What To Do Right After Losing Your Job – By Jeanne Schad

Note from Erik: The following is the third in series of career coaching articles written by Jeanne Schad. This feature will appear every Monday.

It’s the middle of September — AKA, the end of Q3. Layoffs are coming. You can be sure of it.

If you should be one of the unfortunate many, there are some things to do right away. And one of them is not updating your resume. It’s not time yet to look for another job.  Seriously.

If you’re like most people who get that special surprise one Friday afternoon, you’re feeling rejected, angry, betrayed and scared.  I certainly felt that way when I got laid off six years ago from an ad agency.  This is not a good time to be marketing yourself.  Best do that when you feel whole, capable and confident again.

Here’s a loose timeline you can follow to help get yourself there:

Day 1:  Take care of business. Review your (hopefully sizable) severance package and put any due dates on your calendar (with a reminder).  Take a quick look at the unemployment rules in your state and mark when you have to apply.  Just spending a couple hours to make sure you don’t miss important deadlines will allow you to better do the next step.

Days 2 – 15:  Unplug completely for a couple weeks.  When celebs go into rehab, it’s always in a beautiful natural surrounding.  Being in nature brings us closer to the ways humans have lived for centuries and allows us to experience life without distractions.  Psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  According to Kubler-Ross, people must experience each stage in order to heal and skipping a stage doesn’t work; it only gets delayed.  So take time in a beautiful setting to experience your loss.  Then you can look at moving on to feeling better.  Ask around, post a note on your Facebook; likely somebody has a place in the middle of nowhere they can lend you for cheap or free. (Craig’s list offers house swap postings).  Bring a journal or sketch pad and spend a little time on yourself.  When I was laid off, I hopped in the car with two friends who had also been let go and drove to my parents’ cabin on a lake in Iowa.  We spent two weeks fishing, cooking, sleeping, eating, chilling and most importantly, healing.  It was a fantastic retreat.

Day 16:  Make your announcement. Update your LinkedIn and Plaxo profiles to indicate that you’re in transition and what you’re looking for.  Put something in your FB status.  Send an email to everybody in your contact list.  If you walked out with a company directory from your last job, fantastic. If you didn’t, see if a friend on the inside can snag one for you.  Names and email addresses of colleagues will slip quickly without daily reinforcement.  Do the same for client contacts for each account you were on.

Day 17 – 30:  Weave your web.  Spiders catch their prey by spinning webs much larger than where they can move immediately.  With the job search, your network acts as your web, expanding contact you alone can make.  For the rest of this month, simply weave your web of connections and capture them in a way you can be in quick communication.  Whatever your system (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, email), get back in touch and connected with anybody from your last job who you think had a favorable impression of you and your work.  Be sure to include support staff; their job is to know resources and can be great networkers.

This gives you one full month to heal, prep, connect, lick your wounds and get yourself ready to look for a job.   Now, what exactly are you looking for?  If you’re clear on that, fantastic and best of luck.  If you could use some pointers, check out part 2 of this blog, to be posted next week.

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Jeanne Schad is owner of Internal Relations Professional Coaching Resource.  This former agency account service suit now works with companies to coach their people to have more fulfilling careers.  You can join Jeanne for a webinar each Wednesday for out of work ad agency professionals on topics like: defining your own success; designing a job search action plan and staying accountable; finding fulfillment and a paycheck.  Jeanne can be reached at jschad@internalrelations.com or (310) 823-8607, @jeanneschad, or http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannescha

Smell that?  It’s Panama Jack dissipating off the skin of America’s workforce.

Summers are always a tough time to get hired. And recession summers make it all but impossible. But recession or not, the days right after Labor Day bring with them that new-three-ring-binder smell of optimism. Creative directors are back from their lake houses. HR managers are back at their desks. And if you’re smart, you’re back to the hustle.

