Vocational Surfing: Will Someone Puhleeze Ride that Wave?

by Sam Van Eman

Transcript for this recording:

Hey, it's Friday and you're either glad the work week is over or you're bummed it's coming to an end. My friend and stump-preaching vocation specialist, Byron Borger, refuses to eat at TGI Friday’s for theological reasons. Work was given to us before the fall of humankind, not after. So for that reason, despite the callouses, work is a good thing. And, honestly, because it has service and cultivation at its roots, work brings goodness into the mess that surrounds us. Byron may be onto something.

This morning I came across a surfing video. It's amazing. I've surfed only once but even my three-foot waves made me appreciate water's power and the need I would have for excellence to both understand and work within the ways of that power. In the video scenes where you look into the empty curl, you'll wonder if a surfer will emerge. In the scenes where you watch the surfer under a closing wave, you'll wonder if he will make it.

I didn’t intend to share this in order to create a point, but I couldn't help thinking about the surfing montage and work. TGIF (not the restaurant) is the relief statement of someone who can't seem to emerge. They either lack the vision, or the know-how, or the willingness to ride out what seems like pending doom. And sometimes it is pending doom. Plenty of jobs will eventually reach right over our heads and take us under. But every time?

I would like to see more of us ride this thing beyond Friday.

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Enjoy the video below. If you don’t think about work while you watch it, that’s okay. The wave is still amazing.

 

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Ingredients

Transcript + link to an exercise:
Try thinking about every item you see and every act you do in terms of the raw ingredients that form them. Just as flour and baking soda go into cookies, so do wood and cotton go into chairs, and creativity and ink (and pixels) go into a logo.

Your work – my work – is a combination of a long list of raw ingredients. How we assemble them makes a world of difference. Some recipes produce work that tastes great, but isn’t healthy; other times it’s loaded with nutrition but lacks anything resembling flavor. This presents a challenge. We need to assemble ingredients that end up tasting great and benefiting the consumer. Not always an easy task.

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For more thoughts on ingredients and their relation to media consumption, read A Recipe for Film Consumption. You'll find an exercise at the end with a downloadable TV commercial (one of my all-time faves).

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The Work of a Roofer

Jessie Romaneix by permission via Flickr.

For a long time, I refused to work with Pete. He scared me. He didn’t say much beyond his tattoos of naked women and unusual profanities. The story goes that he reacted to a honking driver by exploding out of his car, shirtless and ripped like Bruce Lee, with a baseball bat and wearing his son’s Mickey Mouse Halloween mask. He jumped on the driver’s car hood and screamed the man into repentance.

I knew I had to love Pete. Wasn’t he among the “least of these”? The mean appearance and stories that accompanied his work-release life made a definite first impression. But I had to love him. If I didn’t realize the high calling of roofing as a trade then, at least I knew from the brokenness of my workmates that I had a job to do:

"If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear" (1 John 3:17, The Message).

To hear more about my most memorable job (Cold tar tear-offs, for an example), read the rest of this featured article at The High Calling. The High Calling hosts everyday conversations about work, life and God.

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Not Unless I Have To

I've talked about the Good Samaritan story many times in talks with advertisers and advertising majors because of its comprehensive application. Imagining yourself, in your specific career, playing a specific role in this famous story, can be invigorating. This morning over at TheHighCalling.org, I wrote about it and some of my inadequacies as a servant.

One of my favorite adult-life maxims comes from the end of the parable of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus answers the expert in the law and says, “Go and do likewise.” I know he didn’t (and doesn’t) mean, “Go and become a paramedic,” or, “Go and become an inn keeper so that you can lodge infirmed patients.” He simply meant for me to go and do what must be done for folks whose needs I can meet.

To be fair, I do okay. I take out the neighbor’s trash because his disfigurement requires 20 minutes just to get to the alley. I donate to people. And at every chance given to communicate theology on the importance of work in the here and now Kingdom of God, I give it with conviction.

In other words, I get Go and do likewise. Unfortunately, it's a short list and I’m afraid that most of my going and doing is nice-guy personality - not a result of what Jesus said.  

Read "Not Unless I Have To" here.

TheHighCalling.org is a site full of conversations about work, life, and God.

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Who Needs You to Go to College?

