

Because If you won’t, you’ll get squeezed.

I believe he later uttered something about making them think they’re getting what they want while you’re getting what you want.

By this point, I was beside myself. Not sure it was the mind blowing covers he was machine gunning at us or the commentary. J is a man of few words, but they sure as hell matter.

Johan, please post the waiting list link for your next negotiation seminar, would you?

3. Discovery can be tedious work. And worth every inch.

By far, my favourite. And not sure related to politics anyway.

It was about how finding reference pictures, the more precise, the better, can sometimes be tedious. In my world, that’s getting to the you-had-me-at-hello tag-lines or subject lines and about pages.

Here’s where I got the ball and ran with it in my mind. Reference work is hard. And if you work with a new idea, whether it’s words, metal, or code, you might not know where it’s going.

Beginnings are delicate and precious.

Making your idea fly is part alchemy, part structure and detective work, and a good splash of luck, where luck means places you’ve been, your tribe, how you jump on the waves of time etc.

If it gets discouraging at times, it’s because it’s not easy and not for everybody. You’re working on that thinking and conjuring muscle and that makes you one of a kind.

Some experiments will take you places and some will take you to the next that takes you places.

(I watched this TED talk today of a girl who does useless things and you-tubes about it to a chunky following. She sure looked happy.)

So stick to it. The six inches in front of your face. Once in a while, look up and feel good.

Because you’re in the good game.

“Your material is the vehicle for you to express your spirit, it’s why you’re on the planet.”

(I did not say that, nor did the Vogue guy. That’s Jerry Seinfeld all over. Or he quoted some other smart dude.)

Things are always clear in retrospect. If it’s hazy now it’s because you’re heading into unchartered territory.

Which makes you a pioneer.

And some survival skills would do you just fine.

Like these from the guy from Vogue who’s seriously into beauty, but would rather spell out haikus on politics. That’s his thing.