Not going to Portland.

I’m not going to Portland.

Damn.
There’s two reasons:

1. immigration issues

Apparently they can only apply for a 1-EB Visa in march, which than takes 6 months to process meaning I won’t be able to get there before September 2009.

2. I don’t fit the company structure

I get this every time I’ve applied at a traditional agency. They basically don’t know what to do with me. They’re all set up to churn out 30-second spots or pictures with a line of copy. If you’re not proficient in a discipline needed to that result there’s really not much they can do with you.
There’s numerous interviews out there with big advertising honchos going on about how the world is changing, media fragmentation, interactive, how they’re adapting yadayadayada. Yet when I see what they do online it’s pretty obvious they just _don’t_ get it.
W+K is a different category though. Their stuff is so good that it always penetrates popular culture and thus automatically ends up being seen and passed on on the Interwebs. I never told them, but they don’t NEED me. I guess they figured it out themselves

So there.

But there’s (just a tiny shred) of hope.
We’ll talk again in March 2009, maybe things will have changed by then.
And I might get introduced to their Amsterdam office.
Though as I’m guessing they’re pretty much set up the same way, I’m not getting my hopes up too high.

So my quest for an interesting job beyond the border goes on.
Anyone, anyone? Mail me for a portfolio.
christian -dot- verschaeren -at- gmail -dot- com

I guess the next W+K Seeking thing is in November.
It’s really worth participating so you all should.
If I’m allowed to I’m going to.

Some random stuff I did.

As ADF seemed to wonder too about what it is I do I thought I’d post some random stuff I did. This isn’t stuff that’s in my portfolio, it’s just little things I did.

Well, apart from this one: http://www.i-needtogo.com I’m the creative behind this campaign, which just won a Webby award. Whoohoo! I’m not high on advertising competitions, but the webbies are cool. Anyway, won people’s vote in some category.

Some stuff I did after I discovered the iSight webcam on my laptop.

I started the eat-clementines-in-one-go meme on youtube.

Here’s mine:

It started this. There’s lots more of ‘em but not everyone got they had to tag “clementinneke”.

My new things is make a fake Quicktime VR 360 thing using the Youtube quick capture feature and turning ’round my axis. It’s silly, but I like it. It’s new! It’s fun! You should all do it! (and tag kwiktime 360)

Joe at W+K explained the word “Holistic” to me. He said it was nearly impossible to use it in a conversation without doing the make-a-globe hand gesture. Which brought the problem of online conversations to my attention! Which I solved by making a 6-second YT vid of the hand gesture. Now you can use the word “holistic” online and link it to the video. Like I just did.

—

I’m also a Twitter philosopher.

I started a Facebook group for my ex-girlfriends, kind of a social experiment. It was interesting for a while than it got messy.

At my previous job they had this company that delivered lunch. You ordered through their website in the morning and it would get delivered by noon. You could also create your own salads, which you could than give a name. I tried communicating with the unknown person assembling my salad through the names I gave my salad. I documented this on my blog. It’s in Dutch so you won’t get it. I hope. That turned into a mess too. But on a brighter note The Dirty Sanchez salad was really good and the people at my previous job are still ordering them.

I once started a fictional Marketing company by buying a URL for a del.icio.us account. So it would forward to http://del.icio.us/thecompanyname Then the trick was only using 5 tags: About_us, Home, Contact, Blog, Work. Those 5 tags would than make up the menu on the right. I would just tag 1 relevant link for each of them except for Blog which I used to blog by tagging stuff and using the comment feature. I tagged http://del.icio.us/thecompanyname as Home. It was so Meta it made my head spin.

Update: My second visit to Portland.

The subtitle to this blog is “Documenting my attempt at getting W+K to like me”

When I wrote that I didn’t know how true that actually was.

A couple of weeks ago I got a mail from Jelly, the ecd, asking what it was I actually did. I was just wondering if they ever wondered about that too, apart from my pdf they knew nothing of me.
So I put together a portfolio of stuff I did, am doing and am planning on doing. The “planning on doing”-part greatly outweighed the “did do” part.

The few times I did get a job interview at a real advertising agency (in the Belgian advertising world, which is a cottage industry compared to the likes of W+K). I usually get the brush off with lines like: “Come back when there’s more of your stuff that actually sees the light of day.”

Jelly’s response to my portfolio was “I like the way you think, come over so we can chat some more.”