Image sourced from Microsoft Online.

Most posts here are about advertising, either directly or indirectly. This specific emphasis falls within a larger category of seeing work - all work (sans prostitution and the like which isn't work but some distorted derivative) - as an act of service to others and honor to God. In this broader vein, I want to highlight two items this morning, both containing application points that will hopefully encourage you in the work you do.

Item #1

The first is from Marcus Goodyear, senior editor at the TheHighCalling.org, published poet (you'll see why I mention this) and a thoughtful influencer on the topic of service/honor-based work. His recent blog entry is called Work Isn't Supposed to Be Fun Anyway and here's a teaser:

As a kid I fantasized about traveling to space. Even recently, I was thinking about the Mir space station pictured above. The world needs me in space at the Mir station, I might delude myself. I definitely have a strong desire to go there. I could even imagine that I have talents and gifts that would justify putting me atop one million pounds of rocket fuel and blasting me toward Mir at 29,000 mph.

That’s roughly 28,965 mph over the speed limit in my neighborhood, by the way.

Alas, I do not have a high calling to join the crew of the Mir space station. That is a personal fantasy, not a calling. (Read the rest of his post here.)

Item #2

The second item is by yours truly, and it comes from a growing conviction that we're asking the wrong question about higher education. It isn't logically or practically possible to ask this wrong question, though we do it as consumers and we do it often. So I'm asking a different question, one that is pertinent whether you are in college, going to college or 20 years out. Here is a teaser for Who Needs You to Go to College?:

The Higher Education Research Institute’s Research Brief for the 2010 Freshmen Survey states, “Perhaps most significantly, a large percentage increase (from 66.2% in 2007 to 72.7% in 2010) occurred in students’ views that ‘The chief benefit of college is that it increases one’s earning power.’”

I understand this freshmen view financially. But to what end is it aimed? Work is not separate from community, either in the doing of it or in what it produces. A little creative (and Biblical) analysis will see that education – despite its personal benefits – is ultimately other-centered. (Read the rest of this post here.)

Happy reading.

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Dying Sailors and a Valuable Lesson for Employees

The Stormy Sea by Gustave Courbet

The first Outward Bound school opened in 1941 for a reason that I think has as much validity now as it did then. Listen to what was happening to WWII sailors:

"Lawrence Holt, President of the steamship company Blue Funnel Line...was greatly disturbed about the number of young sailors who were losing their lives in the service of his company. Battles at sea with Nazi submarines often resulted in sailors having to abandon ship."

"Time and time again Holt noticed that older sailors made up the greatest proportion of survivors." 

"Young men, though often more physically able, seemed to be lost because they lacked the sheer will to withstand the ordeals of ocean travel by lifeboat or raft." (From The Role of the Instructor, by Ken Kalisch)

This fascinates me. One would think physical prowess and youthful drive lead to success, but it turns out they don't. And I'm not sure these characteristics succeed in the pursuit of challenging careers either.

I spent last weekend with thousands of students who sat in session after session learning how the Christian faith, in particular, can inform work. These young attendees weren't learning how to proselytize or hang religious calendars in their cubicles. Instead, they were learning how to study various trades and career paths and the systems that shape and run them; how to orient their vocational vision toward addressing and correcting what's broken in those careers and using the careers to address and correct what is broken on the client end; and how to surrender to a divine call that honors God in the way the work gets done.

In practical speech, it works like this: As Jesus healed lepers, today's engineers protect travelers. As Jesus gave to the poor, today's shoe salesmen promote generosity. As Jesus spread his message with humility and truth, today's advertisers market honestly and with compassion.  

Or that's the way it's supposed to be. Perhaps I should have said, "Sometimes advertisers..." or "Advertisers try to market...." Advertising is one of those careers where the young are often, as we might say, lost because they lack the sheer will to withstand the ordeals of the industry.

I say this as an outsider, and to be fair, I'm pretty sure I would get lost if advertising were my career. Challenges face new employees in every field but advertisers especially seem unusually susceptible to compromising situations. The intersection of mass media, consumer wants and relative anonymity (Can you name anyone who has made a Super Bowl commercial?) creates enormous pressure to do whatever the boss/client demands, even if it makes no sense restoratively. And yet. And yet, it is no less a worthy vocation.

