Tuesday, May 24, 2005

After much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair

A few days ago, I posted a diatribe on writing the proper business bio. It's a subject about which I have strong opinions, well-justified by fact, reason, taste and refined sensibilities. That set me up for a difficult conundrum, however, because my very next task was to write my own bio for our forthcoming website. Any criticism is genuinely welcomed.


Jill is creative because, well, frankly, she has no choice in the matter. She would starve in a world where linear thinking and quantifying standard deviations were the coin of the realm. Luckily, the world needs creative thinkers, because like we said, the girl would go hungry.

Following an early and abiding love, Jill earned a degree in horticulture. She followed an equally abiding love with a degree in Literature and Language. Together, they prepared her to use her way with words for the advancement of a free and enlightened society. If you hear of anything, let her know.

In the meantime, Jill cut her teeth at Brighton Agency, applying her botanical background to promote the wholesale slaughter of roaches, mole crickets, fire ants, white flies and other maladies. Agricultural accounts followed, mixed with work for Saint Louis Art Fair, KWMU Radio, Sofa & Chair Company and others. After a sojourn of dedicated agricultural work at Osborn & Barr, Jill learned the weirdly effective science of direct marketing at Dimac, working on accounts like NationsBank and American Family Insurance. She later became creative director at a small, now-defunct agency, twofortysevendirect, specializing in letter packages selling auto insurance and home equity loans.

Prior to forming Cambium Creative with Jonathan Lehmann, Jill headed up Words That Work. In addition to performing some pyrotechnic copywriting in which no one was harmed, Jill followed her passion by helping develop a series of community outreach programs with Deb Shurn at Marketing Works that culminated in the passage of a measure that created the first-ever dedicated children’s services fund for the City of St. Louis.

Her client roster at Words That Work included her old friends at Monsanto, St. Louis Mental Health Board of Trustees, New Mississippi River Bridge Project and United States Centers for Disease Control (via Marketing Works, Inc.), Mallinckrodt Medical and Star Manufacturing with Stobie Group, among others.

An accomplished strategic thinker, Jill is comfortable with words in whatever form they take. Her expertise runs the gamut from print, web and broadcast advertising, strategic market planning, branding, public relations, and everything in between.

She has won many awards (or, as this week's bfd insists, the companies for whom she worked have won many awards for work she performed when in their employ), but not for her best work. If you ever want to hear a passionate little diatribe, just say "Account Executive Portfolio" in her presence. She's like Pavlov's copywriter.

Call Jill today at 314.983.0048 or 314.732.5715. or e-mail draperj@cambiumcreative.com.
Smoke signals, morse code and communications via avian couriers will be answered within the fortnight.

On Naked Cows, French Kissing, Passion and the Suchness of Nurturance, Excitement & Experience




The picture above is aprapos of nothing. In our business, it's called borrowed interest. We're hoping our readers see the big breasted cow and stay long enough to read this stuff. It's not a great technique, but it has its place.

Jonathan came over tonight and we were talking about what we want to say on our website about our philosophy. Following is a somewhat disjointed, stream-of-consciousness account of our discussion.

Do good work. Have happy clients.

Well, yeah. What else?

What about the passion we bring to it? The others will politely peck you, we will look into your lipid pools and kiss deeeeply, with Parisian passionnnnnnnn, oo oo la la.

Gotta have the passion. We don't want this second act to be like the first. Put out to pasture and become one of the bottom feeders? No thank you. The world is ripe for new thinking. We're ripe for it, too. Shakespeare said "Ripeness is all."

Circular thinking follows. How about a foundation of red-hot enthusiasm? A suchness of love and nurturance and excitement and experience. An experiment only we can perform? An experiment of the Jon and Jill Show--the Jew and the Gentile Making Peace in the Middle West. Sow passion. Reap [to be announced]

Blogging a brain storm. Yes it can be done.

Watch this space for further developments.