That Time I Unknowingly Met Dan Wieden

When I met Dan Weiden of Wieden+Kennedy, I had no clue who he was or what an advertising agency was. In my early 20's my boss informed me that the next morning he and I were, unexpectedly, spending half the day with a guy who was going to help us make a video for a capital campaign. In my youthful ignorance and arrogance, I thought this imposition was a terrible waste of my valuable time. Nearly two decades later, I still cringe remembering what happened.

When we arrived at Dan's Portland office, I was awestruck by the interior design. There was a giant nest several stories up in the interior forcing my gaze skyward like a strange cathedral to a modernist art god. (Years later, in an airport terminal lounge, I saw that nest in an episode of Portlandia on the television.)

After a rushed tour of only one floor of the building, we walked across the street where Dan bought us coffee and eventually lunch. The coffee was fine but what I really wanted to do was stay in the W+K building and look around and perhaps talk to one of those cool looking artists with the giant ear gages drawing colorful digital images on a huge monitor. Those artists were clearly creative, youthful, and rebellious as evidenced by Portland-chic clothes, gaged ears, and Mac computers. But noooooo, my dumb boss, who always ruined everything, made me hang out with the greying middle aged ad guy, who was clearly not edgy or cool and especially not creative.

My inner tantrum was quelled when Dan became much more interesting by asking questions about my favorite topic back then, me. Those questions were followed up by more questions about me and follow up questions to those questions about me. "This guy's surprisingly alright!" I thought to myself in the few seconds I wasn't blathering. Dan wanted to know about my family, how I was adapting to my new job, my hopes for the future, and what we wanted our campaign video to accomplish. He encouraged me to push into my own creative endeavors, which at the time I only dabbled. I listened politely but thought, “Come on, what’s this bespectacled old guy in a Men’s Warehouse sports coat know about creativity?” 

Eventually we discussed a few production details of our capital campaign video, but only for a few minutes.The visit was almost entirely relational and as we were departing, I had a vague sense that maybe there was more to Dan than I understood and perhaps I should have asked him something, anything, about himself. I was quickly distracted and filed the experience somewhere in the recesses of my brain under "uneventful."

It was a moment of shock, awe, and profound retroactive embarrassment, when years later I discovered who Dan really was to everyone else while watching a documentary called Art & Copy. Turns out, Dan was the creative force behind some of the most influential ads in the history of ads. Dan was a legend and I spent half a day with him feeling inconvenienced, monologuing about myself, and asking nothing about him or his work. Cringe.

My youthful egocentricity thwarted that opportunity to learn directly from Dan who has since passed. But I hope that by having gained some wisdom to go along with my own now greying beard, I can still glean something by reflecting on that botched opportunity. Here are some thoughts:

Dan was curious and asked lots of questions:

Creativity needs lots of inputs before producing effective output. Curiosity paired with being willing to ask lots of questions helps to create greater understanding about everything. Greater knowledge and understanding allows for more mental and emotional paths of connection. More paths of connections enables more mind rout possibilities to communicate ideas or elicit the desired response of audiences.

Dan was gracious and kind:

Success and ego needn’t be paired. Dan not only tolerated me, he dug in and got to know me. He was more concerned with knowing than being known and I’m sure that contributed to his greatness as a creative.

Dan encouraged creativity in others:

Dan told me I should pursue creative outlets. He recognized potential and selflessly sought to coax it out of me, not for any benefit to himself or his company but rather because he believed the world is better when folks give it what they got. I was arrogant and in retrospect unworthy of his encouragement, but because a guy like Dan told me my creative work mattered, it is now easier to have faith in myself and take risks. I hope to emulate this by nurturing any growing talent I encounter wherever that may be.

Lots of time has passed since I unknowingly met Dan Wieden. The way he treated me and time he spent with me, an unwarrantedly cocky dumbass, still has an impact on my life and work for the better. I hope that by sharing this story here on LinkedIn, it might impact a few others in a similar manner.

Published by

Sonny Silverton

Scope & Sequence

307 followers

Published • 1m

What I learned from Dan Wieden. #liveandlearn #creativeagency #youthwastedontheyoung #bekind