Away from the office
I have a family – my wife who is my rock and keeps me sane. We met in college and have been married now for nearly 30 years, with lots of great memories and not too many arguments. I’m really proud of my two daughters. My eldest is a Humber Grad working in PR and my youngest is finishing her Master’s at Guelph – they obviously don’t have the same need to rebel I did.
We did have a dog, but he died recently –we’ll probably get another one. My youngest daughter is fostering Great Danes but they could be a bit big for me.
My passion outside work is music. I play bass in a jazz band – ZimZum. Check it out here.
I see bass as being a metaphor for what I do professionally.
No-one notices the bass player (OK so people notice Esperanza Spalding, but what about Bill Wyman, Ray Brown, Bernard Edwards). In fact if they notice you you’re probably not doing a good job. The bass payer and the drummer set down the groove. That is what gets you tapping your foot; it’s what gives the soloists and singers the solid backing to shine; it’s what makes the band sound good. If a soloist plays badly you say that’s a bum soloist. If I play badly you say that’s a bum band.
In advertising I was always the strategy guy - I wrote the briefs that the creative people used to create their ads. What the world sees is the ads themselves. If I write a good brief then the creative team will find it easier to write good effective ads, and they get the credit. But no-one will remember my brief. If my brief is bad then their ads will probably suck.
In teaching what similarly matters is not what I do and what people think of me but what my students become. It doesn’t matter how well I seem to be teaching if they don’t become the people they want to be. Maybe they will acknowledge my role, and it's nice when they do, but the rest of the world will only see the end result – the person.
It is also a metaphor in that jazz in particular is a never ending process of learning. The more you learn the more you realize how little you know.
And in advertising in particular the great saxophonist Charlie Parker’s dictum is always relevant. "Learn the changes, then forget them." By that he meant that you need to know all the history, all the techniques, all the theory; but then you have to step outside all of that to do something truly original.
Music also has an important role to me – it is my relief valve. My wife says that if I’m not playing I become a bear with a sore head.
We did have a dog, but he died recently –we’ll probably get another one. My youngest daughter is fostering Great Danes but they could be a bit big for me.
My passion outside work is music. I play bass in a jazz band – ZimZum. Check it out here.
I see bass as being a metaphor for what I do professionally.
No-one notices the bass player (OK so people notice Esperanza Spalding, but what about Bill Wyman, Ray Brown, Bernard Edwards). In fact if they notice you you’re probably not doing a good job. The bass payer and the drummer set down the groove. That is what gets you tapping your foot; it’s what gives the soloists and singers the solid backing to shine; it’s what makes the band sound good. If a soloist plays badly you say that’s a bum soloist. If I play badly you say that’s a bum band.
In advertising I was always the strategy guy - I wrote the briefs that the creative people used to create their ads. What the world sees is the ads themselves. If I write a good brief then the creative team will find it easier to write good effective ads, and they get the credit. But no-one will remember my brief. If my brief is bad then their ads will probably suck.
In teaching what similarly matters is not what I do and what people think of me but what my students become. It doesn’t matter how well I seem to be teaching if they don’t become the people they want to be. Maybe they will acknowledge my role, and it's nice when they do, but the rest of the world will only see the end result – the person.
It is also a metaphor in that jazz in particular is a never ending process of learning. The more you learn the more you realize how little you know.
And in advertising in particular the great saxophonist Charlie Parker’s dictum is always relevant. "Learn the changes, then forget them." By that he meant that you need to know all the history, all the techniques, all the theory; but then you have to step outside all of that to do something truly original.
Music also has an important role to me – it is my relief valve. My wife says that if I’m not playing I become a bear with a sore head.