I have been thinking about ‘visions’ a lot lately. And not just because of the current political environment, where 2 different ‘visions’ are laid out daily in stark contrast. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while and have been asked about recently.
‘Vision’ is a tricky one for me. Because if you take it literally, you’d have to be able to see into the future. If someone had told me 13 years ago that we’d be winning Emmy® awards for our brand work; an award for an interactive children’s story we created from scratch; that we’d be one of a handful of companies across the US invited to join the Creative Alliance and be going to the White House last weekend for SXSL because of it; as well as using our heads and hearts and skills to try to make the world a better place, I would have said: “I’ll take that. Any day.”
All that wasn’t built on a ‘vision’ of particular achievements. It was built on the desire to create a space where creative people of all disciplines would be welcome. It was built on the belief that working together, empowering people to have a voice and respect each other would lead to good things.
I think Senator Obama laid out an amazing ‘vision’ that won him the presidency. But, judging against those ambitions, there are some people who argue that he’s failed to deliver on many fronts. Even though, line item by line item, his achievements are actually quite tremendous.
So when I hear the current presidential candidates proclaim their grand ambitions of building walls and eliminating debts and whatnot, I know that this is mostly political theater. And posturing. And I can’t help but wonder if something much simpler wouldn’t be A. more profound and B. more truthful.
Assume a presidential ‘vision’ was: for people on this planet to get along and treat each other and our environment with respect. That would touch on everything from police violence to gun control and the climate crisis.
I know that will never fly. And I’m not saying it isn’t important to have specific things to aspire to. For us, that means continued conversations with people outside of the entertainment space. It means working with our entertainment clients on adapting to non-linear distribution models. And sharing with our digital clients what we’ve learned from a decade and a half in the linear space.
But great projects can come from anywhere, so we need to stay creatively curious and open to unconventional opportunities. Some of that we simply can’t control. Some of it is luck. Some of it is being in the right place at the right time.
What we CAN control is doing great creative work every single day and doing it with Love and Kindness.
And that’s something we will never compromise on. Regardless of political, economic and social environments. We all have a very short time on this earth. I’ve recently seen what the end looks like and it sucks. So let’s try to enjoy our days by getting along and treating each other and our environment with respect.
Always.