If you belong to an ad agency, you’ve probably heard this before — young guns get the whole new media, social marketing, web 2.0 bit (argh, so many buzz words!) but at the end of the day we always defer to the higher authority of clients who have decision makers who do not understand Internet Marketing.
I abandoned myself to certain realities when I was a lot younger. That first, in order to keep to a certain lifestyle, a job in education would definitely be noble, but not practical. I was young and restless. Second, I believed in the philosophy that you can’t teach what you don’t know and being a fresh grad with barely any experience in worldly things would pale me in comparison to Richard Dreyfuss (who bares a startling resemblance to Rico’s dad) in Mr. Holland’s Opus or Robin “O Captain! My Captain!” Williams in Dead Poet’s Society.
So after college, I had in my arsenal a whole bunch of theories on andragogy (adult learning), child psychology, “best practices” and teaching philosphy. I was envious of friends who worked for the big agencies like Ogilvy, the McCann group, BBDO, etc. It was then I began to doubt having taken the wrong course. Deep inside though, I thought I was doing the right thing. Maybe not entirely. But I guess being hard headed (dalawa ang puyo ko) I wanted to convince myself that I was right.
Steve Jobs, in his “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” 2005 commencement speech addressed how past decisions will only, but always, make perfect sense much later on, …you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future..
So I trusted. I gave up Integrated Marketing Communications for a Development Education course. I gave up working in PR or advertising so I could do some work in Batangas with farmers and in Negros Occidental Oriental for a family farm school, not to teach, but to develop curricula. (Hyuk) I guess the joke’s on me as I’ve wounded back working with agencies for PR and advertising.
And my units in Education? Well, this letter only proves one thing.
That Steve Jobs was right. 🙂