Emphasis on the word your. If you’re not familiar with Frederick Douglass’s speech entitled What, to a Slave, Is Your Fourth of July?, you should be. You can read the text here. The Fourth of July is a few weeks away, but you can bookmark the speech and come back to it. Or you can do what I’m doing now. Think about the relevance of Douglass’s speech in light of …
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of words in our work. Not just how we write but also what we say about the people and communities we serve. This thinking goes beyond the people-first language approach, which is critical for writing or speaking in a way that does not label or stigmatize a community. This thinking has also challenged me to examine the ways I talk …
It doesn’t take any real level of scholarship to understand Mississippi has struggled with equity since it was granted statehood more than two centuries ago. That trend has continued with the state’s latest—and honestly feeble—attempt to address the disproportionate economic and social toll the COVID-19 pandemic is exacting on Black Mississippians, who represent nearly 40 percent of the state’s population. It’s important to keep that number in mind. Forty …
Let me start with a few disclaimers. As a leadership team, we chose not to accept an invitation from another agency to submit a joint bid to provide creative and media placement support for the Mississippi Lottery. Even if we had chosen to participate, we recognize we may not have been awarded the contract. That’s the nature of the request for proposal process. I am not writing this to …
Inspiration is the good friend who sends the unexpected but perfectly timed text message or DM. This morning I noticed a police car idling in the parking lot. My lived experience and recent history urged caution and concern. Curiosity (and chores – I had to sweep the front steps) urged me to investigate. What I saw was as striking as it was inspiring. The officer ( I wish I …
What remains is contradiction: We must believe in the dream and we must accept that it is false—then, perhaps, we will be capable of building a land where it will yet be true. These are the words of Gareth Cook, shared at the end of his recent article on accomplished economist Raj Chetty in the August 2019 issue of The Atlantic. Cook explores the corners of Chetty’s version of …
We’re currently looking for a creative support specialist, but that’s not what this blog post is about. Well, that’s not all it’s about. Like everything we try to do here, we approach the way we recruit, select, and develop our team members with an intense focus on learning and a healthy dose of professional humility. When I discuss humility here, I’m talking about something very basic: understanding that you …
“…by always quoting works out of the context the public forgets that they have a context.” – Theodore Gioia Theodore Gioia makes a very salient point in this article about the use of classical music in commercial advertising from the Los Angeles Review of Books. Before I journey further into this idea, I encourage you to read the article, which although veers significantly midstream, presents a rather appalling picture of …
Working in a creative field can be incredibly rewarding and fun. You get to do the work you love, sometimes effortlessly, by simply working those God-given left brain muscles. However, it can also be very mentally taxing. Ever get those moments where you find yourself spinning your wheels and no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to generate a new direction or idea? It’s called a creative block. …
It seems like a new study comes out every day about something. Theories are posited. Hypotheses are proven or disproven. Claims are made, then retracted. It can all be a bit confusing. However, over the past fifteen years, one piece of data has remained persistently and painfully true. There is a huge chasm in exposure and opportunity for children based purely upon their socioeconomic status. A recent episode of Innovation …
“And we appeal to the friends of progress and to our citizens of the several states to continue their efforts to the various legislatures until every state can boast of having a free school system, with no distinction in dissemination of knowledge to its inhabitants on account of race, color, sex, creed or previous condition.” And nearly 15 decades later, the friends of progress and citizens of several states are …
A few years back I scrolled across an article that I am still not one hundred percent sure is real, but it made me think about mandatory laws requiring spouses to disclose cosmetic plastic surgery before marriage. Much like my last story, I’ll give you some history followed by my thoughts. The History: Years ago, I read an article that detailed how a man was divorcing and suing his wife …
Later is a creeping, cunning, Siren-Decepticon. Later has this tricky way of shape shifting into something else entirely. The word “later” is actually an adjective AND an adverb (already doing The Most). It slinks through our vernacular, modifying whatever it can get its hands on: nouns, verbs, adjectives, even other adverbs. As in other situations, in language too, a modifier is intended only to enhance or just ever so slightly …