Just like January 1, Labor Day should be a time of renewed commitment, complete with resolutions. What would you like to change about your (un)employed self? What would you give up? What would you like to improve? What new things would you like to try? Here are a few Employment New Year’s Resolutions to get you started as hiring managers return to their natural state of pale:

1. Stop Whining: Lost your job? Join the club. There aren’t a lot of sympathizers anymore. The best thing to do is figure out how to compost this lop of shit into some sweet fertilizer. As Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
2. Get Trained: They say a recession is the best time to go back to school. Maybe you don’t have the unlimited resources to get your MBA, but there are some skills you can learn to become more marketable.  Places like Lynda.com offer great, cheap (sometimes free) tutorials that you can take on your own time.
3. Make Things Perfect (but don’t let perfection inhibit action): Remember all the instances in your career when you thought, “I wouldn’t have done it that way?” Well, now’s the time to do things according to your own vision. Redo everything in your portfolio. Organize an event to your own exacting standards. Start a social media campaign to raise money for your favorite cause. Who’s going to stop you? There’s one caveat…don’t let the idea of making it perfect prevent you from getting started. Reality is, the standards you set are your own. As long as you aren’t cutting the corners you’ve established for yourself, what makes for perfection is yours to decide.
4. Help Others: Karma is real. It just is. No matter how much I do for others, it always comes back manyfold. But here’s the rub — you can’t really do something kind for the sake of getting something kind in return. Whatever you do for someone else, it has to be for its own sake. I don’t know if there’s a Karma playbook anywhere, but I have to think this would be rule #1.
5. Start Your Own Thing: A quick parable: Right after I lost my job, I met with the owner of a small suburban agency outside of Boston. He had six employees, a gorgeous converted firehouse as an office, and a nice roster of clients. We went to lunch, and as he described how he came to start his company, all I could think was, what’s the difference between him and me?  I mean, he was intelligent, but so am I. He was creative, but so am I. The only discernible difference between us was that he decided to be an entrepreneur. While I was putting all this energy into finding my next job, people like him are out writing business plans and hustling for clients. There’s no magic to starting a company. But there are balls. And they need to be sizable.

So, imagine that this is the first week of the employment new year. Then ask yourself, what can I do differently? I’d love to hear what you come up with. -Erik

What To Do With Account Service Downtime – By Josh Copeland

Note from Erik: The following is the first in series of articles written by Josh Copeland for people with careers in account service. This feature will appear every Thursday.

Some view our job as sales. A few consider us consultants. Others say we’re micromanaging pencil-pushing yes-men. Ultimately, I believe that my role as an account service person is to be part chameleon, part sherpa, part listening booth.  The skills we gain over the course of our early careers drive our ability to know clients’ business better than the clients themselves.

But if your agency eliminates your position, what do you do in the meantime? As an account person with some extra downtime lately, I might have done one or two of the following things recently:

1. Served dinner for friends, arranging every detail down to seat assignment and conversation topics
2. Followed up with a dinner “report” to those who attended, outlining key next steps for future gatherings and opportunities for improvement on menu items
3. Created elaborate excel docs comparing and contrasting the various criteria for a friend’s new HDTV
4. Provided critiques of street art on the finer nuances of primary messaging, calls-to-action, etc
5. Oversaw (project managed) reorganization of closet, junk drawer, attic, and garage with timelines detailing key milestones & stakeholders using MS Project

All kidding aside, when an account service person is suddenly thrust into the world of the funemployed, there are even better uses for free time while considering the next job option.  I’ve run across a few worth sharing:

Pro bono
The Taproot Foundation enables people with the drive & desire to help others connect with non-profit organizations that need assistance with medium-to-large scale projects. Account service professionals will likely gravitate to volunteer roles like Account Director, Marketing Manager and Brand Strategist.  The projects occur across the US and provide an opportunity for continued growth & development. Not to mention, volunteer work feels good.

Freelance
elance, odesk and guru are three well-known freelancing job websites that connect a variety of businesses with professionals who have the skills to complete projects online with relative speed & ease.  Account professionals (digital & traditional) should look at the “Marketing & Communications” and “Business Consulting” sections of the site for opportunities closest to their skill set.  But I’d caution against relying too much on these sites as much of the work appears to be extremely limited.  Still, worth a look.

In addition, you can reach out to companies like Creative Circle that have standing relationships with agencies to fill temporary positions.  And before you make the mistake (I did) of pricing your hourly rate ludicrously high or low, here are some suggestions from About.com.

Free-to-be-paid
agencynil is quickly becoming well-known for breaking the traditional agency model by charging clients only what they believe the work is worth. They’re already busy with project work and they’re seeking extraordinary candidates for freelance assignments. The revenue stream may not be steady but the work will likely be very interesting. No harm in trying.

Networking
Get out of the house.  Bypass the coffee shop once in a while.  We adfolk are a socializing bunch. Ad leagues and interactive marketing associations may be expensive, and most “networking” recommendations don’t provide much detail.  I suggest getting to know at least a few of the 2.2 million people on Twitter that have registered at WeFollow.com as a good start. Then, consider attending a Tweetup. They happen regularly across the country and don’t have an $80 cover charge.

