After getting out of advertising completely, I often get asked about my experiences, etc.  So, rather than writing a lengthy post, I’ve decided to go old school and make a list of five things I’d like to share.  I’ve spent the past 2 years trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life , and hopefully some of these things will resonate with others.

I believe that society and our culture encourages a risk-adverse path in life.  That’s why you see so many talented and creative people working at companies like Accenture and industries such as advertising.  It’s safe and easy to be an account planner or consultant.  And our society even encourages it with college, recruitment, etc.  This has led a lot of people to go down a path they didn’t want to go and becoming completely un-fulfilled.

Disclaimer:  Take this with a grain of salt.  I’m still figuring things out every single day.

1.  Steer in the right direction. The best advice anyone ever gave me as to figure out where I wanted to go 1,2,5,10,20 years down the road and make sure that every decision put me one step closer to that goal.  For example, I want to eventually launch my own startup within the next 3-5 years.  When I had a choice between two jobs: one that paid a lot (not aligned with my goals) and one that didn’t pay a lot (but aligned with my goals) – I chose the latter.  Having a clear direction of where you want to go is the best way to navigate.

2.  Fulfillment. If you’re looking to find fulfillment in your life, watch this TEDtalk by Tony Robbins titled “Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better.”  He discusses the “invisible forces” that motivate everyone’s actions, and even high-fives Al Gore in the front row.

3.  Paypal Mafia. I talk about this article all the time and it’s one that changed my life.  As lame as that sounds, it really did.  I was amazed at how a group of people could leave Paypal and start other companies like LinkedIn, Kiva, Yelp, Going etc.  I knew I had to be in a similar environment.

4.  Make Ideas Happen. In a recent interview with PSFK, they asked what inspires me.  I thought about giving a ton of trite and lame answers but ended up keeping it real at the end.  “But out of it all, I stay inspired by pushing ideas to fruition often against the status quo. There’s nothing more inspiring and fulfilling than making ideas happen (mine or others).”  And it’s true.  At the end of the day, there’s nothing more fulfilling and inspiring than making ideas happen.

5.  Entrepreneurship. To relate it back to advertising, there’s nothing more fulfilling than reporting back to yourself.  When you believe in an idea, you make it happen, and you alone.  You don’t have to put together a 100-slide presentation to “sell it in” nor do you have to go through layers and layers of bureacracy to get something approved.  Like Nike says, you just do it.  Within this environment is when amazing things happen.  I encourage everyone in advertising to get the hell out STAT.  Why build someone else’s broken brand when you can create your own?

Hopefully, this will shed light on some things I’ve learned from the past two years.  The hardest decision for me was to pick a goal 5/10/20 years down the road and stick with it. My entire life was laid out for me: go to UVA for 4 years, go to VCU for 2 years, work here for a year, etc.  But, none of this was aligned with what I wanted to do or with my personal goals.  It took me over 2 years to find my way (I’m still trying to figure it out), and when I laid a goal of where I wanted to be 5 years down the road (it was extremely hard to commit to something so far down), everything else fell into place.

Long story short.
Do something.  Make something.  Stop thinking about it, just do it.
Ideas are worthless.  They are a dime a dozen.  The valuable ones are the ones that happen.

This paper is about social structure defining an advantage in creating good ideas, and people reproducing the social structure as they discuss their ideas. The hypothesis is that people who live in the intersection of social worlds are at higher risk of having good ideas.

Ronald Burt pointed out the importance of “structural holes” — those nodes (people) that connect networks. If I know person A and person B and person A and B ought to know each other, but don’t, I am occupying a “structural hole” in their intersecting social networks, and making that introduction could create social capital [...]

Download the entire research paper by Ronald Burt here

2.  Gmail Goggles (Thanks to Trumpet for finding this).

According to the Gmail Labs blog, “Sometimes I send messages I shouldn’t send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can’t always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we’re launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help.

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you are really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?”

3.  New Orleans 100 Mixer

The New Orleans 100 is a worldwide initiative that will highlight and encourage discussion among millions about 100 of the most innovative and world-changing ideas to take root in the city since Katrina.

Come join us to celebrate the innovators, social entrepreneurs, and creative mavericks that make up the NOLA100.

RSVP is required and the secret location will be emailed on Monday, October 27th.
Come drink for a cause, party with a purpose, and hit up Rebirth for one dope after party. Everyone is invited, so tell all your friends!

4.  504ward

The Idea Village is launching 504ward’s $100,000 Business Competition for entrepreneurs with business ideas that retain and engage the 23 – 35 year old demographic in New Orleans.  Please visit our youtube page to get your creative juices flowing!

