This week, Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com) moves into the profound stuff.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had a lot of coffees with a lot of interesting people.

All of them are making money from their creativity.

All of them work in the industry we loosely call advertising.

Yet none of them actually create advertising.

Well not advertising as we know it.

They’re developing apps, creating utilities, working on platforms and doing stuff with communities.

This excites me a lot.

What doesn’t excite me is the fact that most young people who show me their folio still have a book of print ads.

Agencies are full of very talented people doing great ads or at the very least passable ones.

So why would you bother trying to compete with them, when you could be doing things that are much more interesting and engaging?

While we’re now three, and have accumulated Fisher Price trucks, kitchens and play pens, Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com) thinks you should now be onto it enough to have lost the training wheels.

Junior turned three this week.

Experts say that children learn more in their first three or four years than they do throughout the rest of their life.

I’m not sure if that’s 100% true, but it sure sounds impressive when you quote it.

If it is true, then it stands to reason that if you visit Junior regularly then you should by now have absorbed enough wisdom to last you a lifetime.

Or a least enough for a career.

Which you most probably have, but chances are it isn’t enough to get you through the door and behind a desk.

And as harsh as it may sound, that is the grim reality.

But, as the cliché goes, when the going gets tough the tough get going.

So don’t dismay. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. And definitely don’t give up.

Getting a job where you make money from your creativity has never been easy.

If it was every idiot with a half baked idea would be doing it.

Keep on working on your concepts. Keep on sharing your thinking with senior people. Keep on asking for criticism of your work. Keep on making coffees to support yourself in the mean time. And most of all keep on keeping on.

Because you don’t need to be the best qualified person for the job. You need to be the person with the passion and persistence to land it.

This week, Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com) sounds a little like he’s been watching too much Oprah (http://schmoesknow NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/get-attachment-6 NULL.aspx_1 NULL.jpeg).

Many kids have asked me how to know when you’ve got a good idea.

And the answer is, quite simply, you just know.

Generally this answer gets met with a look of bemusement.

Followed by a stuttering re-asking of the question.

Like I said, you just know.

You know because you feel different when you give voice to the idea.

It makes you tingle.

It makes you excited.

It makes you want to jump out of your chair and rush off to tell someone about it.

And if it doesn’t then it isn’t that good an idea.

In which case, you go back to work until you have one.

We think this is one of Stan’s (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com) best WHIP’s yet.

One of the things you have to watch for when getting ideas ready for a presentation is ensuring that the ideas are robust.

Not big. Not clever. Robust.

Of course big and clever as essential. But if those big, clever ideas aren’t robust they may not turn out as big as you imagined.

Why?

Client input.

You see when you’re just a kid with a folio your ideas are yours and yours alone. But when you have a job, your ideas actually belong to the client.

And clients love to “contribute” to the idea.

So make sure, before you present an idea, that it is robust enough to survive the production process.

You’ll thank me for this advice one day. Promise!