AgencyScoop is another social net for ad professionals. There’s a forum that doesn’t seem to have a thread dedicated to account service, so there’s ripe opportunity to start one.

And finally, check out Meetup to find a local advertising or online marketing group in your region. Meetups also happen regularly (monthly in many cases) and enable true connections with other account guys & gals. And if you don’t see one you like, start one. It’s the single best way to establish yourself as an authority.

Criticize (constructively)
Think critically about brands and share your point of view with them. Look on the bright side- it’s not like anyone can fire you for having an opinion now. Enjoy it.

With all these opportunities, you’ll either retain your passion for this business or quickly find you’re ready for a change. And the enormous upside to all this downtime is that it’s completely up to you.

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Josh Copeland is a 10-year digital account service veteran with experience managing Whirlpool Corporation, ExxonMobil, Frito-Lay and the Clorox Company.  Josh has worked for Tribal DDB, Arc Worldwide and Elevate Studios, and his campaigns have been featured in AdAge, Adweek, OMMA, ad:tech and Creativity Magazine.

Have any stories you want to tell? Got questions about the beta site? Lemonade? Swing by at 2:00 PM EST. We won’t bite.

If you are reading this blog, you hardly need to be told that advertising, and those of us who practice it, took a real body blow in this recession. And the people I know who have been bloodied seem to have one of three reactions to it.

1. A few people who use it as inspiration or fuel to strike out on their own and do something they’ve always wanted to (See: Lemonade).
2. A few people love the agency game so much that they resolve they will be advertising survivors.
3. And then there’s a whole bunch of people, by far the biggest group, who would like to do their own thing, or just try something a little different, but feel they can’t afford to change for some reason or another. They need the income to pay off the boat. Or support the habit. Or the kids. Or the kids and the habit.

Or it’s not the income at all — it’s the health insurance.

My suspicion is that if it weren’t for health insurance, a lot more people would be willing to risk doing their own thing. Because, as I pointed out to Erik some time ago, when you really do a risk assessment, sometimes (and particularly when the economy is bad) staying in a job can actually be a bigger risk than striking out on your own. It ties all of your revenue up in one source, and if that one source goes south, so do you. Whereas, when you strike out on your own, necessity sharpens your resourcefulness. You find ways to make the income you need.

But the health insurance. That’s a whole different story. And I’m very sympathetic. I have been fortunate in this recession — I made a career change a year ago when I left my old agency, and I now teach and consult, with the teaching paying part of what I need and providing health insurance and the consulting providing the rest. But there was a time, in the economic downturn of the early 90s, when I was laid off. My wife was 6 months pregnant at the time, we couldn’t move for a variety of reasons, and there were no jobs in Cleveland. So I freelanced, and COBRA benefits covered our maternity care. And I did pretty well, financially speaking. But a week after our son was born, the COBRA benefits expired, and maintaining our health insurance would have cost us more than our mortgage payment. Literally two times more. I remember thinking at the time, “You know, if it wasn’t for the health insurance, I could stick with this freelance thing. I like the schedule. I like the independence. And with a new baby in the house, it’d be nice to be around more.” But baby care is not cheap. So I took a job.

Times are different now. Yes, credit is tight, but the the shift toward a marketplace of ideas and the technology available to people has made it generally more possible for anybody, anywhere to be an entrepreneur. You see that in the economic data, where small business is still the fastest growing segment of the economy. So just imagine the explosion of entrepreneurialism we might see if healthcare ceased to be a concern for people.

I’m not sure if our Senators and Congressmen have taken into account what kind of effect a surge like that might have on pulling us out of this downturn, but I am sure that the growl of the collective Animals on the matter could get some attention. And I am sure that this is not about Reds or Blues. It’s more personal than that. It’s about you and what kind of life you want to live. So let them know. If you would take the plunge if you knew you and your family had health coverage, let them know that. Tell them to get off the dime and get it done. And tell them there are a lot of you, waiting to pull the economy up.

Carrie (l) and Jennifer (r) at our very first story session at Picture Park

When my husband (then boyfriend) and I moved to Boston, I freelanced for a year pretty consistently. But I always had my sights set on a certain Boston agency whose work I’d admired since I was an undergrad. Long story short, I got hired at that agency. Longer story short, I was let go after a year.

After another less consistent year of freelance, I got hired again at a talented post production boutique as its executive producer. The first year was good; then the economy kicked in (or out). A week after I got back from my honeymoon, I got sacked for the second time in two years.

