It’s amazing how people become scared of you when you’re wearing a sandwich board. It almost makes us wonder why it’s the channel of choice for dodgy sushi restaurants promoting happy hour.
On this occasion, it wasn’t an un-showered backpacker but yours truly, Two Cents, flying the flag.
Allow us to explain. As you can see, we spent a few mornings of last week outside some of Sydney's top media agencies in an attempt to put our money where our mouth is. Rather than sit here week-in, week-out and preach from our ivory tower about what people should and shouldn’t do, we thought it was about time a blogger stopped hiding behind his or her keyboard and started leading by example... Literally.
All in all it was taken well, however, it was somewhat amusing to see the reaction of a certain few who thought it was our agency's attempt at a recruitment drive. For the record, we weren’t trying to poach anyone but congratulations must go to our friends in Pyrmont who taught us a thing or two about agency passion and loyalty.
So if it wasn’t a brazen attempt at poaching talent, then what was it? Well we did it for two reasons:
1. We were dared to "Be brave"
2. We were inspired...
"If these are the two brightest thinkers at MediaCom then they are in for a rough year. Fail."
ex-MC from Sydney on 29-Mar-10 11:52PM
This anonymous reader brought to our attention that bravery in this industry is not only hard to come by but also an invaluable characteristic. There are a few different forms of bravery, whether it be throwing up an idea in a brainstorm, telling your boss that you disagree or pushing back on a client.
Whatever it is, when appropriate being brave is empowering and gives you some well earned confidence no matter what the outcome. Hell, if handing out 500 business cards featuring some brutal personal feedback to your biggest critics, while wearing a sandwich board isn’t character-building then we don’t know what is!
So I guess this is the article that should have come before our rant on "breaking the mould". From assistant to director, every single step you take in your career progression will involve an aspect of being brave.
It’s these day-to-day decisions that will inevitably decide who's getting whose coffee.