Is that great or what? Not only did that make me feel a million dollars it also confirmed what I thought all along: those guys that gave me the brush off knew Jack Shit ; ).

So I got Jelly to like me I guess, but he told me they take all their decisions collectively, so I had to come back and meet the rest of the crew.

Which I did last week. I went back trying to get everyone to like me, because, as I found out, they not only take all their decisions collectively, they take ‘em unanimously.

Okay, so there was no *trying* involved, I didn’t bring back Belgian chocolates or Trappist beers for everyone. I just went there and talked with about 20 people about stuff, what I thought, what I liked. Nothing more, nothing less.

And if everyone liked me I would get a job at W+K Portland!

I had the two most charming ladies take care of me for two days, set up meetings and lunches with about half the company. I even talked with the HR ladies about immigration issues! It all became a tad too tangible at times. I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t there yet. Remind myself to start my answers with “Should this thing go through…” and “If I should ever…”

At first I thought it went alright. I met a lot of knowledgeable people, talked about the stuff I do, how I approach things, didn’t try to be a smartass. I did pretty okay I think.

I thought.

Because a few days have passed since. Days that I was all alone in my (very nice) hotel room staring at the ceiling. Riding a rental bike around Portland. (Not to check out neighborhoods Christian, just because you like to ride!) Sitting in a (very large business class) airplane seat. The point: I had way too much time to re-hash every conversation in my mind. Now I got this endless list of stupid things I said and would keep ME from liking me, let alone all the people I met.

So there you go. That’s where I’m at. They should take their decision this week and get back to me.
After that I’m either, well, *getting married* and moving to Portland. Or thinking about what my next year’s Seeking entry should be.

Right, so this is it.

If put off posting about “the day” on purpose. Mainly so my enthusiasm would wear off and I wouldn’t sound like the Chris Crocker of W+K. Because really, W+K is an amazing place/company/bunch of people.
Really.
When it was all over I had a hard time resisting the urge to invite everyone to a karaoke bar and bring my teary-eyed version of Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’ “I had the time of my life”.
Really, I did.

So the day started of with everyone doing a short Pecha Kucha-style presentation of their work. Unsurprisingly they where all great. Some blew my mind. There where people from Awstraylia, Sweden, London, France, Malaysia, Japan, NY, LA, Portland, Brooklyn, Holland et tutti quanti. I don’t think I can get into detail about them, as I’m not sure how comfortable everyone is with their work or names being thrown on the interwebs. The variety of entries was amazing too, graphic designers that sent portfolios, writers who, well, wrote stuff, photographers… One page entries, entries with one idea done differently 20 times. It was mindboggling: great stuff presented by different people from different walks of life and from all over the world. To have all these people in the room at the same time was electric. I’ve never been to a Ted conference, but I think this came pretty close. In fact I would love to see some of the entries that didn’t make the “top 40″ as I’m sure there’s a lot more great stuff out there. And I would give my right arm to be able to see the presentations of next year’s bunch too.
When that was over we went to the W+K offices for lunch and to spend the rest of the day talking and hanging out.

After lunch we had a presentation by John Jay and one by Jelly.

John Jay is the global executive creative director. I had no idea what that meant, and I still kinda don’t, but I can tell you that he is a very intense and inspiring person. He showed some of their work from their various offices, mostly the long versions of TV commercials we’ve all seen. Then he gave some info on his job which pretty much consists of making sure W+K will remain the best advertising agency in the world. No mean feat. Some visions of the future, the rise of Asia, trends. He’s ahead of the curve on everything. When that was over I felt about this -> <- big. John Jay is an amazing person, after giving such an intense and inspiring presentation I would have to lie down for a few hours, he just went on with the next thing. Jelly, who is the Portland Creative Director, did a fun presentation, about how they worked, why the work comes first, WK12 which is an advertising school within WK, great stuff. After John Jay’s presentation it felt as he was reassuring us: Advertising super heroes are human too.

