In 2007, Apple launched the iPhone.
In America you could only use the iPhone on AT&T’s network.
But a teenager called George Hotz didn’t want to use AT&T.
He wanted to use T-Mobile.
So he opened his iPhone, located the processor, scrambled the code, and reprogrammed it to work with any network.
Then he posted a video about it on YouTube, and got 2 million hits.
Because this was the world’s first hacked iPhone.
But the best part for me was what happened next.
Steve Wozniak, co founder of Apple, said “I understand the mind set of a person who wants to do that, and I don’t think of people like that as criminals.
In fact, I think that misbehaviour is very strongly correlated with and responsible for creative thought.”
That last line is so good, I’m going to repeat it.
“Misbehaviour is very strongly correlated with and responsible for creative thought.”
In other words, people who are scared stiff of getting into trouble are going to have a hard time being creative.
Creativity is nearly always a reaction against something.
A desire to overthrow the establishment.
To change things.
That’s why it causes outrage.
That’s why it goes against the rules.
1907, Picasso exhibited his painting ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”.
A painting of 5 prostitutes in a brothel.
It combined, for the first time, primitive tribal art with cubism.
When he saw it, the influential art dealer Ambroise Vollard said “This is the work of a mad man.”
The painter Braque said “Picasso is spitting turpentine in our faces.”
But within a year it was considered a game changing work.
In a few more years, it was considered a masterpiece.
Today, it is universally acknowledged as the painting that marks the birth of modern art.
Ten years later, Marcel Duchamp entered a urinal into sculpture exhibition in New York.
That’s all, a urinal.
The committee were horrified, they refused to even have it in the exhibition.
The sculpture was thrown into an alley and eventually destroyed.
Subsequently that sculpture is seen as the birth of conceptual art.
Every conceptual artist since that date has worked within the art form that Duchamp launched with that urinal.
All art, all creativity, is a reaction against the status quo.
A desire to change things.
If there was no desire to change things, why would you bother?
Especially in our business.
Our business is all about changing things.
And we can’t change things unless we get attention.
And we have to do that by dominating our environment.
And we won’t do that by fitting in.
By being quiet and polite and nice and gentle.
By not upsetting anyone.
That’s why it’s our job to upset people.
To upset every competitor.
To dominate the environment so that we capture the attention everyone else is competing for.
In our field more than anywhere.
No one voluntarily pays to see our work.
In art galleries, or cinemas, or theatres, or DVDs or downloads.
No one turns on the TV or radio or laptop to look at what we do.
What’s nice for Duchamp or Picasso is essential for us.
People don’t carefully look at all the ads the way they carefully look at all the exhibits in an art gallery.
No one’s looking at us.
If we don’t want to rock the boat, we’re invisible.
And if we’re invisible, why would we bother?
Dave, great post! Would you agree that what you said about advertising also holds true for people working IN advertising?
“And we have to do that by dominating our environment. And we won’t do that by fitting in. By being quiet and polite and nice and gentle. By not upsetting anyone. That’s why it’s our job to upset people.To upset every competitor. To dominate the environment so that we capture the attention everyone else is competing for. In our field more than anywhere.”
I am an art-director and very soft spoken and gentle by nature. And I’ve seen that on certain jobs preference is given to people around me who are more aggressive, out-spoken and visible. I have lost (not sure if ‘lost’ is the right word) projects to people who possess the aforementioned qualities, but not necessarily the best ideas.
I sometimes wonder if advertising is the right profession for me.
Mrinal - 16 May 2012 10:17 am
Dave
How long did u spend trying 2 get ‘Ugly’ into the heading of this post be4 giving up?
Grilla Login - 16 May 2012 10:32 am
I think you have just outlined why there are so few female creatives (and stand-up comedians), Dave. Girls are meant to be nice and polite, not challenging and upsetting.
rachel carroll - 16 May 2012 3:11 pm
Rachel – Mister Kipling – He’s exceedingly good @ contradicting that view:
When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other’s tale —
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man, a bear in most relations — worm and savage otherwise, —
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.
Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger — Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue — to the scandal of The Sex!
But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.
She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity — must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions — not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.
She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unchained to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.
She is wedded to convictions — in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! —
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.
Unprovoked and awful charges — even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons — even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish — like the Jesuit with the squaw!
So it cames that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice — which no woman understands.
And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern — shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.
Grilla Login - 16 May 2012 4:36 pm
I think it’s possible to be nice and polite personally but challenging with one’s work.
Difficult but nobody said it was easy.
john p woods - 16 May 2012 5:50 pm
Mrinal,
Bill Bernbach said:
“In this all too imperfect world, good does not always drive out evil.
