Get a Life: What’s Your 20% Project?
19th May 10
Posted in 20% project, creativity, culture
Image from Zach Hilder's blog: http://deathfrom.blogspot.com/
Author: Heidi Hackemer (@uberblond), Planning Director, BBH New York
We just went through recruitment for our upcoming internship program, the BBH Barn, and since we announced our six interns from the 150+ applications we’ve received a lot of questions about our selection criteria.
Whether literally or figuratively, the candidates that made the cut had a two-column resume. In column A, we saw an interest and understanding of advertising and/or consumer and brand interaction. It doesn’t mean that these interns are advertising experts by any stretch of the imagination, but it does mean that they have an appreciation for it and may know a bit of their way around our world. 98% of the applications checked off this column quite well.
The second column is where things got interesting: we also looked for candidates that had a bit of “mess” in their resume, i.e. a curiosity, a drive to think about and do things beyond pursuing the perfect advertising career. As a result we have filmmakers, activists, dancers and a guy that has worked in third world development.
We believe the mess is just as important as the “proper” education and inputs: advertising is one of those fields that should collaborate not only internally, but with culture at large – to be relevant and human we should inhale the world around us, circulate it in our lungs a bit and then exhale our response. The minute that we get too obsessed or spend too much time focusing on what happens within our walls or the minute the great love in our life becomes a widget or :30 second idea is the minute we lose the oxygen that we need to make great work.
Let’s face it, the people that are purely obsessed with advertising (and we all know them and have phases in our own lives where we’re guilty of being one of them) aren’t the people that contribute much to a truly sparkling dinner party or a stupid fun night out or bring a perspective that really changes things. So we wanted to make sure our Barn was filled with the dinner-party-rockers of the future. We think it will make for a more interesting summer and better work.
So here’s where it gets cool:
We were thinking of the above criteria, that we applied externally, and we thought we’d check internally how well we were doing. We asked BBHers in the NYC office to send along their personal, out of office, projects. We had a whole bunch of stuff submitted. Some highlights included:
Calle Sjoenell @callesjonell wanders around new york and puts up basketball nets where there are none. http://www.flickr.com/photos/callesjonell/sets/72157621869375075/
Harper Reitkopf @itsharper pretty much lives at the honey-space gallery to help artists do their thing http://honey-space.com/
Dane Larsen @dlarsen is documenting the life and times of his Brooklyn backyard this summer http://bklynbkyard.com/
Brad Haugen @hoogs throws his passion into being the Director of Marketing and Brand for Pencils of Promise, a non-profit that helps build schools in third world countries http://www.pencilsofpromise.org/blog/2010/04/bring-out-lead-forth/
Zach Hilder keeps an awesome blog of his drawings and photographs http://deathfrom.blogspot.com
Saneel Radia @saneel is working with a team to figure out the next big thing in coffee cups http://www.thebetacup.com/ & @thebetacup
Kris Chu @kris_chu documents his struggle to banish cable from his life: http://suckitcable.blogspot.com/
Colleen Leddy @colleddy blogs tips about being the impeccable bridesmaid http://holdthebouquet.squarespace.com/
Kenji Summers @kenjisummers gives time to the Marcus Graham Project, a network of diverse advertising, marketing and media people @MGProject
Kirsty Saddler @keava has taken her personal passion for corporate social responsibility and started a think tank/action group within BBH called the Hive @BBHhive
Chris Araujo @cornfedchris is working on a soon to be unveiled project that’s all about making the world a better place and that’s all I can say about it right now upon fear of death.
Miranda Kendrick @mirandakendrick has two culture grabbing blogs: http://workingitatwork.tumblr.com/ that shows off the beautiful people of BBH and http://nyink.blogspot.com/ that shows off the beautiful tattoos of the world.
Hal & Masa have been busy working on the follow up to their Webby-winning music video for “Hibi no Neiro” (Tone of everyday) by “Sour” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfBlUQguvyw (watch this space)
And me? I’ve started the Wilhelmine Project, a mini-gallery that is hosted in the display window of my converted storefront apartment in the East Village http://thewilhelmineproject.com & @wilhelmineprjct
So our question today is, what’s your 20% project?
Are you busy waiting for permission?
Or are you busy just getting on with it?
Let us know what you’re up to. You never know, there might be some common ground; we could collaborate.
Absolutely love this post. Internships and awards are great, but without a creative outlet that shows your passion outside of career advancement, a person seems quite 1-dimensional.