Then we all got to meet some of the people working there. Like a speed date type thing which was fun. I got to meet the interactive strategy guy, the most charming account supervisor, a wonderful planning lady and an art director. Yes I remember all their names. It was in these conversations that we were sometimes reminded the whole thing was a recruitment thing. “So you think you could come live here with your wife and kids?”. To most of us the fact that we got to go to Portland and meet the W+K people was it, that was the prize. I, and most of us I’m sure, already got everything out of if we ever dreamt of getting out of it. Another thing that hit me was the egos. The advertising world has a bad rep when it comes to that, and from the little I’ve seen it ain’t undeserved either. But I guess when you reach the level that W+K has reached, having an ego becomes pointless. Very comforting.
We hung out on the deck, they have Heineken on tap on every floor, the building is amazing, the offices have couches, they know their greatest assets are the people working there, there’s art everywhere, people are very nice. It’s hardly imaginable it’s a company, that it’s work, that people *get* payed to be there. I went by there on Saturday too, which should be a day off, instead of abandoned offices there where quite a few people there, some not even to work but to hang out it seemed. It didn’t surprise me, but it should sounds surprising.

Before that though there was a dinner party Friday night. I sat across Biz Stone who was one of the forty. From what I gather he participated in the Seeking thing for for a different reason: he is considering using the same recruitment method for Twitter and his other ventures. Next to me was the creative director of Starbucks, who’s some English git with whom I went cycling the next day.

We ate and drank and there was much rejoicing.

And that was it! It was a get-together, it was hanging out, it was meeting people, it wasn’t a competition or a job interview, it was the time of my life. No I never felt like this before. Yes I swear it’s the truth and I owe it all to you Oops, sorry, stronger than me.

I hung around Portland for 2 more days, On which I’ll write an entry soon.
Then I went to LA, on which I’ll write another entry.
And then I’ll write an entry with a few tips for people considering participating next year.

Here’s Nelson’s report on the event, which is better written and has better pictures and his better is better than my better.

Sorry to keep you all waiting.

I promised a report, I’ve been putting it off for a reason, but it should be here soon.

Meanwhile this is a message to the lucky 40: On top of the mailing list (that isn’t complete yet is it?) I created this Ning “social network” thinggie. Which should be easier to stay in touch through, post stuff, DO SOMETHING, get updates and whatnot.

Join!!:  http://wkneptunes.ning.com/ 

Day one.

Did you know that if you circel the earth going West you can have an everlasting day.

Yesterday, I lived that day.

It was hell flying over here but it seems petty to complain about it now that I’m here, so I’m not going to.
I got here right in time for the casual reception in the hotel bar. It sucked. Everybody sitting at their own table ignoring everybody else. I tried to start a conversation with someone who blew me off. So I just sat at the bar by myself drinking microbrewery beer. And some more beers. And another one. Than I bumped into Nancy who told me the casual reception was next door and it was almost finished.

Duh!

Still managed to catch everyone coming out and head for another bar down the street. We had pitchers of dark microbrewery beer that tasted like cold coffee. It took some time getting used to it (about one pitcher) and then it was allright. We stayed there pretty late, it’s also good to see that drinking is part of W+K company culture.

Anyways, I hit the sack pretty late and got up at 6am. I slept like a baby though.

Up next: the Pecha Kucha thing where everyone has to present their pdf in 20 seconds per slide. I’m really looking forward to it. (To the other ones being presented not necessarily to doing it myself.)

Than there’s this: (video)

I’ll keep you posted.

SOooo.

Right now I’m sitting behind my laptop (obviously) trying to stay awake. I’m taking the plane to Portland at 10am and I’m trying to stay awake all through the night so  I’ll sleep most of the trip and don’t have jet lag when I get there. Of course, I feel rather pretty messed up.

This blog is getting a lot more traffic than I ever planned it on getting, especially around the time the results got out there, then the stats went pretty much through the roof. It has died down a bit, yet, it seems people are still interested. So I’ll do my best to document the experience online.

Should you be interested you can find me on:

Facebook

Twitter

Here

Flickr

If you follow one or some or all of those channels you should get a good impression of what the whole thing is like. (And give you the opportunity to go access the archives and rummage through my personal life. ;)  )

After Portland I’m staying a couple of days in LA where I’ll visit friends I haven’t seen in years.

I’m sooo looking forward to it. I just wish I was on the friggin’ plane already.

This is one of those posts that seemed like a good idea at the time, but will make me feel awkward when I meet people in real life.

The hat, video

Contrary to what you might think, the missus did not hold the camera the wrong way ’round. This is a ceiling wallride alley-oop developing around 7 G-forces. The hat withheld beautifully.

With the addition of a basic elastic band the hat is suited for most mainstream eXtr3mE SportZ. And little kids.