Before the Blog
I'm busy procrastinating - I'm supposed to be writing the copy for my company web site, but I absolutely hate doing this type of writing for myself, so I'm doing anything I can to put it off. Including filing. And I'm finding all sorts of interesting things in my files, all of which help me procrastinate even more.
I've always been a dork and I've always taken notes on things that don't really require note-taking, like fashion magazines. I also developed (and wrote out) a philosophical approach to my first job (in advertising) as soon as I graduated from college. My undergrad major was international relations and I subscribed to a theory by Ernst Haas called neo-functionalism. The premise of the theory is simple: economic interdependence between nation-states will eventually eradicate war because no one state will be able to afford pissing off anyone else. It's a theory that still makes sense to me. When I started working for an ad agency, I reasoned that I was a part of the solution: global brands are the path to world peace. Not to mention that advertising is probably the single most globalizing cultural force - and my other pet project in college involved understanding the relationship between art, politics and socioeconomics at different points throughout history. It was not difficult for me to rationalize that advertising was the perfect career for me.
How that played out in reality is another story, for another post. But I just ran across some notecards I wrote sometime in my advertising days, probably around 1998 or 99. They're like artifacts now: clearly the pre-cursors to the notes I sometimes make before posting these days. They're pink and blue and say:
1. Redefining travel...
- communication
- virtual
- new tourist?
- travel = experience?
2. Brands are global & globalizers
3. Is a "global citizen" really just well-versed in lots of regional subcultures?
4. Fashion & Art have been global industries for centuries. They are the fathers of culture. What does that mean?
5. 4 communities
- Global
- Regional
- National
- Local
No answers of course, just notes. Those notecards got lost almost immediately after I wrote them, so the entire inner dialogue I had about the ideas was pretty much forgotten. Good thing I have a blog now, so I save a lot on notecards.
There's been a bunch of discussion lately among high-profile bloggers like Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan and Virginia Postrel about the constant demands of blogging taking away from "bigger" and deeper thought. And I notice that I spend a lot less time these days thinking about my big pet issue- the whole art/advertising/brands vs. culture tug of war. You might see more on that here in the coming weeks. I mean, what's the point in having a special area of interest if you're going to ignore it?
I've always been a dork and I've always taken notes on things that don't really require note-taking, like fashion magazines. I also developed (and wrote out) a philosophical approach to my first job (in advertising) as soon as I graduated from college. My undergrad major was international relations and I subscribed to a theory by Ernst Haas called neo-functionalism. The premise of the theory is simple: economic interdependence between nation-states will eventually eradicate war because no one state will be able to afford pissing off anyone else. It's a theory that still makes sense to me. When I started working for an ad agency, I reasoned that I was a part of the solution: global brands are the path to world peace. Not to mention that advertising is probably the single most globalizing cultural force - and my other pet project in college involved understanding the relationship between art, politics and socioeconomics at different points throughout history. It was not difficult for me to rationalize that advertising was the perfect career for me.
How that played out in reality is another story, for another post. But I just ran across some notecards I wrote sometime in my advertising days, probably around 1998 or 99. They're like artifacts now: clearly the pre-cursors to the notes I sometimes make before posting these days. They're pink and blue and say:
1. Redefining travel...
- communication
- virtual
- new tourist?
- travel = experience?
2. Brands are global & globalizers
3. Is a "global citizen" really just well-versed in lots of regional subcultures?
4. Fashion & Art have been global industries for centuries. They are the fathers of culture. What does that mean?
5. 4 communities
- Global
- Regional
- National
- Local
No answers of course, just notes. Those notecards got lost almost immediately after I wrote them, so the entire inner dialogue I had about the ideas was pretty much forgotten. Good thing I have a blog now, so I save a lot on notecards.
There's been a bunch of discussion lately among high-profile bloggers like Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan and Virginia Postrel about the constant demands of blogging taking away from "bigger" and deeper thought. And I notice that I spend a lot less time these days thinking about my big pet issue- the whole art/advertising/brands vs. culture tug of war. You might see more on that here in the coming weeks. I mean, what's the point in having a special area of interest if you're going to ignore it?
posted by Kit Pollard at
1:43 PM
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