Soffer Collective Honored by ADFED
September 29th 2009
Last Monday night, ADFED MIAMI gave The Soffer Collective both a wonderful honor and a forum in which to speak. I am profoundly grateful for both.
The Soffer Collective won 23 ADDY awards this year and was one of only 5 local companies to win a National Addy. We are proud beyond words.
So the words I chose to express my thoughts to the group that night reflected the cold hard truth: I have put The Soffer Collective on ice. Indefinitely. Maybe forever. Or until tomorrow. Don’t know yet.
I had to tell the truth because I value my peers, my friends, our industry and the young, hungry, creative minds in the room. We owe each other honesty. I could not stand up in front of everyone and pretend that things were chill. Lying sucks and has no soul. I have been a marketer long enough to know that.
One big bad bear, of course, is the economy. But I have also come to realize that there were (are) other big bad bears at work.
Most start with de — deception, devaluation, all the usual de- suspects. But perhaps most significant is the de-humanization of business, which I ultimately found intolerably painful and responsible for my current dispassion.
The biz world just got really crappy.
I’m a big one for new things and moving on to see what is over the next hill. At my stage in life it’s not about mountains–which is very cool. I simply need to be involved in what matters and what makes sense, in something where people and service count more than anything, which of course makes everything count.
Anyone who knows The Soffer Collective Wall gets what I am talking about. Our wall was our soul, our core, our power. Our company was about one simple thing–OUR PEOPLE. That made everything else work.
I know one gajillion million percent that our success was based on one thing and one thing only–OUR PEOPLE.
Yeah, Power to the People. Good anthems die hard.
By the way: A win by default is not a win. It is perhaps the biggest, emptiest kind of loss there is. You know who you are.
My next win will be just like my last - based on honesty, love and respect for people. Core values, everyone. Core values.
I look forward to discovering what that will look like. In the meantime, I am traveling and learning and listening and feeling and loving and exploring and will be here as usual- sharing all that I find.
With who??
PEOPLE.
Of course.
You know who you are. I love you all.