In tougher fields - like advertising - what employees need is a way to build character and resilience and wisdom to buck the broken systems and sustain new, neighbor-loving approaches. I don't know whether that looks like a program or mentorship or simply a community of stalwart encouragers, but if it works anything like wilderness experiences do, then a combination of duress and success is needed. Conscience-squeezing situations, risk, biblical formation, courageous stands, creative alternatives, and at least occasional victories are important elements that increase the survival rate of novitiates.

I've been both the young sailor and the old sailor and and I've drowned a few times. Mostly because in my youth I lacked the sheer will to withstand the ordeals of [fill in the blank].

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Game Over: It's Time to Live It

Photo by Iris Jones, with permission via Flickr.

I knew my mom should have let me own an Atari. She never budged. I had to do my best mastering Asteroids and Ms. Pac-Man at the bars with dad instead. We were poor, but quarters were one thing I could get in abundance from him when there was no money for anything else. Maybe it was his subversive way of investing in me – helping his boy gain real life skills that might, you know, some day save the world.

Or maybe he was just keeping me happy and out of his hair.

Either way, I have fond memories of those early days gaming. Shooting descending centipedes, saving a girl from a computerized ape, hopping across the road to safety before being flattened by cars and trucks, all while moderately sloshed patrons cheered me on from their nearby stools. Quarter by quarter, I got lost in these virtual worlds despite the clunky, pixilated graphics and limited adventure space of arcade games.

Fast forward 30 years to last week, and I’m now wondering if I should have stuck with those playful quests. If it were up to Jane McGonigal, that’s exactly what would have happened.

To see what McGonigal has in mind, click here to read the rest of this post at the The High Calling.

TheHighCalling.org is a site about work, life and God.

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A vocational tale of woe and jubilation

Bridge picture from Curious Photos

I began thinking about life direction when a middle school drafting teacher showed appreciation for my drawings. I was an average student but I liked the work well enough that perhaps I heard more praise than was actually there. In high school, I took every architectural and engineering Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) class available. With three or four of those under my belt, and a few miniaturized balsa wood structures glued and tested with satisfying results, I finally decided I would be an architect.

I was a junior and relatively clueless.

During my senior year, I turned down an opportunity to work part-time in a real drafting firm, opting for more CAD classes instead. College quickly approached, and because I really had no idea what being an architect meant, I agreed to try civil engineering (Okay, so the school didn't offer architecture). Besides, I was promised we would make bridges in class - just like in high school! Perhaps this desire to simply extend high school, as well as my refusal to take the drafting firm job, were early yet unrecognized clues that I didn't want to be either an architect or an engineer. I just liked the fun parts.

Discovery in the library

By the second year of college, I knew clearly that I should surrender this now thread of a career dream. Feeling suddenly directionless and pressed for time, I scanned the library shelves for a book on careers. I found a thick volume containing every job known to employees, with accompanying descriptions and average expected pay. In one hour I made my decision. I would become a Spanish teacher.

I told some of the Spanish teacher story in On Earth as It is in Advertising, and I've shared it with many audiences, so suffice it to say that as much as I enjoyed and continue to enjoy the language, I initially chose the profession simply because I liked my 10th-grade Spanish teacher.

That's it.

Superficial reasons for decisions along the way embarrass me to some degree now, though I don't feel alone in this. Having worked with college students for the past 13 years, I see similar patterns over and over again.

Quitting on the kids

I graduated in 1996 with a BS in Spanish Education and entered the public school system for three years. And now I get to my biggest regret to date: I had no idea that faith ought to inform vocation. There I was, a white high school teacher with no white students in perhaps the toughest school in Pittsburgh, and I saw absolutely no connection between a) what the kids really needed and b) vocabulary lists for soccer, beaches and international travel. With no vision (or even awareness that there was vision to be had), I left.

Ironically/Providentially, I landed in the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO) where they specialize in helping college students think about faith and vocation. Funny thing is, it took nearly seven years working in the CCO before I thought one bit about this topic as it applies to my former inner city teaching job.

