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On nearly a daily basis, I find myself asking the question, “What has happened to customer service these days?” Perhaps part of the problem is that I’ve let the corporate-speak term “customer service” enter into my vocabulary. How about just treating me fairly? Then you won’t have to invent an entire department filled with employees with fictitious titles, absolutely no authority to make decisions, and call them “customer service representatives.” Frankly, I don’t feel well represented.

Case in point: a certain telephone company runs ads saying that you should switch to their DSL-based high speed internet service because they’ll give you the same speed as the cable company, but at a much lower price. Great. Sign me up. Which I did, 7 weeks ago. After three different sets of technicians came out to try to get it right, the best they could do was a speed roughly 8 times slower than what I was already getting with cable. Fine, I’ll stick with what was already working well, so I call the phone company to cancel. “I don’t have the authority to cancel your account,” says CSR #1, “but I’ll have someone who can call you tomorrow.” Translation: when it’s convenient for us. In all it took me five different phone calls and a trip to one of their stores to finally get the account canceled. I’d estimate I spent 15 hours getting that done. What does that tell you about how well this customer was represented?

Counterpoint. I’ve got a development team completely immersed in Ruby on Rails. One of the bibles of Rails development is Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson, so I bought a handful of copies for the team. While looking something up in one of the copies last night, I noticed my page numbering went from 56 directly to 89, so I sent a note to the publisher, The Pragmatic Bookshelf. Not even an hour later, I got an e-mail from Ellie Callahan at The Pragmatic Bookshelf, asking for my address so that they could express ship a new copy to me, no questions asked. There was no, “I don’t have the authority to…” or “…someone will call you tomorrow.” She simply apologized for the printing error and took take of the problem. They now a customer for life.

It’s something simple we impress upon the people here at Barefoot all the time. Do the right thing. Do the best work possible. Treat our clients and co-workers fairly.

One of the two companies mentioned above will not only continue to get my business, but they will get my support and recommendation as well. The other will not. I’ve quite literally put my money where my mouth is by linking to those I recommend.

60 Minutes recently ran a segment on Denmark, which once again ranked first in the world in terms of the happiness of the population.

Morley Safer interviewed a number of Danes to determine why they thought ranked consistently as the most happiest people in the world, and particularly why they thought it might be that they were happier than Americans. Their answers basically centered upon the idea of having more realistic expectations from life, so that they were less frequently frustrated or disappointed. A piece of advice they proffered up to Americans was not to be so “preoccupied with the American Dream.” They also attributed their happiness to the amount of value they place on friendships, family, and spending time with both.

The role that meaningful relationships with family and friends plays with regard to personal happiness was validated in an interview with Tal Ben-Shahar, a professor at Harvard, who teaches a course on Positive Psychology — basically a primer for his students on how to be happier today.

Tal espouses that as a society too many of us are willing to sacrifice happiness today with the hope that we’ll be happier in the future. We’ll be happier once we get that bigger house, that bigger car, that promotion, etc.

No surprise to us here at Barefoot, but that is simply not true. You need to choose to do what makes you happy today, but importantly, not at the expense of being happy tomorrow. That would not be happiness, that would be hedonism.

Those who read this blog know that I trade-up for books. Not only do I have a “thing” for books, I even wrote one back in 2003. It’s a childhood memoir called Running from the Devil. It’s about my 1970’s youth and some pretty big secrets I kept. It sounds kind of heavy, and in some ways it is, but the story is mostly light-hearted. Publisher’s Weekly called the book “hilarious, sad and fully absorbing.” It was also an alternative selection of the Literary Guild, and I appeared on NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” for a full hour. The book was a joy to write and promote (even though it never even came within shouting distance of the New York Times’ bestseller list).

One of the cool things about my book-writing experience is that Barefoot permitted me to work part-time while I wrote the book over the course of about one year in 2001. And though the book didn’t sell all that well, I have received over 500 letters and emails from strangers around the country who read the book, found something to like in it, and then took the time to write me.

And just the other day, I sold the TV and movie rights to Madison Park Pictures, a small, but very creative, award-winning production firm. Check out the trailer for their movie, “LBS.” The odds of anything coming of this option that I sold are slim, at best, but it’s still cool how a one labor of love has brought me so much happiness. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a Running from the Devil movie or TV series that will bring some joy to a few others. You can’t blame a guy for dreaming, right?