The revolving agency door was new to me. In Los Angeles I’d stayed at my first job for seven years, working on iconic brands with iconic people. But in Boston I was bouncing around like a ping pong ball, sometimes having to cross state lines to work. It wasn’t what I had in mind; I felt more alone than I had since high school. I started to think of other ideas: a hot dog stand, a martini truck. But I’m not a business person, I’m a producer. I love creativity and film, and I can barely run my own household, let alone a new business venture.

Soon after my second shitcanning I heard about Please Feed The Animals, and went to a meet-n-greet in March. A few months later Erik called me about the documentary. I’m still not sure where he got my name, since within ten minutes of (re)meeting me he asked, “Who ARE you?”

Lemonade was exactly the project I needed to work on, since it involved using my powers for good over evil. At first, Erik couldn’t have made it sound less appealing. Initially he wanted to pile into a van and drive all over the country, shooting people’s stories on a decent 24p camera. There wasn’t enough Febreeze in the world.

Instead we found a production company willing to back us in Picture Park, we have one of the best editors in the country on deck, Soundtrack offered up their services, we got freaking amazing DPs, and moreover, I got a fantastic co-producing partner and a new friend in Jennifer McKenzie. (The two-producer solution is better than the two-state solution.)

Erik had gotten a slew of stories through the PFTA site from people all over the country (I think he’s still getting solicitations), and filming them reminded me that I could use the feeling of failure as a springboard to opportunity. There was nothing to lose. Other people used the opportunity to start their own business, or make art, or just hang out with their kids more. So I started cooking for my husband. I volunteered at Fenway High, an urban magnet high school for career-driven students. I got a couple hand modeling gigs. And we were all happier for it – something you can literally feel in the trailer—it still gives me chills, and I was there.

PFTA fosters a sense of community—a community that I’m proud to be a part of. Animals aren’t victims (except for maybe of the economy). Animals pick themselves up by their paws (or claws, or whatever) and keep on keepin’ on. It’s easy to lose sight of that—but not after you see this movie.

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Carrie Jacobson is a freelance producer and co-produced Lemonade. She is also available for hand modeling. Her work can be found at www.carrie-jacobson.com

Over the last few months I’ve come to realize that to graduate from college these days is to awaken like Brendan Fraser in Encino Man – confused, scared and armed with tools that are obsolete.

So what’s the problem, and what are the some of the caveman tools we’re wielding?

Ugh – No Want Work For Someone Else
Most of us graduates don’t have experience in the industry past the internships/mentorships we’ve completed. So we need to work for somebody in order to gain experience before we go out on our own. Not to mention needing the experience to gain confidence from potential clients. But is working for someone else really the most effective way to learn how to work for yourself? Much like a 50,000-year-old caveman’s loincloth, this needs to change.

Square Wheel No Roll – Need Learn New Way
I’m not biting the hand that taught me. The teachers I had were great. I’m merely asking why traditional Universities don’t prepare students to be entrepreneurs regardless of major. This could include teaching students the basics of freelancing, marketing themselves, even prospecting clients. Career Centers focus on finding students jobs, why not clients?

Getting Burned Best Way To Make Fire
As Hernan Castillo, another recent graduate pointed out in an MSNBC Blog by Bob Sullivan “I wish I’d gone to prison instead of college. At least I would have learned a trade or two and started being independent once I got out.” It’s obvious that there are several things that we can only learn in the real world. Universities should evolve with the economy at large to accommodate that learning.

Teach Others To Walk Erect
To those of you who have successfully made a career in working for yourselves — pass on the knowledge. Thaw our Encino Man minds toward self-reliance. Take on an apprentice. Teach them the ropes while getting some cheap/free assistance. By doing this you could ensure that the next generation doesn’t stay trapped in the stone ages.

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Follow Scott Rostohar on Twitter: @Srostohar

“What else you got?”

We’ve all heard it. Many of us have asked it. It’s code in our business for “the ideas you have are not fresh.” And we’ve all learned how to push ourselves to try and find fresh ideas. We know the tricks — change your patterns, force yourself into a different mode of thought, consider more perspectives. And we all know the game — the idea won’t be born until it’s ready. We’ve learned to make the uncertainty and messiness of idea generation a friend.

At least, we have when it comes to advertising.