Right does not always drive out wrong.
But the energetic will always displace the passive.”
Dave Trott - 16 May 2012 8:16 pm
Rachel,
My daughter, an art director, likes to quote Maggie Thatcher on this:
“If you want something said, ask a man.
If you want something done, ask a woman.”
Dave Trott - 16 May 2012 8:18 pm
“You’re only remembered by the rules you break.”
gen. MacArthur (I think)
Riki - 17 May 2012 12:12 am
Just wondering how the other Steve felt about this hacked phone. Seem to recall threat of legal action etc etc.
Robin. - 17 May 2012 4:20 am
That would be the Maggie Thatcher who managed to lay waste large areas of the UK (including the bit that John Woods and I come from)? Doing something isn’t always positive…
Tom - 17 May 2012 7:28 am
Thanks Dave
“All truth passes through three stages
First, it is ridiculed
Second, it is violently opposed
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident”
- Arthur Schopenhauer
I refer to this when I’m facing a head-wind
It’s a compass
It keeps me going
When all around aren’t YET getting it.
Jeremy - 17 May 2012 9:21 am
Absolutely Jeremy.
Gandhi said something similar:
“First you ignore us.
Then you laugh at us.
Then you fight us.
Then we win.”
Dave Trott - 17 May 2012 9:56 am
I would imagine some would find there’s lots to admire about Thatcher when you take her out of context.
john p woods - 17 May 2012 10:07 am
Dave,
Didn’t Himmler say something similar?
‘Cept the last bit didn’t quite pan out for his boys.
john p woods - 17 May 2012 10:35 am
John,
“Himmler was very simmler”.
Two and very small apparently.
Dave Trott - 17 May 2012 11:27 am
Dave,
“And Goebbels has no balls at all”.
Now I know why some of them refused to play ball when the game was afoot.
john p woods - 17 May 2012 11:44 am
“Don’t be stupid be a smarty”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K08akOt2kuo
Surely the funniest film EVER.
john p woods - 17 May 2012 11:48 am
Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so – as Shakespeare as Says
It’s good on you Dave for putting it out here.
Natural Stone Fireplace Manufacturers - 18 May 2012 12:14 pm
Grilla, I I do not think Mr. Kipling is contradicting me. He’s talking about a fear of ladies. Which is why creative departments are 98% gentlemen. I’m not getting on a high horse because that would be dull and I don’t even have one – just a small Shetland pony. But It was exceedingly kind of you to transcribe the poem, which I enjoyed with a French Fancy.
Dave, Jade’s work is great. i hope she becomes a Worldwide Guru like you.
Mrs. Thatcher? Not so much.
John, I think the funniest film ever is ‘Walk Hard – The Dewey Cox Story.’
rachel carroll - 18 May 2012 12:23 pm
Rachel – The transcribing was done by Sponge Fingers – Reclined and watched was the extent of my contribution.
Grilla Login - 18 May 2012 2:54 pm
It’s the thought wot counts, Grilla.
rachel carroll - 18 May 2012 4:26 pm
“Misbehaviour is very strongly correlated with and responsible for creative thought.”
This is the argument I’m trying to give my boss about your untraditional writing structure.
LNNS - 18 May 2012 8:52 pm
LNNS,
Tell your boss not to confuse conventional v unconventional with good v bad.
Conventional can be either good or bad, as can unconventional.
Unless he always believes conventional = good and unconventional = bad.
In which case he will find it hard to be creative.
Dave Trott - 19 May 2012 1:41 pm
“If you’re not pissing somebody off, you’re not doing your job.” — Bill Camp, I think.
Omair - 19 May 2012 8:51 pm
http://styled-comments.blogspot.com/2012/05/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-320-326.html
Anca - 20 May 2012 2:18 pm
Anca,
If you haven’t already seen it, you’ll appreciate this link on several levels:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
Dave Trott - 20 May 2012 3:22 pm
Thanks Dave, I’ve seen it before, but it still feels fresh.
While some of the negative experiences we have to go through can be a leap forward thanks to the insights they bring, others are actually flat – and there’s nothing tragic about it, it’s all random. What can be tragic though is not being aware of these split-second changes that can dramatically reduce our options. Every future plan should start with “If nothing horrible happens to me, …” – it keeps you vigilant in case any triviality is about to flush your time down the toilet. (See, I’m not good at insights, but I’m quite good at trial-and-error learning.)
Anca - 20 May 2012 5:30 pm
Watched this last night-:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m0mbt/Storyville_20082009_Man_on_Wire/
Kev - 21 May 2012 7:49 am