One.
Two.
Sometimes you need to copy the best people in your field, to learn from them, to profit from the new markets they have opened.
Sometimes you need to look at what everyone else is doing, then do something different.
Here’s a fun example. In the early 2000s the owner of a powerkite shop hired me to do an advert in a kitesurf magazine. I looked through a copy of the magazine. Everything in it was blue. Blue water, blue graphics, blue ads. So I made an orange ad. It got noticed. Within a few months the magazine was full of orange and red ads, and I had to do something different to make my client stand out.1 That’s how it goes with creativity.
Three.
Sophie Ellis-Baxtor gets very fancy indeed:
Next week’s guest author is Teresa Roberts. I met Teresa in Moscow, Russia in the 90s. We were living with a cult on a boat on a river in the middle of winter. We became great friends. Then spring came and we left the cult and went home – me to Arizona, Teresa to Oklahoma. We kept in touch for a while, until we didn’t. 25 years later we reconnected on Facebook and I discovered that Teresa has done All The Things (she only mentions like half of them in her bio) and learned All The Lessons. Next week’s TREE will be stuffed with goodness. In the meantime, go enjoy her art and follow her on the grams.
Something for the weekend
You know food is a big deal to me. I want you to understand ‘How ultra-processed food took over your shopping basket’. It’s an eye-opener.
Happy weekend
Jeff
Christine gave me the idea of posing him naked and seductive, the way one expects to see women sexualised in an ad. It got really noticed!