6 Things I Want To Tell The Next Generation of Creatives

I'm clearly on a roll with this "6 Things" trend. If you missed it, I recently wrote about 6 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting An Agency. Who knows how many of these I'll crank out but they seem to hit me hard on my morning run right now.

In light of coming up on Hello Big Idea's 6th birthday and sending out 3 summer interns off this week, I've put together yet another version of "6 Things". This one stems from employing creatives over the last 5 years -- some older, but most younger than me. As I mentioned in my last article, managing people is hard. But so is employing people. Here is what I want to tell the generation of creatives coming up behind me. Per usual, some of these seem glaringly obvious, others not as much.

1. Building your career takes time.

As a millennial, I understand instant gratification — you want your dream job and dream salary -- right now. Mad respect that you had the confidence to ask for the $ you believe you’re worth right out of college. But, remember it takes time. Entry-level jobs exist for a reason. If your job doesn’t create a growth plan or advance you over the years, find a new one. The likelihood is you won’t stay at one job the entirety of your career like our parents did, but give it time. Put in the work. It will (quite literally) pay off.

2. Become a double edge sword.

You might have gone to school for something specific but you’re going to have to be able to do more than just one thing. Learn to hone your craft and then learn another one. Notice I didn't say hone every single craft. You can't be good at everything, but you can be good at more than one thing. Be able to design and strategize. Be able to write and manage social media. This will build you leverage and move you up a latter… whether that latter is in-house marketing, in an agency, or your own business.

3. Learn to write. Now.

If you learn any second skill first, make it writing. Maybe you’re not a copywriter but it’s time to become one. Hard truth: MLA format isn’t going to do you much good in this field… but learning to write like a marketer will. From captions to presentation notes. From emails to strategy decks. LEARN. TO. WRITE. Writing is a skill. How do we refine skills? Practice. Start practicing. Start writing. Now.

4. Fail hard... and fast. 

It’s amazing how many of you have never failed. It’s so unfamiliar that it feels like the end of the world. It’s not. Feedback is not failure. Repeat that. Feedback is not failure. You either live or you learn. Every time you fail is a moment to learn, reflect and adjust. What is success without failure? Learn to fail… hard and fast. The faster you fail, the faster you learn.

5. Never stop learning.

The second you think you know it all you’re dead in the water. The number one way I think our education system fails us is that they teach a lot of things (read: content matter) but they forget to teach you HOW TO LEARN. Learn how to learn. Then, take it one step further and become a problem solver. Your value will skyrocket. People hire problem solvers. 

6. Understand how to make it pretty and have purpose.

Paying attention to detail on the esthetics is absolutely important. I'm guessing (and hoping!) your degree taught you the importance of detail to your craft. But understanding how the creative is going to deploy, post, print, hang, work, and be interacted with is more important. Your brain may create the most beautiful piece of work ever imagined, but if it doesn't have a purpose (and in our world that purpose is usually make people take action) then it's just art.

And there you have it. To my elder creatives out there... what would you add to this list? What do you want to tell the future creatives? I'm genuinely curious.