10 lessons I learnt from digital advertising

I've been asked by my students a number of times on presentation skills and great digital solutions. Questions like "How did you pitch for projects?", "How do you make a great website" and "Are you single?" (dun dun duuuunnnnnn).

To give a general answer, I have compiled the top ten lessons i've learnt from my time in (if ). Of course, the very obvious lessons (like time management, etc.) are not listed (I don't follow them sometimes heh heh). I just showed this to my students on their last lecture yesterday, so I thought I would share it with everyone. Here they are, in random order:

#1: Simplicity rocks.


The acclaimed Vib Ribbon... it's like telling all art directors, "In your face!!"

"Complexity implies the feeling of being lost;
simplicity implies the feeling of being found."
- John Maeda, Associate director of MIT Media Lab

I really can't stress this enough. Being simple in all aspects of your work can help you a long way. Use simple words and metaphors in presentations. Also, through my experience, creating a feature-rich solution is less effective and requires more effort than one that focuses wholly on one message/idea.

Ironically, simplicity is not as simple as you think. To be simple is easy, to be simple AND effective is simply difficult. That's why, as John Maeda puts it, mastering art is mastering simplicity.


#2: Losing trust is easy. Gaining trust is difficult.


Once you lose trust, you'll sit in a dark corner with a very itchy throat.

"I'm not upset that you lied to me,
I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

This lesson, I've learned first hand. You may have contributed to society for a long while, but it just takes an innocent stupid mistake to flush all of their trust down the toilet. One day if you wanna ignore/betray someone, think really hard. Don't go into the habit of "burning bridges".

On the other hand, try to be understanding when someone tries hard to regain your trust. There's enough hate going around in this world, don't add to that. As with all religions, forgiveness is divine.


#3: To be creative, you must be technical.


Kintaro's passion for technology comes right after the scent of the women's toilet seat.

"In any case, whenever technical progress opened a new window into the surrounding world, I felt the urge to look through this window, hoping to see something unexpected."
- Bruno Rossi, Italian-American physicist

On top of being able to execute your own idea, being technical also opens your world to new possibilities. One who knows nothing of databases will not come up with great viral marketing techniques. If you're in the dark, you would come up with limited ideas, or, on the other hand, ridiculous ideas.

Nakamura Yugo (Yugop), Joshua Davis, John Maeda, Iwai Toshio, Sanyen (hehe)... what made all these design icons great? Technical knowledge, which helped them translate their ideas into works of art. Their research into all things technical has broadened their perspective and expanded their ideas even further than anyone could ever imagine.


#4: Concept first, details later.


The Ghost Hotel, one of the many attractions of the Golden Saucer in FF7.

"There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept."
- Ansel Easton Adams, American photographer

This is very related to the theme of simplicity. The first step to achieve simplicity is to summarize the objective of a solution in three words or less. Create a mind map of sorts. If you have the creative license, take a keyword that is loosely related to the subject matter and make it your concept.

From there, simplicity ensues! All ideas and execution can now revolve around that concept, so it's easier for your team to come up with cool stuff. Then, your user would find it easier to get the message, since the concept is repeated over and over again. Concept leads to simplicity, in more ways than one!


#5: Details are STILL important.


Looks more haunted now, doesn't it?

"Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details."
- William A. Feather, American publisher and author

Hey, you got your concept, but you gotta do it right! One of the most unfortunate incidences in the design industry is when the idea is cool but the execution sucks. Details are never to be underestimated; even if your clients didn't notice them, your users will!

It's like thinking of a great colour scheme for your living room, but you didn't paint your wall thoroughly. In the end, rather than basking in the sheer awesomeness of your concept, they are distracted and irritated by that stupid white patch in the corner. Wasted effort.


#6: Perfection kills.


But perfection in DDR makes you fit!

"The greater the emphasis on perfection, the further it moves away."
- Haridas Chaudhuri, Bengali integral philosopher

First, the creator fumbles on the exact pixel location of that exit button till 6 am. This makes others in the pipeline work on it later. Schedule gets thrown out of the window. Deadlines missed. The whole team gets scolded. Other projects are affected. That team gets scolded as well. In the end, perfection doesn't make sense.

Perfection is also deadly in another way: it makes you stubborn. Imagine that you have this really great execution in your mind. Your technique takes ages. Your colleague said there's a better workaround method, you said "NO! I'll surely make this work!". In the end, you didn't make it work. At least you got what you want: the perfect failure.

All in all, perfection might satisfy you, but it never satisfies anyone else.


#7: Don't read too much.


She didn't have a choice though; she had to read, or die.

"What I began by reading, I must finish it by acting."
- Henry David Thoreau, American author and philosopher

I used to be in this habit where I grabbed game design books whenever I can. At one point, I tried my best to catch up with gaming news and forums. But where did all this lead me? A bigger head, a stack of books lying around and ZERO achievements.

In career and work, who cares if you know so much? They want results, and you know you want it too. In no way am I discouraging you to read books, but as the above quote states, reading self-help books only truly ends with you taking action! Or else you'll be forever stuck in the world of inaction.