There’s one common mistake that scores of leaders make. Okay, so there is more than one standard mistake, but this post will address only one. And here it is: LEADERS CAN’T MANAGE EVERY EMPLOYEE THE SAME WAY. Two researchers, Hersey and Blanchard, outlined a leadership process called Situational Leadership Theory. The concept is worth reading about in Paul Hersey’s book The Situational Leader and on the Center for Leadership Studies …
A few weeks ago, we had a brief discussion about the our moral obligation to people who work with us as employees or contractors. I had a similar conversation at the end of last year with the head of a larger agency, and a few weeks before that I had the same conversation with my accountant. Because it’s important. Last month, I read an article on The Intercept detailing the …
Comic Sans is a font that people love to hate. I’ll admit it—I myself am one of those haters. But I didn’t know the backstory of this designer-despised font until I came across a video called “A Defense of Comic Sans.” If you’re at all interested in typography, it’s worth a watch. Michael Stevens talks about how Comic Sans was created in 1994 by Vincent Connare when Melinda Gates asked him …
As I scrolled through my personal Twitter feed this past weekend, I scrolled upon a post of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. The post included the above picture of Bezos sitting at a desk with one computer in a makeshift office on which the walls hung an airbrushed “Amazon.com” banner. The text attached to the picture read, “Jeff Bezos 1999. Next time you want to give up, think of this.” …
Last weekend, we had our annual team retreat in New Orleans. Yes, we actually worked while we were there. Probably because Mardis Gras hadn’t yet begun, but also because we tend to be fairly responsible professional adults. Fairly. Our home for the weekend was a partially renovated duplex near the French Quarter that had lots of character but not a lot of insulation, which meant there was liberal use of …
Research and development. Trial and error. Risk and reward. They’re all a part of doing business, no matter what business you happen to be in. Our commitment to learning at Fahrenheit Creative Group stems from that reality. We invest in new ideas and opportunities, always seeking to increase value for our clients, sharpen our professional skills, and grow our business. Sometimes all three of those things happen. Sometimes only one of …
There’s a lot of attention given to leaders. In fact, there are endless books written on the top, bordering on leadership overload. According to Gary Yukl, one of the most prominent and profound leadership researchers in the world, there are as many definitions of leadership as there are researchers working to define the concept. And yes, leadership is extremely important. But, what about the followers? After all, a leader can’t …
I just wanted to post a quick word of congratulations to the fellow graduates of the 2017 SBA Emerging Leaders Executive Training Program, listed in the Mississippi Business Journal article below. I wish each of them great success in the years to come. 6 graduate from SBA Emerging Leaders Executive Training Program After spending eight months and more than 100 hours of work in evening classes, six small businesses will graduate …
It’s hard to believe it has been three years since I read this New Yorker article chronicling the graphic and traumatic experience of Kalief Browder, one of the most courageous humans to ever live. We are five episodes into the six-episode Netflix series, Time: The Kalief Browder Story, and the depth and detail of Kalief’s story, especially the tale of his life post-exoneration, are troubling, tragic, and terrifying. If you have not …
We are in the height of the technology age, where phones are used for everything except calling, cars park themselves, and social media is the number one source of information. A strong social media presence is essential in the marketing efforts of nonprofits and small businesses, so it is important that you have social media expert on staff or outsource to an agency with expertise in inbound marketing through social …
Disclaimer: This post is really just way for me to share some dope new and old school hip-hop videos, but you might find something of value. Actually, you’ll definitely find some value. Enjoy. “In my city, they have a ball, but no, not me, ’cause after all, I work.” – Phonte/Foreign Exchange, Asking for a Friend Why do you go to work (check out the Kool Moe Dee video below)? No, seriously, …
How many times have you heard someone give a motivational speech and say with authority, “It’s not the destination, but the journey that matters” or “life’s a journey, not a destination”? Well, let’s say this idea is true. How does it play out? If the destination doesn’t matter, then as I’m falling off a cliff with the ground quickly rushing towards me, do I take a fraction of a second …
So, basically, all I have to say is watch these videos and shout out to GJAC. Later. Author Jason Thompson Jason Thompson is co-founder and principal of Jackson, Mississippi-based marketing and communications firm Fahrenheit Creative Group, LLC. A graduate of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi, Jason has spent more than ten years honing his design and development skills to be able to lead a …