In the November 26 issue of Time magazine, there’s a graphic-driven article that speaks to on-the-job satisfaction. (You can also find an interactive version of the data on the Time website.) According to this survey, the clergy are the most content, with a full 67% claiming they are “very happy” with their work. No doubt because they toil day-in and day-out for the “Big Boss,” and bring a lot of comfort to people (if they’re doing their job well). Interestingly, firefighters are among the very happiest at work, too.

I’m pleased to note that folks in our field seem pretty happy as well. Those broadly placed in the category “advertising” appear in the top 1/3rd of the happy-at-work list, with about 42% saying they, too, are “very happy.” Those that they report to are only oh-so-slightly less happy: about 41% of managers in the fields of marketing and advertising claim to be “very happy.”

This doesn’t surprise me. Having been in the ad/marketing biz for some 20 years, I would have to say that I’ve always felt, in the big picture, at least, very happy about my job. Yes, I’ve had some real difficult clients that had me thinking that being a firefighter might actually be a more comfortable job. And I’ve had some crazy-ass supervisors, one who had less self-awareness than a rock, who made work so painful at times that the thought of joining the clergy crossed my mind (until, that is, the notion of celibacy popped into my mind). Those bad job experiences aside, a life in advertising has been a true joy–most notably here at Barefoot. Why?

Well, for me, it’s because the culture is open, free and stimulating. There’s no heavy-hand demanding a certain way of thinking or approaching work, other than the requirement that you seek excellence and, along the way, respect yourself, your colleagues and your clients. While some agency cultures seem to reward jackasss and prima donnas, not Barefoot. An abundance of talent and an abundance of kindness are by no means mutually exclusive. You need both to do well at Barefoot. That’s why it’s such a happy place to work. And, at the end of the work day, a happy place in a happy industry is one great place to be.

At yesterday’s monthly all-staff meeting, we announced that in late October we’re going to have something of an art/talent show (combined with the universally popular happy hour). The point of the event will be that each and every Barefoot employee will bring in a piece of art of their own creation (or, by proxy, their kid’s creation) or show off a special talent. I expect we’ll see some fine photography and poetry alongside some expert juggling and model ship building.

I’m not sure what I’m going to show off. My Popsicle-stick bird feeders have rarely, if ever, been fully appreciated. Neither have my windsocks made out of athletic socks. It’s time for something new, I guess.

We have some very talented people at Barefoot. For example, take interactive designer Rob Sloan. He can design sites, blogs and banners that will take your breath away. There’s copywriter Sarah Knott who can write like, well, the Dickens. And there’s Amanda Brown who can write a creative brief that will actually make you grateful for such things as brand equity and reasons to believe. This is not to overlook our highly skilled and motivated project managers, such as Jana Roszkowski, or our nimble application developers, such Bobby Uhlenbrock. Thing is, we see the talents of our colleagues day in and day out. Now it’s time to see how they shine during their free time.

I expect to be just as impressed by my colleagues’ off-the-clock creativity as I am with their on-the-clock achievements. As such, I’m feeling considerable pressure to make a positive impression–I’m a creative director, for crying out loud! Maybe it’s time to unveil my 1/74th scale Statue of Liberty made entirely of Play-doh and dried pasta. Getting it out of my mother’s basement could be a little tricky, though.

Really? Did I just say that? Yeah, I did. Now, I’m a super competitive person but for some reason when it comes to our softball team here at Barefoot, I don’t mind the occasional (or in our case, oh-so-occasional) loss. We’ve been playing for three seasons, and have but one glorious win under our belt. I’m not going to mention that this win (in our first season) was probably the result of the other team not having enough players; the fact that the league stat sheet says “win,” well, that’s enough for me.

The reason my ultra competitive, do-what-it-takes-to-be-the-best personality is okay with this not-winning-one-single-game-this-season fact is because every Monday night a bunch of us from Barefoot meet at a softball field, and for an hour or so, hang out, cheer each other on, make fun of each other, laugh and have a few drinks. It’s great. It gives us all a chance to be ourselves outside of work and get to know each other on a whole different level.

