Last year, I got to attend Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored conference in New York City. It was an enriching experience, and I got to listen to speakers from all kinds of companies talk about innovation in their industries, from Dreamworks to Gilt Groupe.
One of the best speakers of the day was advertising thought leader Alex Bogusky, of Crispin Porter + Bogusky fame. He seemed like he might rather be somewhere else, had a humorously foul mouth, and preached almost the exact opposite of everything I had heard about success in business.
Many tidbits from his talk that day have embedded themselves in my mind for almost a year now, and have become even more relevant with each passing day of my MBA program. He started in advertising as an outsider to the industry. He didn’t necessarily strive to better than his competitors. He just wanted to be less boring. And that’s where he found his success.
According to Bogusky, not only should we ignore generally-accepted practices, we should actively revolt against them. “ROI and accounting can’t be the metrics of success anymore,” he said last year, “if you have a success, it will be analyzed until it is a failure.”
His advice was to forget the numbers, forget the accepted wisdom, and just go out and create already. His words inspired me then, and they continue to do so today.
One of my favorite parts of his talk touched on how Generation Y (or the Millennials, or the Echo Boomers) are perfectly suited to this kind of outlook. According to Bogusky, my generation owns these distinct characteristics:
- optimistic
- not cynical
- content is, and should be, free
- attitude of “we cannot fail”
- above all, FEARLESS.
…and while we may not all share all of those attributes, more of us have more of them than any generation before us. We see the value of disruption, and we understand that fun is usually better than safe.
It could be naive to think that I can personally carry all of these traits into my professional life and be a rulebreaker in the mold of Alex Bogusky, but I’d rather be naive enough to try it than cynical enough to think I can’t.