The world ends. Or at least it can feel that way. This, like many if my random revelations, has an odd derivation. I have very excited about seeing The Foreign Exchange (TFE) live at this show in Charlotte. If for some odd reason you are not a fan of The Foreign Exchange, please watch this and listen to this and then come back and finish reading this post. I’ll wait. …
See spot. Good. Don’t see spot. See spot run. See spot run your business into the ground. Seeing spots is healthy. I’m not referring to ocular health. If you’re seeing actual spots, you should immediately consult your optometrist. However, if you are an entrepreneur, manager, or really anyone at any level working in any organization, you should be actively trying to find the spots that you aren’t seeing. The blind …
I recently stumbled upon a headline on forbes.com that read “New Report: Women CEOs Make More Than Men”. This headline caught my eye… but not for the reasons you might think. You may believe some celebration is in order, however, I’m not ready to party just yet and I don’t think you should be either. I am afraid that people will read this headline rather than the entire article. Or, …
There’s a lot of talk about thought leadership. Many nonprofit organizations and leaders often speak about ways to position themselves as “thought leaders” in their respective fields or service areas. The term “thought leader” is slightly deceiving. It means more than just producing good ideas, speaking at conferences, or attracting new followers to a social media network to share insight on a topic. In the nonprofit community, thought leadership does …
Have you ever been in your car and heard a strange sound? Something that was just a little off…a little shaky…a little weird? When this happens the first thing that comes to mind is “What is wrong?” The second: “How much will it cost?” The same situation can occur in businesses. As companies grow and take on newer and larger clients they must be sure to fine tune every aspect of the …
I know most people are over Pepsigate by now. That’s how the 24-hour news cycle works, I guess. I pulled some quotes from an article in the Atlantic (How on Earth Does an Ad like Pepsi’s Get Approved? written by Joe Pinsker) a few weeks ago because I think there are some valuable lessons to be drawn that may have gotten lost in the initial shock and outrage (not to dismiss the …
I learned early in my college career that if I wanted “real-world experience” I needed to get out into the real world. I was fortunate enough to have an incredible professor that not only arranged an interview for me at a local television station, but she also went to the interview with me to ensure that I would really benefit from the opportunity. The internship was unpaid. However, what I …
I never interned while I was in college, so I missed that whole experience. After six years, I have gained plenty of experience being on the other side of the internship equation, and as an employer (i.e. the offerer of internships), I have gleaned a few things from some extremely pleasant interns and other excruciatingly painful internship periods that may be helpful to other small businesses thinking about offering an …
At some point, every organization will experience some type of crisis. The crisis may be minor – like you post the wrong pricing information on social media. Or, the crisis may be major – like the one Delta Airlines is experiencing right this moment due to its a sitewide system outage (that currently has me stranded at DCA waiting to get to Atlanta and then home to Jackson). The first …
Transition – 1. movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc. to another; change 2. Music a. a passing from one key to another; modulation b. a brief modulation; a modulation used in passing c. a sudden, unprepared modulation 3. the most confusing time in anyone’s life…ever Everyone in this world has gone through some sort of transition in their life; whether it’s from one school …
One thing I’ve continued to learn since joining FCG is that the most important part of designing a website isn’t composing something that is aesthetically beautiful/appealing (although we think we’ve made some pretty beautiful websites) but crafting an intuitive and meaningful user experience. At the start of any website project, we take the time to dig into the gritty details of structure and function before we even start to think …
Disclaimer: I usually don’t waste time writing open letters to corporations unless there is some gross violation of civil or human rights. This letter is definitely not that. However, there are some larger points that I felt could be made by sharing some of the horrible experiences I’ve had an Enterprise. To the Enterprise Holdings Leadership Team: I’ve recently had a terrible string of rental experiences at Enterprise. I want …
If you asked me what I do, I’d probably tell you I work with an awesome team of creatives to solve tough problems for great clients. But if you asked me what business I’m in, I’d tell you something different. Because I’m in the customer service business. And if for some reason you’re not, then you may not be in business for long. We spend a lot of time talking …
