ISSUE 266 : Wednesday, October 7, 2009

O.K. So last week I stuck my foot in it up to my neck. 20-some-odd irate emails later, I lived to tell the tale. The weinies were pissed. So this week rather then put them all on "ignore," my editor, Ag, suggested I answer them in groups.

Largest group: Who are you to charge poor, destitute, seekers of wisdom a grand a month to sit at your feet? My Response:   Who are all of the portfolio schools that taught you how to do the advertising nobody pays attention to these days, to charge them a whole lot more? I'm cheap at twice the price.

Next-to-largest group: You have a lot to learn from 24-year-olds, you pompous jerk. My Response: People like me created the value perceptions of every 24-year-old you know. I learn from my 7-year-old. The rest, I make up as I go.

Next-to-smallest group. How did you get to be Number 12 on the list of people to work for in advertising? My Response: I am far less of a prick than number 13. I'm sure after these two articles my name will drop way down. Which is my intention. (Yet another NeoAdvertising case study in the making).

Smallest group: How much would you charge me by the hour? My Response: Take a number and stand in line.

This is not to say that I havn't learned several significant things from those significantly younger then myself. To wit:

I learned never to admit anything to a woman who accuses you of anything from a 27 yr old Bartender in Viejo San Juan,

I learned always to say "yes dear" to a terrific lover from a 39 year old ex-Bartender on the way to Vegas.

I learned never to stop breathing when paralyzed with fear from a 16 year old with an AK47 strapped to his arm in Watts,

I learned how to power shift through curves from a 29 year old tree surgeon from Denmark.

But so much for housekeeping. Yet the question about 24-year-olds did get me to think about the vast differences in generations and the way they process information. Even in the way they perceive what is and what is not information. The generation raised on the internet believes information is anything they can find on the web that agrees with their current frame of mind. They are looking outside of themselves for decision support. Their core values are in a constant state of flux. What ever conflicts with their current state of mind is waved off with a "whatever" and dismissed out of hand.

The generation raised on television, print, radio and the web have a slightly different perspective. They actually have life experiences to draw from that mitigate the messages from the media that they have taken at face value all their lives. They lived through Nixon and 911. They witnessed the fall of Communism and the transformation of Michael Jackson. They witnessed the death of their parents. And now they face their own mortality and work hard to ignore it. They are firmly in control even though they are in fear of losing everything they worked for.

So the question is not whether or not there is anything I can learn from a 24-year-old. The question is whether there is anything a 24-year-old can learn from me. Is experience relevant if everything is in change mode every single day? And if experience is irrelevant then what do we base our criteria for acquiring talent upon? Inexperience? "We want to bet the farm and millions of dollars on this guy that just dropped out of high school because he hasn't been tainted by experience and he thinks his idea is "coo."

Well we (the collective "we") went down that route. It didn't work out. So now what? Now we're back to good old common sense. Twitter is not worth $2 billion bucks. No matter how many 24-year-old bloggers think it is. You can't afford a $500K house on a $50K paycheck. No matter how many 24-year-old mortgage bankers juggle the numbers. You don't need version 2.5. No matter how many 24-year-old techies say it's essential.

Nobody is following any 24-year-old lemmings off a cliff. Certainly not me. Unless they are paying me to jump.