(Cue Mega-Exciting CreateAthon theme song)

This will be my last blog post of the semester. I know…you’re completely grief-stricken by the thought of not having more interesting words to read on this page. It’s ok, I’ll make some more when the inspiration hits me.

The subject for this post is “how I will carry the torch and spread the word” about CreateAthon. That ‘carrying the torch’ part makes me yearn for an epic song. My current plan is to discuss it with anyone and everyone because it’s an amazing experience that all should know about. I plan on helping out next year in whatever possible way I can (I’m graduating, so I can’t play team leader/member anymore). There’s also a non-profit organization I’m close to that I will work on persuading to be a part of CreateAthon in the future. Aside from those things, I will approach the rest of my career with the sound knowledge that creating for a good cause is a great line of work to get into. I can’t say where the future will take me, but I know that doing something like this for a living wouldn’t be a bad route to follow. Until next time…ha ha ha…

Change CreateAthon?

Pshh, girl…dat wouldn’t be necessary…

…but, if I had to change something…

1. Personal Coffeemakers for Team Leaders

2. A waiver signed by each mentor stating that they will not try to assume authority over your project

3. Personal Razor Scooters for Team Leaders

4. Non-Stop Pizza

 5. TWO DAY BLITZ! BRING IT!!

If you can take anything from the silliness of the above suggestions, perhaps realize that goofy suggestions are the only ones to make for a process that works. CreateAthon ain’t broke, so why fix it?

P.S. - The two day blitz idea is actually a good idea. Think about it…

An Apology

Once upon a time, the CreateAthon team leaders were taken to Carter Printing to see wondrous machines and glorious assortments of paper. Meanwhile, Matt Stinnett was sleeping through his blaring alarm at home. He would like to express his deepest regrets for missing this journey and hopes to someday see the glory that is Carter Printing. Though, he was glad to learn a useful lesson: two alarm clocks isn’t enough.

Working It Out

One of the benefits of being a team leader for CreateAthon is getting to know yourself a little better. Certain tasks you have to complete, especially getting through the 24-hour blitz, force you to figure out a way to get things done and still keep it together. This experience can bring you a little closer to your personal strengths and weaknesses. For me, the biggest realization I had was that I really prefer to be a part of a team as opposed to leading it. My team for CreateAthon was great - great people, great creative minds, great everything - but having to lead them through the big day put some heavy stress on my brain. It’s more natural for me to work and think alone than it is for me to try to guide four people through their creative processes. Regardless, this experience showed me that I can tough it out. Realizing that I can overcome the natural stress of being a leader was one of the best things I learned from this experience.

Working with clients…

Working with clients is one of the biggest challenges to being team leader for CreateAthon. It’s one thing when your grade is the ultimate symbol of success for your work. Hoping for positive feedback from a legitimate client is something altogether different.

Throughout the process of CreateAthon, I was in touch with my client through different circumstances. I first met with them at the initial client meeting, an event where we sat down with RTR and discussed their desires regarding the outcome of CreateAthon. This was a bit nerve-racking, but Peyton was very helpful in leading the discussion. I next met with RTR at the location of their business. This meeting was very helpful because I got to sit with two representatives of RTR and discuss the project on more of a personal level. Having had no experience working with a client in this context, I wasn’t exactly sure how to approach the discussion. This was a good opportunity to force some confidence and jump into the situation. My final meeting with RTR took place the morning after the 24-hour creative blitz. Needless to say, I was off my game a bit when this meeting took place.  Regardless of sleep deprivation, the presentation went smoothly and the client seemed fairly pleased with our results. The big lesson I learned from this experience was something I convinced myself prior to the meeting: that I needed to leave any frustrations or concerns at the door and walk in without any emotional ties to the work being presented. It’s hard to act your age when you haven’t had proper rest in 24 hours, so I had to check myself and remember that the world wouldn’t end if the client didn’t like our work. Thankfully they DID like our work, but it was a good mental exercise to prepare for the worst.

Those are my thoughts on working with clients. Happy Wednesday.

Why CreateAthon?

BECAUSE IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!

Seriously, though…there are many fine reasons to involve your school in CreateAthon. In fact, there might be too many reasons for your school to participate; thus, I will narrow the list down to six…

 

1. THE PEOPLE

Everyone involved with this event adds something special to it. Peyton leading the class, the team leaders organizing their projects, the GO team folks doing what they do (I’m not being specific because they do a lot), and other experienced people mentoring and helping are just a few examples of the various contributions made. All in all, participating gives you the chance to be part of an army of creative awesomeness.