The Netflix series Last Chance University is arrestingly interesting. It’s also maddeningly disappointing, gut-wrenchingly frustrating, and unfortunately truthful. If I were able to watch Last Chance University for pure entertainment, like I’m sure so many people can, it wouldn’t be so difficult to accept. And although this is rather off-topic for our blog, I feel the need to share. So I will. And I’ll do my best to put a nice …
So, this is a very random post. Kind of. We devote the last 30 minutes of our day every Friday to writing (or preparing to write or thinking about writing or thinking about preparing to write – you get the picture). Unless of course our perfect world is disrupted by work, which happens from time to time (can you believe it?). As I was preparing to think about what I …
Cartoons are normally the last place we expect to find some sort of worthwhile life lesson but there is one series that I recently revisited from my childhood (Netflix FTW!) that made me think about how we as marketers have to sometimes take failure in stride and keep pushing through. When I was a kid in the 90’s, I wasn’t overly concerned about providing graphic design and social media marketing …
Toward the end of Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc., Catmull includes a chapter dedicated to tech and design legend Steve Jobs. In that chapter, Catmull shares an exchange between Jobs and a Pixar director where Jobs compares the characters in a film in progress to Saturday morning cartoon characters. Now I am a fan of Saturday morning cartoons. Some of the best hours of my life were spent in front of a television …
I’ve seen the phrase “leading from behind” a lot. I never knew the derivation, so I did most of us do when curiosity strikes us while surfing the internet – I Googled it. I quickly learned that although many people attributed the phrase to Nelson Mandela, he never actually said it. And there was quite a bit of debate over if it was a positive or negative method of leading. …
We didn’t win last week. Technically, one of our clients didn’t get the win it was seeking, but from our perspective, when one of our clients doesn’t achieve its goals we don’t achieve ours. You’ll notice that I didn’t say we, or our clients, lost. Because we didn’t lose. True, we did not get the result we were seeking last week, and that’s not something we’re happy about. We did, …
But the App Store’s middle class is small and shrinking. And the easy money is gone. I found this article (Life and Death in the App Store by Casey Newton) on Longform.org (a great place to find awesome literary and journalistic jewels) and was very intrigued for a few reason. First, the struggles of the Pixite, the company that the article features, are directly related to the need to create a sustainable business …
Everyone wants to go fast, but fast doesn’t always win (see Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare as told through this classic Walt Disney cartoon). Paul Graham outlines a basic truism for business growth in his post Startup = Growth: For a company to grow really big, it must (a) make something lots of people want, and (b) reach and serve all those people. First, your business doesn’t have to …
What does best in the world mean? Seth Godin poses that question in “The Dip” episode of his Startup School podcast. The concept of “the dip” is interesting enough to be explored at length another time, but my attention was arrested with the idea of being the best in the world. To quickly summarize, Godin defines the terms in this way and in this order: The world: the only …
This is a repost from one of our good friends, and a very talented designer/artist, Chris Jones of SeeJones Creative. I Am Not My Job So…about a week ago, I parted ways with my employer. There wasn’t anything bad that happened. I actually liked working there, but tough decisions had to be made and that position is no more. I had no hard feelings. I thought about making an announcement …
Earlier today I was randomly navigating from article to article, and I landed on a short piece by David Berkowitz titled Why Snapchat’s 3V Advertising Model Is Flawed. Full disclosure: I’m not on Snapchat, and the older I get, the less knowledgeable I become about emerging and new social media platforms. For example, my awesome interns hipped me to Dubsmash and shout out pages on Instagram, both of which turned out to …
Here are six surprising facts you might not already know about how the creative mind works, which can hopefully to get your own creative juices flowing: 1. Workplace clutter makes you more creative. Here’s a creativity fact Martha Stewart certainly wouldn’t agree with: clutter actually makes you more creative. Research by the University of Minnesota discovered people in a disorderly room were more creative than those in an orderly …
Creating content on a regular basis for your company’s website, blog, and social media channels is no easy task. Therefore, our strategy focuses on efficiency and effectiveness. We understand that our fans, like us, are inundated with emails, updates and countless other sources of information every day. To avoid irking them with long and seemingly useless updates, we churn out content that is simple, relevant, brief and valuable. Here are …