One of the things that I’ve always loved about Barefoot is the people here. People who work hard and who genuinely like each other. I’ve always believed that this is one of the biggest reasons we all come in here every day, work our asses off and still love (and enjoy) what we do.

While we may not win many (or even barely any) on the softball field, we certainly have a lot of wins here at Barefoot. So as long as none of us quit our day jobs, I think being 0-11 is a perfectly happy place to be.

Go Barefoot!
See you next season.

I have seen a lot of people come through the doors at Barefoot. Not just full time “Toes,” but bright-eyed, hopeful candidates and students looking to better understand agency life and I get asked this question a lot, “What’s the most important thing to be successful in this business?” My answer used to be simple: passion (and I still believe that is incredibly important). But I’ve also met a lot of “passionate” people who did not possess what I now view as the most important thing to be successful.

So, now my answer goes a little something like this: “Be a sponge. Be open, listen and learn as much as you can every day. Understand that as good as you think you might be, there is always someone better, smarter, faster, more talented. And once you can understand that and truly believe it, half the battle is won. The rest is up to you. Become a student for life and never believe that you are “there,” that you have arrived.

I can’t imagine that day will ever come for me, because the day that happens is the day I am no longer growing. Regardless of the promotions, pats on the back or awards I win, I continue to believe I am only as good as the last thing I have done. And that keeps me pushing myself, growing and I believe it helps me to be a more valuable contributor to the creative team and to Barefoot everyday.

So, I guess what I am saying is that be patient, listen a lot and enjoy the ride. Don’t be in a rush to get to the top and make the most money. Enjoy the journey, because that’s exactly what it is. Yes, passion is great to have, but in my opinion, being a sponge is even better.

I love great creative. And I love it even more when it’s the work of my friends and colleagues here at Barefoot. Check out this cool B-to-B postcard campaign on “Ads of the World” done for Tom Bolton, a letterer for comic books and such. This smart, funny work was the result of a collaboration between art director Todd Jessee and copywriter Paul Singer. David Schlosser worked his illustration magic, and Jodi Greene provided excellent creative direction. I wish I could say that I was involved in the work, but I wasn’t. If it looks familiar to you, it may be because it’s also been featured in Archive magazine.

One of the things that I love best about the Barefoot culture and the people we have here is that whenever anyone finds themselves with a bit of downtime, they’re always quick to send an all-staff email and ask how they might be able to pitch in and help someone else out. I’ve worked at places where, if you found yourself with some downtime, the culture seemed to encourage just sitting on your ass and twiddling your thumbs. This “team attitude,” if you’ll pardon the cliche, truly makes a difference for at least one person almost every day.

I’ve been at Barefoot for almost 12 years. I worked my way up from a Designer to an Art Director to a Associate Creative Director to a Creative Director. And now I’m a Partner. Seven years ago when I was promoted to an ACD, I made the transition from peer to boss. (Not the end-all-be-all boss, mind you, but a boss nonetheless). It was strange. One week I was brainstorming concepts and presenting my designs along side my co-workers, and the next I was evaluating their ideas and deciding whether they were good or not. I had to make a mental transition, as did everyone around me. I have to say, the first 6 months I questioned every decision I made and more often than not found myself at home questioning my decisions all over again. I mean it was just one person’s opinion, right? My opinion. Gulp.

I found myself constantly looking to Doug to help me figure out what to do, what were the best decisions and how I would know. And why was it that he always seemed to have the right solutions for things and I didn’t? I so desperately wanted to be that person who knew the right thing to do and make the right decisions all the time. The fact is: what I didn’t realize then, was that I was thinking about things the wrong way. I was never going to have all of the right answers, all of the time, and that was something I had to learn to be okay with. While it’s still my goal, I also understand that it may not be an entirely realistic goal. Don’t get me wrong, I still strive for perfection, but there are still plenty of times that I still find myself going to Doug for advice and guidance on things.

Through the years and with the help of a lot of smart people around me, I finally realized that being wrong and needing someone’s help are not bad things. And once I could truly realize that… BOOM my confidence was better, my decisions were smarter and I found myself able to grow even stronger.

Could it of really been that simple? In hindsight, everything seems simpler and clearer, right? For me it was about growing up—and more importantly, being open to growing up, which is a powerful thing that doesn’t happen overnight (at least not for me) in fact, I’m still working on it everyday.