Jubilee epiphany

He was a German teacher from Michigan. It was my seventh Jubilee, a conference on work and faith hosted by the CCO, and for the first time, there was a breakout session for foreign language majors. I decided to attend. The German teacher wasn't riveting, nor particularly ingenious. But after seven years of preaching the importance of faith informing work in chemistry labs, cadaver classes, Work and Faith conferences, articles and countless other venues, here I sat, listening, with rapt attention, to what the Christian faith had to say about teaching foreign language.

I know, I know. Obvious, right? But it wasn't. That afternoon, I began to panic. Regret over missed opportunities flooded my brain. I questioned whether I could continue with the job I loved in the CCO. Visions of burning those out-of-context Spanish textbooks entered my imagination and I saw myself in the old job marching into the Board of Education building, calling for change.

That Jubilee afternoon with the German teacher was the day I really "got it." Everything I had experienced and learned suddenly connected and, though I didn't really have all the answers and still don't, I gained a specific passion that day to help others connect what they do with why they do it; to help students study their faith as much as they study their major; to help employees integrate faith and work in a way that is biblically and theologically sound.

I stuck with the CCO. It took mentors I admire to calm me down and show me that God has timing I cannot trump. There was no way to go back and I had to come to terms with that reality.

I'll be heading back to Jubilee for my 12th year on February 18-20, and while I can't promise that anything miraculous will happen to you if you go, I can assure you that whether you're a student or a seasoned professional, you'll be inspired to renew your vocation.

Read more about Jubilee here, or find an invitation here at The High Calling - a site about life, work and God.   

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Sons of Martha

I found Rudyard Kipling's "Sons of Martha" last week while reading about the dangers of electricity. I can't quite tell whether the poem is Kipling's jab at Jesus' seemingly unbalanced response to Mary and Martha, or a celebration of work. Either way, it's an interesting take on Luke 10:38-42.

In the story, Mary sits at the Guest's feet to listen while Martha (not unlike a Martha Stewart, I imagine) stays busy with the preparations. Kipling has us realize the true importance of Martha's work. He sides with the laborer. He elevates those who keep the world oiled and moving (read: for the Sons of Mary, those spoiled brats).

Who doesn't feel a little bitterness when team members or office mates or siblings drop the ball and leave us with the weight? Resentment is a common by-product, and this is precisely Martha's problem.

Then she lets it slip. It gets to her enough that she actually tattles to Jesus. Compulsively, she levels the field, and it backfires on her. If only it weren't about fairness and keeping score, Martha and her sons might recognize the special call to work, the risks involved, and the joys it pays out. Maybe then Jesus would say, "Mary and Martha, you have both chosen the good part."

Here's the poem from 1907. See if you can find the electricity reference:

The Sons of Martha

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.

They say to mountains, 'Be ye removed'. They say to the lesser floods, 'Be dry'.
Under their rods are the rocks reproved - they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit - then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.

They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.

To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matter hidden - under the earthline their altars are;
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their work when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand.
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's days may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat:
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that:
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they know the angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see how truly the Promise Runs:
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons.

~ Rudyard Kipling

Labor in lunette, by Charles Sprague Pearce. Public Domain.

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Rad! And other responses to chaos reduction and self-promotion

My online life is splintered. The debris isn't as widespread as it is for many, but I sense the chaos factor increasing with each new application, community membership and task. Do you know the feeling? It's like having too many kids and always wondering if you left one of them at church.

I need to do some gathering. Case in point: I've had an off-the-beaten-path and very under-promoted promotional website for the past few years. It doesn't help that I never really liked the design, but it's still mine and I can't leave it behind.

Thanks to new tools here at Blogger, I'm finally doing something about it.

Irresistible self-promotion
This week I added two new pages to New Breed of Advertisers. They say more about what I do and how I might help you do what you do. You'll find the tabs at the top of the page. Pass them along to a professor, student, chaplain, copywriter.... Those are all folks I work with.

In case you're hesitating on whether or not to click on Talk and Write, I'll tempt you with this:

 See what I mean? Irresistible. That's me in the hat, chillin'.

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Bob Garfield and a call for prophets

~ Frustration and gathering disgust that, despite the best of all forums for evaluating ad strategy and execution, my core principles espoused over a quarter century...seem to have had little or no effect on the practice of the craft. I continue to be awed and humbled by the best of what the industry produces. But I also think billions of client dollars every year are being squandered by narcissists, conmen, naifs and a number of blithering morons.

