In a hurry

If there's one thing I've learned in 8 years of advertising (wow, that's a long time already), it's that you should always be prepared for surprises. Nice surprises, but also unwelcome surprises. Like the one of yesterday. I heard too late that I have a shooting and it was in Lokeren. One peak on Google-maps and I knew that I was never never going to make it in time. Besides, I had to arrange an art-director in the last minute because Yigit had a day off.

There's always a solution for these kind of problems if you just act immediately. The only way that I could get there in time was by taxi, so I ran downstairs to order one. I gave myself 15 minutes of delay to run around in the agency to find an art-director that was willing to come with me to the shooting. Of course 'right now' is a little short notice, so nobody could come with me. So I went for the second best option: an art-director that could look at the photographs on e-mail. In the nick of time Jean-Marc agreed to help me and at that moment I got a phonecall that my taxi arrived.

These situations can be prevented easily if you just plan everything well in advance. But since everybody in the agency is only human there's always a chance that everybody didn't think of everything at the same time. Creativity is problem solving. Sometimes the problem is 'how to sell more washing powder' and sometimes the problem is 'getting in time for the shooting and finding a last-minute-art-director'. The problem with that last kind of problem solving is that usually the deadline is too sharp.