It is but the smallest selfless act that opens up the inspiration well.
This is a good way to identify the right people.
In my experience, genuinely creative people can’t really choose whether or not they create.
It’s a reflex; they will do it even if no one is looking, or paying, or even if a practical need for an audience or a paycheck has gone away completely. (Think Steve Jobs or Paul McCartney).
Good post, but the project that Kenji works on is probably the Marcus Graham Project – Not Marcus Garvey
Nate, quite right, thank you for pointing that out. Have changed. Ben
This is the best blog post on HR I’ve read in a long time. Great to see a company intelligently evaluate internship candidates and explain their process – truly rare and well done.
Also, couldn’t agree more about the 20% project. Great stuff and lots of cool things going on over there. Makes me want to meet the whole team and makes your work better.
Great post Ben, as always.
I’m teaching my students right now to have more personal projects in their portfolios and I feel they struggle more with this assignment than with just a regular award show brief.
Love this post. But I have to point out that creative folks, as a thumb rule, tend to find interesting things and passions to pursue outside of work. I’ve worked at two different agencies and 80% of the colleagues I’ve worked with have nurtured pet projects in their time outside of work. Some have published comic books, assisted non-profits, written for travel blogs and even started small companies.
I do give credit to BBH for sharing their employee passions with the rest of us
Funny ! I had this basketball nets nevrose to !
As someone who has a two column life, I think this is massively awesome!
Props to you guys for rewarding these ambitious young people. I’d bet what you get from them will exceed what they get from you.
Smart!
[...] BBH Asks About Your 20% Project [...]
lovely. this goes back to a short video we have been circulating recently, talking about passion/interest is more effective than money as incentive when creating stuff – http://bit.ly/9eQSaY
thanks for sharing this Victor (was also tweeted to us yesterday by @DennisDemori). such an eye-opener and yet so human and intuitive.
we’re experimenting with some of these principles this summer: one element of the barn (the BBH intern program) is that each house of three interns will get a self-directed ‘house brief’ that they will work on all summer (in addition to client business). at the end of the summer they’ll present their solution to the agency. the thought is to build in those principles of self-motivation and ownership into the internship (which are historically not known for embracing those principles). watch this space, we’ll let you know how it goes and how it impacts (if at all) the rest of the agency.
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So cool that BBH stresses the importance of creative outlets, sounds like a great company to work for!
[...] 20% Project Posted on May 24, 2010 by Lauren Switzer This post is in response to “Get a Life: What’s Your 20% Project?” by Ben Malbon at [...]
This is such a wonderful post. I’m so glad to hear that companies are starting to shift to this mindset. I think for too long people have been made to think they have to be completely devoted and committed to their work at all times. But where’s the excitement in that? I’m a firm believer in the work/life balance, and I think more and more are starting to push for it.
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[...] But you only know and care about public relations. This will not get you a job at BBH Barn which looks for a little extra. They look for candidates that have interests external to public relations. Interests that make [...]
I’ve penned my first book featuring 25 people around the world that are working their love and loving their work. I’d love to send you guys a copy and perhaps we can collaborate in the future. Here’s a trailer for the book: http://www.holidaymatinee.com/book
As a frustrated curator, I’m inspired and in awe of the terrific 20 percenters here.
If you can spare the 10 mins, Dan Pink’s clever animated talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
on the moderating factors of rudimentary cognitive skill on goal attainment (conducted by MIT/Carnegie Mallon, and funded by the Federal Reserve Bank) is well worth it.
Even economists agree, that “autonomy, mastery, and purpose” are far greater higher level rewards.
Your focus on 20% guns this point home.
Thanks for encouraging me to rise to the challenge to create for good (I’m off to get started on my art project!)
[...] by Dan Pink on what motivates us. If you think it’s money, think again. Why do people do such great unpaid work outside of their work? Purpose. Pink concludes that “when the profit motive gets unmoored from the purpose motive, bad [...]
This is all great stuff so long as all the creative energy demonstarted by these young people isn’t siphoned off into encouraging more and more people to consume more and more products they simply do not need to make them happy. Advertising has a responsibility not simply to the clients who are commissioning the work but to the wider society in general where the messages land. We live in a world of finite resources, lets use this emerging talent to promote new ways of living and way of being beyond consumption and self gratification. Who will pay for those campaigns ? Now there’s the challenge…..
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I absolutely agree. On a side note, I collect interesting cutlery =)