These sobering words come from Bob Garfield's list of reasons for ending AdReview, an industry-wide recognized column he began in 1975 in Advertising Age and ended last month.

If you've followed Garfield, you know that he's stirred the pot for two and a half decades. He has a cranky tone and his criticism often felt like grains of sand in your eye. Just when you think he'd let up, he'd blow more at you. Readers hurled their irritations back at him for years and his farewell post reflects this volatile relationship.

Yet he had his fans. Whether he pushed hard because it gave him a cheap thrill, or because ranting produced more site hits, or simply because he cared, Garfield was committed to cleaning house and there are plenty who loved him for it. I didn't always agree with him, but I admired his steadfast pursuit of better.

I believe advertisers can become good neighbors to the consumer next door. The prophetic work, however, can't be left to Bob Garfield and a few other nicer/nastier culture critics. It has to be done by all of us - the shelf-stockers and cart-fillers, the ad-making pied pipers and tune-entranced consumers, the bankers and parishioners. We're all in this business of discerning want and need and of serving our selves and others. There is room for satisfying both, yet the Great Commandments require enough from us that, if we all responded appropriately and constantly, we should see change.

Could the collective We reflect on our prophetic and lived-out response 25 years from now and be able to rewrite Garfield's frustration? I don't know, but we're still called to try.

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Chasing Cool in Calling

From Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace:

Remember, the etymology of the word brand comes from the Old English for 'burn.' It's defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as 'a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership.' A brand comes from a long-standing commitment and vision. It's not a reverse-engineering process quickly generated through trendy gimmicks."

I try to commit to the worthwhile. Life is too short and people too important for me to waste time and talent manufacturing what I'll regret branding. I want my stamp to count. Gimmicks tempt me but I know better than to invite them into the work I've been called to do.

Okay, so maybe I occaaaasionally give in to a gimmick. Perhaps you'll tell me if it's an unfitting one?

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Strongbow and the Church: Celebrating pork pie fillers of Melton Mowbray

Strongbow's alcoholic cider commercial made me wonder again why more churches don't have commissioning services and guest Sundays for average workers like they do for missionaries. Let's imagine how a commission might go for a recent advertising major and then I'll show you the ad:

Pastor: "Johnny, tell us a bit about this new position in Chicago. What will you be doing?"

(Johnny shares his job description)

Pastor: "Sounds interesting. When did you first know God was calling you into copywriting?"

(Short story about a favorite professor and Johnny's campus minister)

Pastor: "We're very excited for you and we'd like to pray for you. Lord, thank you for the way you call us into service. We know the ad world has its issues. Will you go before Johnny and prepare his path? Will you equip him with wisdom to know what to do and courage to do it? Please surround him with godly mentors and a healthy community of believers and may his work bring light and truth to our consumeristic society. We pray that he'll return to us with reports that bring honor to you. Help us to stand behind Johnny as he loves you and his fellow neighbor with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. Amen."

I suppose there are churches that do this. Strongbow, the UK's drink for hard workers (men only?), took a shot at it in an ad called "Honours." It takes place in a cathedral and borrows heavily from the trinitarian theme. We could use more of this kind of heralding and celebrating.

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Stouffer's: Let's Fix Dinner

"Can placemats keep your kids off drugs? Could a casserole make your relationship stronger? Can you give your daughter a better body image by setting the table?"


Stouffer's is asking these questions as part of their Let's Fix Dinner campaign, and I like it. I don't know how much of it is a PR stunt to increase sales, but the concern feels genuine to me. Just last night we ate at Grammy and Pappy's house around a pan of Stouffer's Five-Cheese Lasagna, and guess what? It didn't do more for us as a family than hot dogs or spinach salads (Okay, our kids would say it did more for us than spinach salads), but gathering around the table has been essential to our growth, and last night, Stouffer's was what fed our time together.

I like that a food company is playing it's part in strengthening community. I also appreciate the combination of expertise (in this case, professional food making) and calling (to build healthier families), which inspires similar combinations in my own work.  

Visit Let's Fix Dinner. Tell them thanks. Take their test. If you take it, come back and tell us how you fared. Or just tell us if you think they're on to something.  