 

2. CLIENT MATTERS

There are few classes I’ve taken that have given me the opportunity to learn about interacting with a client. It can be intimidating at first, frustrating as you go along, and completely crazy when you get into the production phase. Despite all of that, you get to form a solid relationship with good people who truly value the work you are doing for them.

 

3. WORKING FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE

When you’re a student in creative advertising, you tend to get a little carried away with the “creative” part. Getting the chance to focus on thinking strategically is a major benefit. Spending 30+ hours doctoring the look of a print ad series is all great fun, but being able to separate yourself from the creation process and think about the overall benefit of your work to your client is good exercise for a student in this major.

 

4. BRIEFS!

“AHHHHHH!”

That is the sound you hear in your mind when you’ve gotten back your fourth revision of your brief and it still isn’t quite right. Though this sounds slightly horrific, it is really helpful to any student of advertising. Being able to sculpt the bulk of your ideas into a clean, succinct creative brief is a great experience to put under your belt. 

 

5. THE BIG DAY

The main event of CreateAthon is a spectacular thing to behold. Everyone who has been involved with the event comes together for one big creative blast that never seems to end. It’s an experience that is both stressful and incredibly fun. Plus, it’s a pretty awesome event to associate with your school. It never hurts to please the public eye.

 

6. THAT LITTLE FEELING YOU GET

While CreateAthon is good for the learning experience of a student, it is also good for the sake of helping others. The selected non-profits get the opportunity to receive great work that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to create or afford. In turn, that work helps to promote an organization that is dedicated to making the world a better place. It’s like ‘Pay It Forward’, only Haley Joel Osment doesn’t have to die and everybody gets a happy ending.

 

The list above doesn’t say it all. I recommend anyone reading this to go HERE. Then you might get a better idea of why CreateAthon is the bomb.com. Until next time, y’all…

Works ______ with others

col·lab·o·ra·tion [kuh-lab-uh-rey-shuhn]

noun
1. the act or process of collaborating.
2. a product resulting from collaboration: This dictionary is acollaboration of many minds.
Origin: 1855–60;  < French  < Late Latin collabōrāt (us) (see collaborate) + French -ion -ion

Thanks, Dictionary.com!
Our major requires a great deal of collaboration. Whether it’s collaborating with a set of partners for a single campaign (completeness) or with one partner on several different projects (style/invention/etc.), working with others is a BIG part of the work we do. As most would expect, this method can create some nasty stress. It is one thing to be concerned about the work you are solely responsible for, but it is something completely different to be stressed about work with your name/work attached to it that depends partially on the work of another. This process can lead to some burnt bridges, but it also (hopefully) results in more bridges built.

THE GOOD

I’ve had some great experiences working with fellow students. It’s great to have someone to add another perspective or a different set of skills to a project. Coming from my own limited background (2-3 years ago I had just started using Adobe programs), it’s been great to have partners who have had more experience with design-related programs. This isn’t because they can do the work for me (wink wink), but more because I’ve learned a lot from these students. It’s the same as it has been for me in the realm of music. There are people I’ve played with over the years that really pushed me and inspired me to learn more about creating good music. Through this, I’ve learned how beneficial it can be to work with people who are just as passionate as you are about the craft you are pursuing. CreateAthon was a more condensed exercise in working with others, but it was just as great. I had some great minds working on my team, and I learned a lot more from these folks in 24 hours than I ever would have expected.
THE BAD & UGLY