How about the rest of our lives? How many of us fall into patterns in our lives that we never question? How many of us make a pilgrimage to Starbucks every morning? Or forget Starbucks — how many of us just drink coffee every morning? How many of us listen to the same music, or same type of music — that’s the whole idea of a playlist, right? How many of us shop at the same stores or frequent the same restaurants?

Those patterns are a prison we make for ourselves. The brain does a funny thing — it strengthens the synaptic connections around common or familiar behaviors and allows the synaptic connections around uncommon behaviors to wither. Reinforcing patterns is an old evolutionary survival trick that works for everything from food choices — familiar berry good, strange berry bad — to strengthening societal bonds — familiar people good, strange people bad. And anybody who’s ever raised a child — or a puppy, for that matter — knows how important it is to reinforce positive patterns of behavior.

But there’s a point, as we all know, where those patterns become a liability. That’s true whether we’re talking about ad concepts or, say, racial profiling. And the great thing about our brains is that they are able to recognize when a pattern has become a liability. If we are mindful about our behaviors.

So be mindful. What do you do every day reflexively, without thinking about it?

Do you go to work?

I’m not talking about your choice of a career — that should be a passion, and if it isn’t, that’s a whole different issue. I’m talking about the trappings of work. Coworkers. Lunch hangouts. Commuter routes. Work routines. A paycheck and benefits. Are you mindful about these things and the role they play in your life? Or are they habits?

If they are, do yourself a favor. Apply the same tricks as you do with your ad concepts. Look at different perspectives. Mindfully change your patterns. See where it takes you.

Find out “What else you got?”

Here are a few tips – all based on personal experience – that have served me well over the years. I hope they do the same for all PFTA readers.

Join your local Ad Club chapter.

It’s surely the most overlooked place to meet folks. First, it’s pre-qualified. The members are there because they want to network.

The thing is, anyone can become a new friend and source of information. Just think: sales reps for editorial companies or printers know exactly what local shops are producing. As well as the names of who’s doing the work.

There’s usually a committee that fits your interest. If there isn’t, create one – a social group if you’ve got the organizational gene, or a public service one if you’re a creative looking to improve your book or meet a new partner. Or if you’re an account person hoping for more responsibility than you’d get at your agency. And this is crazy, but maybe you just want to do something that makes you feel good.

Also, some Ad Clubs put on award shows. Jump on this. A seat on an award show committee is a chance to meet employees from every major agency in the city. And since it’s a longer-term commitment, it’s conducive to friendships blossoming.

I’ve had wonderful experiences with Ad Clubs while living in New York, Atlanta and now Seattle. I’m sure you will, too.

Take classes.

In Seattle, we’re lucky to have a gem called The School of Visual Concepts. The school even offers tuition discounts if you’ve been let go.

Since this whole interactive thing may be here to stay, there’s Flash, HTML, CSS and Dreamweaver. The classes are offered every quarter.

You don’t have to be a creative to take these classes. You can learn the vocabulary so you can speak fluently in meetings. You can understand capabilities, in terms of what can be done, by when and for what budget.

And then there’s the group of new friends you’ll find once you look up from your computer monitor.

Think about what makes you different.

Could you substitute another person’s name on your resume? If it’s so generic that you could, your CV is definitely not working hard enough.

In addition, you might take for granted accomplishments or qualities that others find fascinating. Unearth them, and put them on there.

I just looked at the work of an art director who’d been in the military for eight years before going on to portfolio school. To me, his service was far more impressive than any of his spec ads. The thought of his experience piqued my curiosity. I couldn’t even imagine what he’d seen. What he thought. The discipline he must have. And the way he relates to others.

It was merely a line on his resume. Luckily, for him, I stumbled across it and wanted to know more.

Everyone should have a portfolio.

In my 16 years, I’ve never been approached by an account executive or planner for copies of the work we all produced as a team.

For any discipline, having a website, portfolio or even press clippings would go a long way.

If you’re an account person, show the brief you wrote, the work that was produced, any press the ads received and the results achieved.

That’d be pretty damn impressive.

And finally, always be ready to extend your hand.

Sometimes, you’ll be helping pull somebody along. And other times, someone will be returning the favor to you.

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Dave Holloway is a Seattle-based writer and creative director. He’s won Cannes Gold, One Show Silver and the $100,000 Grand Athena. To order his book and DVD on getting the advertising job you want and succeeding in it, visit daveholloway.net.

In Ad-Job Drought, It’s Time to Think Outside the Industry

by Erik Proulx

This article originally appeared in the TalentWorks section of Advertising Age.