Related post:
Hyundai Assurance

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Reebok: Your Move...or not

Who can keep up with the "pop" in popular culture? I can't. Instead, I stash away items of interest in both electronic and paper files until a rainy day.

Today's selection is a Reebok commercial I saw back in June during the Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings.



The ad was part of Reebok's "Your Move" campaign, and it caught my attention for two reasons:

1. You have to pay attention to follow what's happening. I like that.

2. "But where you end up...is entirely up to you." I don't like that.

Sports commercials often play this Just Do It card, and while it might pump the adrenaline a bit and offer some inspiration, it only speaks to a few folks in the world. Mario Lemiuex and Sidney Crosby are two of the best hockey players in history. The second little boy on the carpet can dream all day, but chances are he'll never get any closer to NHL ice than a seat behind the glass.

I hate to cast a cloud, but people really can't do whatever they want. We can't reach all of our dreams. We can't win every battle or overcome every obstacle. And that's fine. We are, in one way or another, wholly dependent creatures.

I don't suppose it's wrong to broadcast a wide message of inspiration like this - it's bound to hit someone. (And the opposite message would be a disaster: "Don't even go there, kid. You'll be lucky if you make the JV team. Your Move. Reebok.") But is there a better alternative?

Further questions to consider: Does a commercial like this lead to disillusionment? Is it honest? Where does submission regarding the direction of our lives come in to play? 

Related post: Going Pro

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Double Take

By birth and by choice I belong to the Steeler Nation. This means I paid more attention to the Super Bowl this year than to the commercials that decorated it. As an advertising critic, this was uncharacteristic of me, but I couldn't help it. Go Pittsburgh!

A few ads caught my attention, however, and here's one in particular called "Double Take":



Work and the concept of calling fill a big file drawer in my brain and in my office. I open this drawer daily and find myself rooting through it, adding to it, mulling over its contents and laying that content onto the table for discussion. It helps that my co-workers share this interest, too.

Because "Double Take" is so visually effective, it instantly creates categories: work as Heaven, and work as Hell. Everyone has unpleasant work to do, but Jesus causes us to do another double take by flipping these categories. In his world, feet washing and humble service have the big office.

Few of us find moose butts appealing, but sometimes that's precisely where we ought to be.

(For another Monster.com commercial and questions about when this isn't precisely where we ought to be, check out "Your calling is calling" and then come back to comment.)

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What do you think, Professor?

Interviews are great for capturing another perspective (and providing great content for this blog).

For the inaugural New Breed of Advertisers interview, I’d like to introduce you to Scott K. Powell.

Scott is Assistant Professor of Business at Grove City College. This is his 18th year at the College, having served as Assistant to the President for 14 of those years. He is now a full-time faculty member teaching marketing, consumer behavior, advertising and marketing research courses. He also oversees the admissions marketing efforts of the College. Prof. Powell is very happily married and has two young daughters. He is striving to be the teacher, husband, father and Christian witness that God desires him to be.

I’ve been a visiting speaker in Scott's Consumer Behavior class for the past few years and I can say two things: 1) He’s good at what he does and 2) the students love him.

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NBoA: Some people have trouble seeing advertising as a redeemable field of study. At least, they view it as a less viable "calling" than, say, medicine or engineering or youth ministry. Is this a valid concern, and how would you respond to them?

Scott: I understand their concern and believe that much of it is valid. Every profession (even pastoral ministry) is subject to misuse, and advertising certainly has its share of questionable practitioners. Much of the advertising with which we are bombarded is inappropriate in terms of product, presentation or both. While I am a critic of advertising’s excesses (e.g., appealing to base instincts, encouraging materialism), it is my personal and professional opinion that there are many legitimate uses of advertising. For example, I believe that Grove City College is a great school and that students who enroll here will benefit from doing so. Unless we advertise the College, though, many students will never learn about us. The same is true about many other organizations and products. If you have a helpful product that is presented honestly and fairly, advertising is a good thing.


NBoA: Can you name a specific way that faith has guided your teaching on this subject?

