The Maley Daily

I’m currently taking one of the more challenging classes I’ve encountered in grad school.  It’s a class about ideas and the creative process.  We don’t sit and take notes while the professor lectures.  Instead, we present our ideas on a variety of creative marketing challenges, whether creating new business concepts, designing new products, or re-positioning brands.  It’s the bright spot of creativity in a largely data-driven curriculum, but boy, it’s difficult.

It’s easy to see how so much advertising fails by experiencing the creative process firsthand.  No matter how brilliant the idea, the execution needs to boil the idea down to its essence, its emotional core.  I know it’s my left brain beating up on my right brain when I hear myself look at some of the executions that I’ve produced and think, “Boy, this really sucks.”

So I’m particularly delighted to have stumbled upon this clip of Ira Glass of This American Life discussing the learning curve of the creative process.  Before he was successful, he says, he produced a lot of crappy work.  The key to success is not giving up when you notice yourself producing work that’s not up to your standards.  Eventually, you’ll get better, but it takes time, hard work and deadlines to become truly great.