During sustained droughts, the yellow-bellied slider turtle instinctively relocates toward the direction of the nearest body of water. He doesn’t wait in cracked mud for a deluge that will never arrive. He doesn’t look at other dying pond dwellers and think, “Well, it may not be raining for them. But I’m different.” No, the yellow-bellied slider marches, slowly and deliberately to unfamiliar land in search of water.

Such is the choice facing some 65,000 advertising people who have lost their jobs since this latest recession began 476 days ago (but who’s counting?). We hang onto hope against hope that this isn’t really happening. Maybe the phone will ring. Maybe so-and-so HR lady will return the e-mail. Maybe it slipped the headhunter’s mind that the creative director wanted an interview.

Maybe it will rain.

Those who choose to stay put in their once-upon-a-pond are discovering just how hungry the vultures are getting. Bankruptcies in March rose 41% from a year ago. Foreclosures in the first quarter of 2009 were the highest in recorded history. In other words, it’s pretty dry out there.

So, where’s the water? In the past month alone, I’ve spoken to an account manager who is relocating his family from Connecticut to San Francisco, a writer who left Detroit for a job in Seattle, an art director who left an amazing life in Tennessee for a staff position in Pittsburgh, and another who is considering a creative director job in Dubai. Personally, I’ve moved from Boston to Cleveland to New York and then back to Boston during my own agency-relocation marathon that began during the 2001 recession. All of these anecdotes represent a major lifestyle change for their protagonists, as well as for the left-behind loved ones who can never fully grasp why someone would relocate just to write jingles.

Then again, maybe they have a point. Cross-country (or cross-globe) moves, while sometimes necessary, are only one path to water. As an alternative to packing U-hauls, many out-of-work adfolk are employing a different, but no-less drastic, strategy: skill transfers.

Embracing other opportunities
Consider the agency account planner who gets laid off after 10 years of psychographic research and focus-group moderation. Does that mean he is only qualified to look for another advertising position? How many industries are there that need his skills? Actually, I can’t think of one that doesn’t need the targeted research and insights that planners provide. The same logic applies to laid-off art directors, copywriters, account executives, art buyers, producers, traffic people — anyone who has honed their skills in our chosen trade.

Yes, advertising is a cool career. “The most fun you can have with your clothes on,” as they say. But you know what’s not fun? Eviction notices. And if people can learn to embrace an entire universe of opportunities outside of advertising, they might just discover a new love.

I share the example I know best, my own. I’ve spent the better part of 15 years learning and practicing my craft on both Madison Ave (literally) and Main Street (literally). What skills have I gained, other than the ability to turn a phrase or produce an occasional television spot? Turns out I have a pretty intimate relationship with advertising’s innards and a better understanding than most of just how much amazing talent is out on the streets. So, for the time being, I’m repackaging this experience soup into a blog and soon-to-be job site for unemployed advertising talent called Please Feed the Animals.

And I am just one of countless unemployed advertising people who are applying the creativity once reserved for clients to their own lives. Take my friend Amelie Loyot. She’s been an art director her entire career, much of it as an associate creative director at Arnold. Now, she just finished designing a book cover for a major publishing company. Then there’s Lisa Hickey, who over the course of her 25-year advertising career has won almost every conceivable award as a writer, art director, creative director and agency principal. Today, she is fast becoming one of the country’s leading social-media strategists. There’s also Matt Lindley, a former agency executive creative director who has repackaged his digital and brand-building expertise as a product manager for the emerging media company LocaModa.

You will survive
Would we all still rather be under the employ of advertising agencies? I can’t speak for my friends and former colleagues, but I know I would not have chosen this ordeal. Getting laid off sucks. Networking is a chore. Health insurance is highway robbery. (Any unemployed people not for nationalized health care, raise your hands.) But these are the cards we’ve been dealt. And with the right perspective, it’s a pretty good hand.

In Bill Bryson’s must-read book, “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” he reminds us that well over a million years ago our newly upright ancestors left Africa, navigated treacherous mountain ranges, and crossed deserts that were far more arid and precarious than they are today. (Can you imagine the appetite on a prehistoric dino-vulture?) “Yet somehow they managed to find their way around every barrier and to thrive in the lands beyond,” Bryson said.

Our ability to survive is powerful and instinctive. Unlike our ancient hominid relatives, most of us modern ad geeks can search for water metaphorically. We might find our oasis in a new, big city like New York, or an emerging town like Pittsburgh. Or perhaps, we’ll find it in a place we never thought to consider — our own talent.