Unfortunately…working with others can be frustrating/annoying/maddening/etc. It’s the side to our major that most don’t foresee, but it happens regardless. Most of the early classes in Creative Advertising at VCU don’t require working with a partner on EVERY project, but the final classes are a horse of a different color. This, whether or not we immediately realize it, is a necessary method. The majority of what we’re studying to do in the “real world” (whimper) involves a great deal of collaboration. Even if the person you’re working with is lazy/argumentative/etc., you have to find a way to deal with it and get your work finished. CreateAthon was a great exercise for this side of collaboration. To better express my view, I’ll give you an example from my CreateAthon experience:
It’s 4:00 AM. The website you’ve been working on isn’t near being finished and you have to present your work in five hours. Everyone on your team is going crazy from sleep deprivation and you can’t think straight enough to recite your ABC’s. There are multiple opinions going around the room and you have to decide on one and keep the other opinions from muddying the direction of your work. Meanwhile, the other pieces to your project are being worked on and you’re not too sure how those are going because you’re still trying to solve the problems with the website. You don’t want to be too demanding of your fellow team members, but you do need to emphasize the importance of getting everything done in a clean, succinct format. What do you do? You’re not sure, but you think you know how to handle it. Ok, let’s try this…
Painful stuff, but the results were fantastic. My team kicked serious butt in the remaining hours and we ended up with four different pieces to our project (website layout/promotional brochures/e-newsletter layout/social media plan). I felt that the best solution to keeping our collaboration on a cozy level was putting some faith in my team. I didn’t want to constantly badger them about typefaces and file formats and other things, so I didn’t. I would periodically check in and make sure things weren’t going haywire, but a lot of our work came out of trusting my talented teammates to get it done right. And they did. That was perhaps the greatest lesson about collaboration that I learned from CreateAthon. Until next I blog…

BRIEFBRIEFBRIEFBRIEFBRIEFBRIEFBRIEFBRIEF

As a team leader for CreateAthon, you are expected to do a number of things before the big 24-hour event. This involves meeting your client, researching their scene, visiting the site of their work (or related locations), maintaining the tumblr blog, working on the creative brief and other tasks. The biggest struggle, for me at least, would be the creative brief. Being a student of Creative Advertising at VCU, I have spent time working on or contributing to maybe 1-2 creative briefs (neither of which required as much work as this one). Coming into the CreateAthon process with said creative brief experience made this task seem a lot more daunting, but a little time and a lot of effort has eased my anxiety on the subject. Let us take a brief moment to briefly brief you on the less-than-brief process of creating a creative brief…

  • STARING DOWN THE STONE

To me, writing a creative brief is like sculpting a masterpiece that doubles as a to-do list/map: it needs to inspire the viewer while effectively charting/detailing the territory of the assignment. The first step is to identify the piece you will be sculpting: what it’s made of, how big it is, what you can do with it, etc. This part is easily the most intimidating: collecting the bulk of what you’re going to work with without letting its size and initial shape scare you from dedicating your time to it. What can I say, I almost messed my briefs! <yuck yuck yuck>

  • THE FIRST TRY OF MANY

The first shot you take at the brief is a shot in the dark at best. This doesn’t apply to all who would and have worked on briefs, but I’m in the captain’s seat here. The important thing is not to hold back on any pertinent information: flood that sucker with everything you think/hope/doubt it will need. The first revision I received had more red ink on it than any other, but that gave me a useful bulk of information to go on.

  • THE (your head) GAME

It’s been difficult keeping up with revisions in the midst of school endeavors, but it simply has to get done. This brief will be the bible of our client work, so I can’t rightly let up on it with the impending CreateAthon event on the horizon. I’ve found it easier to just focus on a certain piece (the one that needs the most work - duh) right off the bat. This gets my brain moving in the right direction and makes the many smaller issues easier to knock out.

  • THE REST IS _______ .

We are still a week or so away from submitting our final drafts to our clients, so I can’t say much for the rest of this process. What I can say is that the experience I’ve gained from working on this brief has helped shape my perspective on approaching a commercially-creative endeavor. Being objective with the content of your brief without communicating the necessaries in a dull manner can be tough. In the end, I’ve found it important to remember that the better the brief is now will greatly affect the difficulty of communicating with my team members on the big day.

~ For now, I wish all readers a fine weekend. Cheers!

RTR for your MIND

Tonight, we take a different approach to describing the wonderful story of this organization. You’ve all read the in-depth, researchy posts about my client. This isn’t one of them. What I’m going to do is ask myself questions about my client and answer myself on my own blog. (AHEM)

What does the story of your client look like?

Okay. What does it sound like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyOyksOMaEw&feature=related

Seems appropriate. How does it feel?

Like a perpetual hug.

Well put, Matt. Is it fuzzy, geometric or both?

Neither. It’s soft and amoebic.

I dig that. What kind of animal would your client be?

A big bear. Only it gets along with every animal on the planet. And helps take care of them when it can.

That sounds nice. Would you say their story is loud or quiet? Big or small?

Quiet in their self-acclaim (I believe modesty is the word). Definitely big. Big in their heart(s).

Your client sounds rather great.

They are.

~ Hope you enjoyed my conversation with myself. I know I did. G’night.