How To Network

Being a Minneapolis native, I was spoiled with constant opportunities to network with individuals in advertising, design and other creative fields. When I came to Arkansas I had to learn to seek them out.

I network because I’ve found that through sharing with people in the industry, you get a good gauge of your level of work, are among the first to know about new job opportunities, you can feed off of one another’s ideas and you get your name out there with people that could share your work in their network.

When coming to Arkansas where there is no advertising, design or creative community I found I had to rely more on social networking to connect.

1. Blogging. Although I never had been one for blogging initially, I have found that through this blog I have made a number of connections when a post inspired debate, discussion of work or simply having them look at my personal site after reading my blog. I’ve been able to receive a lot of feedback that has inspired me to revisit my portfolio and refresh my personal brand.

2. Twitter. I’ve always been one too much prefer a face-to-face conversation to 140 characters of exchange. Yet, I’ve found that through sharing the things that I like, I’ve made connections with like-minded people that has progressed to longer conversation and collaboration over messaging and emails.

3. Linked In. Many have a profile; but, few see the value in it. I’ve found that it has been useful in two distinct ways. One, it allows for me to bookmark the people in my profession that I made a valuable connection with. Two, through using your few free emails to target individuals in your industry asking for feedback, I’ve found I’ve fostered strong connections and received great constructive criticism on my work.

Although this is by no means the only ways to connect, and not the only ways I’ve tried, I’ve found that through blogging, twitter and linked in I’ve achieved the best networking results so far. Yet my biggest piece of advice is, if you currently live in a hub of advertising and design use those networks to meet people, you’ll be glad you did.

The Need to Brand Yourself

Could marketing yourself yield the same results as advertising/branding a major company? Yes.

In fact, one of the strongest lessons they pushed at my college, MCAD, was the necessity to treat and market yourself as a brand. Although this made some students a bit skittish, it is important more than ever to treat and market yourself as a brand.

Many people believe that with the rise of social media outlets such as twitter, that significantly shorten our attention span, as proof that brands are dyeing when it is quite the opposite. When you have 140 characters to push a complex aspect of a product or the sleekness of a brand, the necessity to push the brand to keep it short, sweet and repeatable is impartially important.

Treating one’s self as a brand forces you to consider truly what makes you different and what your true selling points are. It allows you to create your paired down elevator pitch, and with repetition, gives you the chance to attribute those aspects to a recognizable logo.

So it than no longer is a question of to brand or not to brand and it turns into what is unique about your brand?

The Asset of Being You

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn, as a young art director, was that your personality and quirks often can prove to be an asset.

I began my working career at Target and Starbucks. Both are good places to work and both are pretty strict corporations that ask that you leave your personality at the door and put on the brand face. When taught to, on a daily basis, remove your personality when at work, it becomes difficult when asked to express myself regularly at an agency.

Although not every career expressly wants you to be yourself on a daily basis, no one wants to work with someone that is dull or rude. When interviewing for design and art director positions at agencies, I’ve found that the agencies that were always heavily interested in me were the ones in which I was very relaxed and simply being my normal, odd self. By being someone that is naturally happy and spreads humor to others I have an asset outside of my ability to create good work and pitch it well to clients, I have the ability to help create a stronger team through being myself.

Yet, the hardest lesson to learn for those that have radically different or unusual personalities is the necessity to do what I call, “Easing people into your crazy.” By with holding much of your personality initially to gauge others, find your niche and allow for your personality to gradually come out, you become a natural fit. On the other hand, being extremely out there from day one can often create apprehension, unease and the feeling of being ostracized from the group.

So in the end I’ve found the best practice is to show your personality, craziness and all; but, don’t jump the gun (ease people into your oddities).

Always Meet The Team Before Accepting The Offer

When helping a friend think of advice to give to ad students three things immediately jumped to mind. They are what have and will continue to guide me on my career path:

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1. “Start your career at a small agency, it is incredibly chaotic; but, you get your hands in everything and can learn skills that will help your later career flourish.” –Brian Collins, CEO at Collins

2. “Always plan your agency path three moves ahead. If you can’t get into your top agency of choice find out where most of the creatives came from and go there. You can gain the skills that the creative team will look for having come from a similar career path.” –Tim Brunelle, Co-Founder & CEO at Hello Viking

3. “Always meet the creative team before accepting the offer.” –Kathy Umland, Director of Creative Operations at Martin Williams

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For most students who are lectured to be choosey when selecting agencies to go after the thought is often: I wish I had that luxury.

Yet, the thing you rapidly learn in the industry is that it isn’t a luxury it truly is a necessity. If one works at an agency with a poor reputation, often the creative industry will have a predisposition to think less of you. As a result, you have to work much harder to prove yourself to that agency later in your career.

For a student using that advice as a guiding principle more than set in stone needs, it can prove to be quite fruitful. In the end, I was surprised how I had followed all the advice unconsciously starting at a small agency, Rockfish Interactive, where I have had a chance to have my hands on everything including the pitch, I’m gaining the interactive experience the big agencies are looking for and before I accepted I drove to Arkansas to meet the team.

My advice as a young art director is: “Never underestimate anything. Do what you want and prove yourself the most on the 'throw away' projects, they are what earn you the clients you want to work on.”

A Life Lesson

“It doesn’t matter how talented they are, no one wants to work with an asshole.” -Anonymous

I use to believe it was unfair that creatives are judged for their personality when being considered for hiring. I always ardently believed that the only thing that should matter is their ability.

Yet, in the creative world collaboration, more now than ever, is truly key. And the creative community is known for their hefty share of prima donnas.

With the experience I have working in four different agencies and on a number of different creative teams (some that worked and some that didn’t). It has become more apparent that what I had overheard an ad man once say to another MCAD student, “It doesn’t matter how talented they are, no one wants to work with an asshole" is pretty true.

My Portfolio

As an Art Director, one of the most important things for you to have is a great portfolio and even more so a great website. After an hour of figuring out how to build a website, I designed it, built it in Dreamweaver and published it, in under three days. Let me know what you think!

www.taylorsnyder.com