Scott: I continually seek God’s wisdom and guidance in my profession. My daily prayer is, “Lord, you have given me a platform (the classroom), now give me the wisdom and words to challenge both myself and my students to be salt and light in our industry.” I am firmly convinced that God has a plan for me as a marketing professor, and am currently doing preliminary research for my dissertation by exploring questions such as, “What does it mean to be a Christian and a marketer?” and “What is the proper role of marketing?” While there are no “quick and easy” answers to these questions, I pray about and ponder them daily.


NBoA: What do you find challenging as a marketing professor at this point in history?

Scott: Helping students navigate through a world that is rarely black and white is a challenge that I take very seriously. My courses attempt to help students evaluate both themselves and marketing from a Christian perspective: “What, exactly, is a ‘helpful’ product?” “How can I promote it ‘fairly’?” “Is marketing this product a good use of my gifts and talents?” These are issues with which we wrestle.


NBoA: Can you share a former student story that delights you and makes you glad you are a teacher in this field?

Scott: I am very pleased that many of my former students keep in touch with me. In the past few months I have had several of them contact me just to say that I was a Christian role model for them and that my courses helped them see marketing in a different (biblical) light. Feedback like that is simultaneously humbling and fulfilling. God has given me the opportunity to get to know hundreds of students each year. May they see me, and love Him.


NBoA: Imagine that a college senior is reading this blog post. What advice would you offer?

Scott: Marketing is a field that truly needs the influence of Christian professionals. You CAN be both a Christian and a marketer.


NBoA: Last question, Scott. What is your favorite TV commercial, print ad, or ad campaign?

Scott: On the lighter side, one of my more recent favorites is the “My talking stain” campaign for Tide-To-Go stain remover. The product meets a need (somehow I always manage to get stains on my clothes), it actually works (I have one in the glove compartment of my car) and it presents a believable (except for the stain actually talking, of course!) message via inoffensive humor:



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Thanks for your time and thoughtfulness, Scott. I’d love to have you back again to tell us more about your dissertation. Until then, press on in your work for the Kingdom!

Readers, your comments about this interview are welcomed here, but you can also contact Professor Powell at skpowell@gcc.edu, or learn more about Grove City College at www.gcc.edu/ad.

I'll be away from my desk till July 11th, so talk amongst yourselves. Happy 4th!

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Faux: Part Deux

"Should Christians produce and market faux items?" That's the question I asked in my last post. I also asked it to a group of advertising students on Friday.

Mixed responses.

Some thought that the cost benefits and availability justified faux production: "If a consumer really likes fine furniture, but can't afford it or even find the genuine original, isn't it OK to provide knock-off versions for them?"

Others saw faux as an unhealthy way to copy someone else's life. They resonated with this excerpt by Stuart Ewen, author of All Consuming Images, about the "triumph of the superficial" in the Middle Ages:

"Fueled by their desire for franchise and status, the merchant class mimicked and appropriated consumption practices of the nobility.... Conspicuous consumption...was the mark of status. In a world where nobility still ruled, the merchant class seized upon symbols of excess which had customarily been prerogatives of landed elites.... Clocks, once the extravagantly tooled possessions of the few who could afford to own them, were mass produced [with 'the suggestion of fine hand-carving'].... For the members of an expanding middle class, the historically coded look of wealth was coming within their means."

If faux offers a socio-economic escape for me, then I don't want it because it's only an illusory move. That is, it doesn't actually take me anywhere. And regarding the cost/availability argument, I just can't get past the fact that faux is, by definition, false.

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"Your calling is calling"

Frederick Buechner wrote, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

What an intersection. Maybe you've been there. Personally I try to get there as often as I can, but most of us (at least some of the time) know how it feels to be these people:



I'd love to pull up a few chairs and discuss this commercial with you. Here are some questions I'd ask: How realistic is it to have a job that brings 'deep gladness'? And what does it mean to press on in one that doesn't? When do we move on to services like Monster.com? Is it possible for everyone to have a job that addresses the 'world's deep hunger'?

I spoke with an Art Director this week about his former corporate ad position. It sucked the life out of him. Being creative, possessing marketing skills and loving Jesus didn't guarantee him a fulfilling job. None of us can accurately predict the time-of-arrival at Buechner's intersection, or plot out a sure course for finding it. But that shouldn't keep us from looking, should it?

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