"Five Stages of Grief / Concept Development"
E "Eddy"Edwards
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Denial
Interior Monologue: "Geez, I can't believe that I just said that! What an awful idea! And this little slip of the brain is getting serious consideration! No, no, no! Don't write it down on a 5X7 card! Don't pin it to the storyboard! Oh . . . hell. All right, fine. I gotta get out of this somehow! My career is at stake!! I mean, that has to be the worst idea of my life!!!"
Spoken Aloud: "OK, well, you know, "blue sky" and all that, right? I mean, I'm not sure that everything has to go up on the . . . uh . . . more of an "idea for an idea," as the saying goes, you know? Uh, yeah, that's how we're spelling "virtual" these days, yeah. (sotto voce) Oh, Gawd . . ."
Analysis: It's late in the afternoon. The only thing that remains of the catered lunch is a stain of Peach-flavored Snapple on your shirt and the piquant scent of Chinese Chicken Salad that clings to the room like the miasma of faded professional hopes and dreams. Hours before, when the coffee was still fresh and the storyboard cork was still unblemished by either pin or card, you were hot, baby, and ideas -- good ones! -- were zinging outta you at an astonishing rate. All those about you were in awe, or so it seemed, of your lightning-quick wit and honest-to-goodness creative spirit. But that was a long, long, long time ago, blue-sky charette meeting-wise.
It's a lot later now, and after your early bout of "edgy" zeal, the question on the minds of all others seated around the table is "what have you come up for us with lately?"
So, fine: you felt yourself pushed into a corner and at that one, critical moment, you actually did what it is that you tell people (when pontificating to your peers, usually after that first expense-accounted Jalapeño Martini) to do during charettes: shut off your critical mind and work on automatic pilot directly from the dark, hidden inner regions of your central nervous system allowing the first thing your vocal cords were able to produce that sounded like real words coming spilling forth.
Well, you did. Worse than the lack of coherency or quality, is that you have absolutely no idea what it means or, worse, where to go with it from here.
Anger
Interior Monologue: "Well, Gawd damn it! What in the hell was I thinking? OK, OK, I wasn't thinking, that's the point, or something. Now there it sits, a 5X7 white turd with red - red! - Sharpie ink on it with a vague appropriation of my so-called "idea." Bad enough that I said it, worse that it got heard and written on a card, and worse still that it now hangs there, dead-freaking center of the mass of other cards. And the king-hell grand-daddy of all pains in the ass is that I . . . I . . . I'm going to have to figure out just what the hell I meant by that barely coherent rant of semi-connected buzzwords. I can't just walk away from it like some kinda Executive Vice-President of Marketing or a client or some other space-filler like that. I'm gonna have to actually figure out what that idea is really about make it work, conceptually speaking. What choice do I have but to . . . champion this wretched idea? This sucks . . .
Spoken Aloud: Hey, hey, hey! I thought the notion was "edgy" and "outta the box" here, folks. Besides, if somebody doesn't come up with a few bad ideas, how can you slackers ever shine? Hey, just kidding. It's simple, really, and it all goes back to what we were talking about this morning . . .
Analysis: Folksy is good here. Don't let 'em smell the flop sweat or see the blood dripping out of your ear. They get a taste of that and you're going to find your requests for concept work as desirable as a short-sleeve Rayon shirt at a biker rally in Montana in mid-November.
A good strategy to buy yourself some talking time is to flatter the assembled group by referencing something that was discussed previously. Can't remember anything that was discussed previously? Don't worry: neither will anybody else. Just so long as you recall -- or can pretend you do -- something that sounds sorta-kinda like what came before.
Bargaining
Interior Monologue: "Aw right. It's time to stop this internal sniveling and get down to work with some real, hardcore intellectual work! Aw, shit, who am I kidding? Too late for that. Time for sniveling to a higher power.
