I QUIT…. Working for nothing.

[Walter Soyka]

[Scott Sheriff] “To paraphrase something I said to Andy, I can’t believe the lengths that many will go through to help undeserving noobs that are too lazy to RTFM, and for guys like him, the best we can offer is platitudes and condescension. Aren’t we supposed to be the professionals?”

Scott, I must respectfully disagree.

Noobs aren’t necessarily undeserving. They are new, and sometimes they don’t know what they don’t know — like how to learn from a manual, or how complex a seemingly simple task may really be.

Apprenticeships and facilities are pretty much gone. There are no safe places to screw up and learn from the process because someone else with more experience has your back. Forums like CreativeCOW are where the noobs must go to learn from the more experienced. I learned a lot from manuals and from experimentation on my own time, but I also got a lot of help from mentors, mailing lists, and forums like the COW. I can’t really pay it back, but I’ve made the personal decision to try to pay it forward.

Further, it’s the noobs who don’t ask for help that are going out and doing poor work with nice gear at stupid rates. The noobs who come here, asking questions, willing to learn — they can hear about the right way to shoot, edit, color, etc., and the right way to calculate what their rate needs to be to stay in business from folks who have done it before.

You say that we are too quick to help noobs when the answer is in the manual, and we are offering Andy only platitudes and condescension. I disagree.

Noobs generally ask easy questions. Like you say, the answers are often right in the manual. There is no manual to answer Andy’s question. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was a real book, but it was satire.

I do agree with you that there are no easy answers to the hard questions, and there’s no step-by-step formula anyone can follow for instant results. I also agree with you that the economics of the industry are different now than they were 10 or even 5 years ago, and that we all need to pay attention to that.

I disagree that Andy is getting platitudes. He is being advised here that if he wants to continue to succeed in a changing industry, he will need to change his thinking and his approach to his business. That’s not some trite moral statement; that’s the plain truth. It’s not a specific action item, but given the nature of the problem, it’s not like he can just trash his preferences and watch his rates bounce back.

Andy has chosen his path: partially ducking out of the industry and perpetuating the conditions that he struggled against. That works! He has essentially followed the advice here — he’s changed his approach to accommodate the changing environment.

The only real disagreement here is whether that is literally the only viable path or not. Andy claims it is. I argue there are other options.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Michael Hendrix]

Gav, take off the “in sports” part and you could coin it and make some posters. Good one…..

[Andy Jackson]

Well. I`m off on my holidays now for a few weeks.

I have alot to think about.

Will probably end up knocking my new full time job on the head and getting back into video which I love and enjoy.

Hard to give it up full time!

Thankyou all for your input and sorry if I offended anyone but it was not my intention. It`s just how I have been feeling over the past month or two.

I still have some negative thoughts but some positive are starting to emerge.

I probably wont end up making the money that I have been used too, but I will be making the videos I enjoy.
I should be able to compromise.

Just have to try my hardest to get in more jobs. If that means lowering my prices with the lowballers. Well thats the way I will have to go.

Hopefully it will work out for me like it has for so many other cow members.

Again. Thankyou everyone for you input.

Much appreciated.

Cheers Andy

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Gav Bott] “In sports – it’s the ones that have trained, worked, practiced, and generally done more that tend to look “lucky.”

Succinct.

Perfect blend of sweetly balanced tartness with a near perfect after-palette.

Nice, Gav.

;o)

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO Emeritus, Creative COW LLC
Publisher Emeritus, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.net

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss

Activity

[Ron Lindeboom]

I am in the COMMUNICATIONS business, I do it all: write, shoot, edit, composite and do print as well. And if you want to limit success and arguments to video only, that is a rather self-serving and arbitrary differentiation, because Scott, print is a MUCH HARDER market to succeed in. The challenges are the same but getting through them to success is MUCH trickier.

Part of the reason that you and Andy Jackson agree that the market is collapsing into doom is due to the same lesson you are ignoring here that the railroads didn’t learn in their heyday. The railroads thought they were in the *railroad* business when they were really in the *transportation* business. Because of that, when automobiles came along they lost because whereas the world could have been filled with Santa Fe and Union Pacific automobiles, they watched their market erode as cars and trucks began transporting much of what they had been carrying.

You disregard my lessons because you think my expertise outside your purview. You sir, are locked into the same problem that plagued the railroads. I don’t do video — although I do and have but I survived by never limiting myself. I do *communications* — whatever it takes to keep a client happy. If it’s video, great. Writing, producing and directing your commercials? I got your back. You need print? I do it. You can’t write? I can. Whatever gets me from where I am to the check in the shortest distance and least amount of time, that is where I am. I am mammalian and plan to outlive the dinosaurs who are locked into only one thing.

Only someone wishing to assure all their lessons come from the school of hard knocks ignores good advice and well considered practice that works for others. MOST of the best lessons that have helped me in my life had LITTLE to do with the direct situation at hand.

Truly creative people always look for ways to “connect the dots.” Less creative people need a rote formula laid out of following the dance steps like an old Arthur Murray dance studio routine.

THAT is the point that both you and Andy Jackson are failing to see, Scott: you want to so limit and compartmentalize your considerations that you leave out much of what the rest of us have come to learn, recognize and benefit from. Much of it has been said in this thread by numerous people here but it has been swept away as anything but helpful.

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO Emeritus, Creative COW LLC
Publisher Emeritus, Creative COW Magazine
A 2011 FOLIO: 40 honoree as one of the 40 most influential publishers in America
http://www.creativecow.net

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those that matter, don’t mind — and those that mind, don’t matter.” – Dr. Seuss

Activity

[Richard Herd]

[Tim Wilson] “They were delighted with the results. I should have charged more.”

Talk about that some more please.

If you search this forum, you’ll find posts of mine where I struggled with a client, with whom I’ve made contact again for more work.

Does that mean I could charge more this time?

Thanks!

[Richard Herd]

[Scott Sheriff] “I disagree”

You are correct. Since the Reagan Administration, total jobs has increased, aggregate real wages have decreased (in USA), yet household income has remained the same.

Answering this has proven to be complicated.

Two main answers:
1. Working women
2. the PC.

(1) we know that women are discriminated against on wages, so as more of them have been hired they have been low-balled; moreover, two working family members means household income stayed stagnant.

(2) simple as this: we can do more work, manage more tasks and workers with the PC than ever before. Efficiency is very high.

Are we going to strike?

[Richard Herd]

[Scott Sheriff] “level of the noobs “

You should make t-shirts…no…start a punk band. “AND NOW, all the way from the cow:….level of the noobs!!”

[Richard Herd]

[Craig Seeman] “The Chyron Operator”

wtf is a chyron?

[Richard Herd]

Yeah, but Mark, you’re awesome.

Back in my younger and more formidable years, I wrote coverage for a producer. I have a script to read, if you wanna exchange a few pages.