#8: Depression solves nothing.


If this girl is your colleague, ignore this lesson.

"One who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good."
- Yiddish proverb

"Easier said than done". A depressed person's favourite phrase. I know, coz 2006 was really the most depressing year for me. I was annoyed over the most stupid of things. 2006's Hazmer in one word: stupid.

Depression in the office normally occurs when something unrelated has been bugging you for a long time, like "Hey why am I here at 5 am when my boss is at home sleeping?!". After that other things start to bug you. Like why other people diss my interest. Or why nice people aren't attractive. Or why can't I freaking draw.

Sadness is poison to the soul at work. True, you need sadness to learn the ways of life, but sulking for too long will make others sulk with you. You're bringing down the whole office with you. Awkward moments during company meetings and yamcha sessions due to your sorry-looking face is not necessary at all.

Accept the fact that due to your depression, your not-depressed friend now has a bigger view of the world than you do, no matter how personal your problems are. When you're depressed, just listen to advice, tell them your troubles if you need to, and thank them for listening. Solve it if it's achievable, if not let it go. Then move on with life.

I'm glad I did.


#9: Be humble and proud at the same time.


Using roses to exert your confidence only works in anime.

"Knowledge is proud that he knows so much.
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."
- William Cowper, English poet

This is the trap of modern society:

• Being humble = You ain't confident
• Not showing off your skills = You don't have what it takes
• Dissing people's work/ideology = You have an opinion, so you have a brain
• Helping others = Not helping yourself

I admit, I'm still in this trap. I'm very opinionated and I'm far from being soft-spoken. Through my work experience, a programme on Discovery channel and a book given to my uncle on his birthday, I've learned one important lesson: Those who get the utmost respect are mostly humble people, regardless of their fame and success.

At this point, some of you might already have some famous person at the back of their head who is successful, respected and not humble at all. Do take note that being confident does NOT equal lack of humbleness. You must also be proud enough to identify your past achievements and feel good about yourself. In other words, be proud on the inside and humble on the outside.

Benjamin Franklin once said that to be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy and to inferiors nobleness. No matter how corrupted the advertising industry is, this quote holds true to this very day.


#10: Don't be afraid if you're bad in English.


See? Terry's not afraid of English either!

"Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing."
- Robert Benchley, Author

It's quite a pity that some people lack confidence because of English, especially fresh graduates that come from outside Klang Valley (read: the so-called term "chinese-educated"). Strangely, when I talk to them, they seem to come up with great ideas.

Now here's the mystery: how did I know that those ideas are great? I can only understand English, Malay, a bit of Japanese and a bit of Chinese (you know, the bad parts). I'm pretty sure that they used English words to convey their message. Seems like their message got across! Isn't that what English is for, to communicate?

Perfect spoken English is overrated. In the advertising industry, what's more important are other aspects of presentation skills: body language, hand gestures, voice projection, visual aids, etc. If you excel in all this, and people understand what you're trying to say, the penguins have already bought your ice-cream!

Don't take this for granted though. With every passing presentation, perfect your English. But you have to start somewhere, right? And have others screen your language skills as well. There's totally no excuse to bring bad grammar and spelling into writing, because if you can't write good English, get someone who can!

Alright that's all. I still have a long way to go, even in the above aspects. But nothing's wrong with sharing what I have learned, right? They're just based on my personal experience and observations, nothing more. It's your choice whether you want to take them up or not.

To all my MM051 students, congratulations! All the best out there! And to MM065, I'm seriously NOT gay! :P


! Update: Zeke's lessons

Of course, my experience is considered small compared to Zeke, a friend from SMK Damansara Jaya. He's the renowned technical director of OgilvyOne, so you all better listen to him! Here's his list of advice as per his comment:

• Be inspired > spend some time being inspired by things you love and enjoy. Ideas flow alot better when you're inspired... more so when you're stumped

• Always kick it up a notch > find something challenging or one new way to do things with each project you undertake. This will force you to grow and learn new things that will go a long way... this is exactly what I do with all my projects. Why just one new way? Coz you usually need time and a couple of tries to learn how to do that one new way right.

• Don't give excuses or be lazy > Laziness tends to cause you to give excuses as to why you cant get something done or get something to work. You must go through the failures to succeed.

! Update: Randolph's lessons

When it comes to multimedia and game design academia, Randolph is the man to look for! He was a friend from APIIT, then became my colleague while I was teaching in APIIT! Without him, I would be forced to mingle with old-timers, talking about married life (he'll be talking about that soon!). I quitted, but he stayed there since and created a game design course in APIIT! Totally cool! Also a leader of sorts, he was my boss in World of Warcraft lol.

Here's his advice:

• "Personally, I say 'Jump into the deep end' you'd never learn what you're capable of until you're pushed to the limits. It's surprising what the mind can come up with in moment of duress."

Any industry experts who wanna give great lessons, please do! Creative directors, animators, whoever! (if )ians maybe? :3