"Uh, God, listen, my having done concept work for the 'NRA Café' isn't going to count against me, is it? This crappy idea thing isn't, like, some kinda design karma or anything, hunh?Just lemme pull this bad idea out of the fire and I swear that I'll never pitch a stolen idea that I know that someone else in the room normally steals to pitch. I won't badmouth all of the people who I suspect are more creative than I am. I'll stop bad mouthing all of the rat bastard themed design charlatans (buncha over-priced dweebs, who think that they are God's gift to themed design, the premiere Samurai Concept Gurus for whom the themed design world is clamoring) who I know are less creative than I am, but whose careers I covet so terribly.
Damn it, just let me make it through this meeting and have this shity idea not follow me throughout the rest of my professional days! Let me survive to concept design another day!"
Spoken Aloud: "Look, if nobody else likes this one, that's cool. I mean, it may just be too far ahead of the 'concept curve' for the afternoon, you know?" What, you think it has merit? Then, dude, s'cool. Let's run with it!"
Analysis: With your back to the wall over the Bad Idea That Wouldn't Die, you resort to bullying those in the charette. Remember that being an aggressive jerk in creative sessions is an awful thing as it absolutely destroys the creative trust and team spirit that is essential for a worthwhile blue sky charette to succeed. On the other hand, if these assholes were so freaking creative, they'd be helping to defuse the awfulness of your lousy idea by attempting to make it a part of the over-all process, possibly even going so far as to champion it themselves and take the pressure off of you. Naw, on second thought, that's going too far for obvious reasons.
Depression
Interior Monologue: "What the hell is this noise? Someone else not just paying lip service to my now thankfully abandoned idea, but actually making it work? Hell, they're even adding to it, making it bigger, making it wilder, making it . . .edgier. No, no, no! It can't be! They are . . . actually making it work! Oh, great . . . stealing my thunder. Whatta glory-hog creep! And what a loser I am! I couldn't even satisfy my own idea . . .and a bad one at that"
Spoken Aloud: "Right, right, right! Exactly! Dude, you are a genius! Run with it to glory!"
Analysis: Don't mistake this for being a "good loser." By acknowledging the success of your coworker to make work what you couldn't helps to position you to re-seize the reins of this possibly revived idea. OK, there is also a slightly less cynical action taking place here, a combination of the (oh, lordy, are we really going to say it? Yeah, I guess so . . .) "synergy" of the blue sky group (AKA the "fifth crazy guy" of the "four or five crazy guys" of Radio Free Oz fame) combined with the fact that the effort to just get the originally bad idea out, you forget the twisted fuzzy thinking that led to your having spit out the wretched idea in the first place. It's all a part of good gestalt team work.
OK, so much for "touchy-feely." Back to life-affirming cynicism. Like a cuckoo, having laid your egg in some other bird's nest for them to hatch, it's time to reclaim that baby and teach it to fly!
Acceptance
Interior Monologue: "Oh, yes! Oh, Yes! OH, YES! Damn it, but I'm good. And underpaid! With a creative mind like mine, I should be a Director at the least. Hell, a VP. Naw, too cleaver by double for that. I should go freelance and become the premiere Samurai Concept Guru for whom the themed design world is clamoring!
Spoken Aloud: "Not bad, you know? Good save all around. Of course, it still needs to be tweaked and all that. What say we bail early and begin again at the crack of 10:00 tomorrow? Anybody else up for a coupla rounds of Jalapeño Martinis?
Analysis: There is no bad idea that can't be made good eventually (even that Euro Disneyland Park Paris thing kinda came out OK in the long run. DCA, uh, remains to be seen . . .). Just remember that when you sit down the next day clutching your soggy Venti cuppa drip with an added espresso shot and look at the cards on the board you're going to realize that 80% of the "homerun hit winner" ideas of the day before don't really make much sense in the light of the new day anyway.
But that's what makes all this an art and not a science.
"Bartender! Another, please, with two jalapeños. And put it on the tab of that overblown charlatan at the end of the bar."
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