5.  Fifty People, One Question

Fifty People, One Question: Restored from Benjamin Reece on Vimeo.

(Update (10/2/08): Thanks to swissmiss for pointing out that “hate” is a strong word, so I’ve changed it to “dislike”)

As I’m putting together and curating The Feast Conference, I’ve started to generate some new ideas to make the entire conference experience unique and different.  As someone that goes to a lot of conferences, I have developed a personal list of things I would like to see that I’m incorporating..

1)  No panel discussions.  I haven’t been to any panel discussions that added any value, were informative or useful.  It’s just a bunch of people having a big ego-fest or one guy dominating all of the speaking to prove that he is the smartest one in the room.

2)  18-minute presentations.  All speakers at The Feast will stick to a strict 18-minute presentation (TED-style) to make sure that they present concise, short, and inspirational presentations/talks.  I read somewhere that the average attention span for a person ranges around the 10-minute mark.  We’ve decided that 18-minutes would be a good time frame, and would also prevent speakers from digressing on a tangent.

3)  Breaks between each speaker. We’ll be adding some type of multimedia experience between each speaker.  Kind of like eating ginger between each sushi roll.  We’ll be playing music videos, short 3-5 minute films to switch things up.

4)  Young Stunner Speakers. We’ve brought in young speakers who will wow the crowd with their valuable insights and passion.  There’s so much to learn from this group!

5)  Extra long breaks. I have an extreme case of ADD so I get restless when I have to sit for a long time.  We’re giving a 30-minute break every 1.5 hours to give people to relax, network, and eat!

6)  Networking opportunities. We’re sending personal emails to introduce people to each other BEFORE the conference.  This gives them the ability to have at least one person to approach and talk to when they come to The Feast.  We have a bunch of other networking ideas but we’ll keep those secret as we can’t reveal all of them.

7)  Healthy organic food. We’ll be providing organic, natural, and healthy food that should energize people and not make them suffer from “food coma” which happens at most conferences.  We’re not counting corners as all of our food will be locally sourced.  Mmmmm delicious…

8)  Legendary After Party. I mean, who doesn’t like to party?

9)  Great Speakers. Unlike most conferences, we’ve spent a lot of time curating a great speaker lineup to ensure high quality, mind-blowing speeches.

So, I guess that leads to my next question.  What else can I do to ensure a great experience at The Feast?  Even if we can’t incorporate it into the conference this year, it’s something we can add to The Feast 2009.

1. What are some things you’ve liked about conferences?
2. What are some thing frustrate you?
3. What are some thing you’d like to see?
4. What would make The Feast crazy awesome?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The idea for The Feast came from a couple of places. Being based in New York, we’ve noticed a strong creative and social community without an outlet to spark innovation and connect with other likeminded innovators. Couple that with most conferences being lame (i.e. panels where the speakers brag about themselves) and the ridiculously high prices that conferences like TED and Pop!Tech were charging; we decided to bring something unique, creative, and affordable to the NYC community.  Hopefully, it’ll be a unique, inspiring, and extraordinary experience for everyone!

Everyday I go to work, I walk by Republic, and every time I walk by it, I’m always fascinated by it.  Not because they have the best noodles in the world but because they have flipped the restaurant model on it’s head and probably operate one of the most profitable restaurants on Union Square.  Here’s a short list of why I think they have the best business model..

1)  They take all your orders via wireless handheld devices. This is genius because they have a slim chance of messing up your order.  It also prevents them from getting sidetracked and placing your order in the computer 15 minutes after they take it. It’s streamlined to the kitchen and that means I get my food that much sooner which means that I’ll be leaving that much sooner.  Equals $$$ for high turnover rates.

2)  Asian-style seatings. Rather than having wasted spaces and seats, they seat people together on long tables.  You might not know the person sitting directly next to you but it’s ok because it’s asian (Republic is asian-themed).  This allows them to cram in as many people as possible.

3)  Everyone helps everyone. I think all the servers split the tips at the end of the night, so they have an incentive to help each other.  One server brought my food out, another one refilled my drink, and another brought my bill.  This is so efficient, and probably the secret to why they are successful – they flip so many tables.

4)  Menu. It’s so simple.  It’s just noodles.  It’s fast to make.  It’s cheap.  Delicious.

Any other reasons I’m leaving out?

I wish this translated to bars.

Why does it always take forever to close my tab out?
Why are there extra drinks on my tab?  (You can’t argue about extra drinks at 4 AM)
Why does it take forever to order a drink?
Why is there only 1 bartender?
Why is that bartender so slow?
Why did that asshole order 4 mojitos?
Why is there a $50 minimum at this bullshit sports bar?

I can go on forever and forever.  Someone should open up a bar that fixes all these problems…