Intersect this

If you’re wondering where the best place to meet up with your ad agency is, don’t worry. They’ll tell you exactly where they live. Spoiler alert: it will be at an intersection.

For all the creative minds working in agencies, somehow they’ve collectively decided to glom onto the word “intersection” as the word of choice to describe who they are, what they do, and what they’re bringing to the party.

And because agencies have never met a bandwagon they didn’t want to jump on, you can now find these roadmaps plastered across agency “About” pages all over the interwebs.

One agency wants you to know you’ll find them at the intersection of creativity and strategy. Kind of feels like the price of admission for an agency, but sure. Put up a sign.

Another will meet you at the intersection of creativity and technology. Welcome to the AI bandwagon. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle.

Insight and imagination? There’s an agency for that.

Human behavior and technology? Apparently the robot revolution is already taking client meetings.

Some agencies have decided two roads simply aren’t enough. Their intersection needs an intersection. Culture, creativity and commerce sounds nice. Maybe not as nice as data, technology and creativity.

I’m sure there are agencies out there living at the intersection of curiosity, connection, disruption and authenticity. And I'd bet front row Springsteen tickets they're wearing black turtlenecks.

Personally, I think a lot of these agencies actually live at the intersection of bullshit and more bullshit.

Somewhere along the way, “intersection” stopped being a useful description and became an agency magic word that takes two expected agency job descriptions and makes them sound like they’re cultural insights no one else has ever thought of.

Chocolate and milk? Peanut butter and chocolate? Strawberries and yogurt? That’s just crazy talk.

Here’s the thing. Not every agency needs an intersection. And almost none of them need a manifesto.

Virtually every agency website shows work they've done and they're proud of. And if it doesn't, that's definitely not the agency you want. But if an agency has great creative that gets the job done, how about letting the work do the talking. It’s much more convincing than a paragraph about how your agency exists at the crossroads of human truth, cultural relevance, transformative possibility and whatever other words survived the edit.

I’ve written countless manifestos for agencies and clients over my career. (Pausing to laugh for using the word "career"). But in all those years and manifestos, I never once used the word “intersection.” Somehow I managed to describe what an agency did without pretending it occupied some mystical piece of real estate between two nouns.

Does that mean I live at the intersection of smarter and less hackneyed? Who's to say.

Tell ya what. Meet me at the intersection of modest and humble, and we’ll talk about it.

If the agency hasn’t rebranded that corner yet.

The stupidest thing I've ever done

Sadly, there was about a fifty-way tie for the answer to the title of this post. What can I tell ya? Some lessons you have to keep learning.

But I'm pretty sure I've narrowed it down to the right one.

For almost twenty years, I had the very good fortune to live in a 17th-floor corner apartment in the South Tower of Santa Monica Shores (now called The Shores).

This being Santa Monica, the apartment was rent controlled. When I moved in, it was $450 a month for the top floor, 1000 sq. ft., two-bedroom, corner apartment that was about a hundred yards from the beach. When I moved out almost two decades later, it was $900 a month.

The reason I moved was because my son was two years old, and very mobile. See those windows just to the left of the patio? Those were almost floor-to-ceiling, and they were sliding windows. Once my son was mobile, we had to have window locks on them that only let us keep them open an inch or two. Plus we were getting crowded out with all his baby gear. I desperately wanted to stay in Santa Monica, but it was at the height of the market and tear-downs were selling for $850K. So that wasn't happening.

Anyway, in what was clearly a design flaw, all the patios slanted towards the patio door. Which meant when it rained, or storms would come in off the ocean, the water just seeped right under the patio door and flooded the living room. And while the wife and I both enjoyed splashing in puddles, not so much when they were in our living room. The building had a maintenance staff and a fleet of wet-vacs to clean up the water after, but I thought there had to be a better solution.

Well, a solution anyway.

So I had the bright idea of putting giant sheets of clear, thick plastic on the front and side of the patio. I measured the space, then went to Fastsigns and had them made, grommets and all.

Here comes the stupid part.

To hang them, I had to straddle the railing on the patio, screw hooks into the patio ceiling, all while my wife was hanging on to me by the belt of my jeans. I was stretching and leaning to reach the hooks, while below me was a 17-story drop. The only thing between me as tenant and me as roadkill was my belt.

And the wife. Fortunately she kind of liked me.

When we think back on it now, both our stomachs churn thinking about how unbelievably stupid it was. We'd complained to the building for years, as did all the tenants who had the same problem (the water, not my stupidity), and they finally did something about it. After we'd moved out.

The complex has since been sold, and a lot of money was spent modernizing and updating the units. It feels more like a luxury, seaside hotel now and even stood in for one on a recent episode of Mad Men.

I still know a few people there who are enjoying the restaurants on Main Street, the short walk to the Third Street Promenade, the beach bike path and their rent controlled view of the ocean. A view I desperately miss.

Still, looking back, and down, I'm glad I'm around to miss it.