so you're a trainee planner...

This is a response to Lisa's comment below. She's got a trainee place as a planner and she's looking for advice. I've been a bit slow about this. Sorry.

Here are some random thoughts from me, hopefully other people will add theirs. I'm hoping so because I'm not sure I'll be able to come up with anything non-obvious.

Firstly, be pleased and proud. There aren't a lot of trainee planners around and you're right I don't think people will know what to do with you. But you've done dead well to get hired, so you must have something special about you.

1. Generate enthusiasm

Planner's are mostly aspiring academics and/or intellectuals. So they're often tempted to do the cool brainy thing; all knowing cynicism and ironic detatchment. Don't be drawn in. Not many can get away with it, and it annoys the hell out of your colleagues, who'll be tempted to hate you anyway because you don't appear to have a real job.

Be enthusiastic, positive and optimistic. Do a lot of offfering to help, you won't get taken up on it a lot because it's often too much trouble to brief someone than to do it yourself. But you should offer.

2. Make friends

The obvious thing to do is suck up to all sorts of senior people and if you can make friends with impressive senior people then great, but you probably won't see enough of them to do that. So make friends with everyone you can.

Hang out with that junior creative team who no-one seems to have any time for, or that regional account person who everyone ignores. a) they've got stuff to teach you and they'll probably take the time to do it (senior people won't take time to train you and they can't remember how they did all the basic stuff anyway) b) they won't be junior forever.

It's especially important to make friends with all the people who actually get stuff done; admins, production, traffic, travel, TV, IT. A lot of your first year will be about getting documents made, or videos or stuff, you probably won't be making lots of ads or meeting lots of clients. So you need to get the agency machine working on your behalf. You need to know how to get things photocopied when the photocopiers are all broken. Or how to make that presentation you've got to do to your planning director look really cool. Don't dismiss these things as trivial or beneath you. Most of agency life is execution not strategy, you need to know how to get things done.

3. Collect ideas

You should be trying to build a personal portfolio - not just the things you've worked on, but the things you've thought of, the things you've noticed. Make sure you notice and collect everything that happens. And, make sure you collect your own opinions. Look at all the ads your agency makes, work out what you think of them, have an opinion on them. Be ready to talk about that. You should probably get yourself ready to have opinions on everything. Whether you stay where you are, or whether you move, you're going to have to get used to talking about communications and offering an opinion - so start practicing.

4. Read And Watch

You should be devouring all kinds of books and thinking about brands right now. All the usual suspects. Adam Morgan. Malcolm Gladwell. All the APG books. Mark Earls. Jon Steel. All them.

But the more interesting and useful stuff will be the documents and presentations that the people in the agency generate.

Because they'll be generating stuff about subjects that are too small for anyone to write books about. Fishfingers and Buses and Yellow Fats and Consumer Perceptions Of Interest-Rate Led Advertising.

This stuff is going be your trade so you need to start finding out what it looks and smells like. And you need to work out what's good and what's bad. Read every document you can get hold of, go to every presentation they'll let you attend. Steal from the good stuff, work out why the bad stuff's bad. Start to develop a personal presentational style before you get infected too much with plannerly-ness.

5. I've run out of steam.

Anyone got anything else?

Comments

[Christian]

Write a blog ?
It could help you tick the first 4 boxes (and show you're not running out of steam).
Encore bravo. And I love you Microsoft t-shirt btw.

[Scott]

6. It's better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

This is a saying in our agency I fully endorse. Put another way, if you see something that needs to be done, do it. Or, if you have an idea, bring it to life. You will receive praise for seeing an opportunity and acting on it, rather than waiting around for someone to ask you to do it, or even worse, someone else doing it before you.

I know proactivity (I made that word up) is appreciated more in some agencies than others. I am fortunate enough to be an entry-level account guy at a smaller shop in Portland Or, where an entrepreneurial spirit is highly appreciated. Following this philosophy is also a great way to get attention from senior staff... "I had an idea, here it is." They will love it.

[Luca Vergano]

7. Come up with ideas but don't fall in love with your ideas.

You may formulate the greatest positioning or brand idea or write the best paper ever. But if someone shows you it doesn't work, don't try to arrange it so to make it work no matter what. Better start from scratch. If you've had a good idea you can have another one.

[LisaE]

Thank-you very much!

[anthony]

I have been a junior planner kid for 3 months now, in a digital agency. Here is my take on things.

1. You are going to be 5 yrs younger/less experienced than the youngest proper planner. This means they will know 100 times more than you about most things. On the other hand you have a unique perspective on things just because of your youth and igeneration-ness. Use it to attack things from different angles - if you think in the "what-would-our-head-of-planning-do" way, then you can end up thinking for 2 days to end up with an idea that an experienced planner would have found in about 5 mins. So yes, learn from people but always try to add a bit of yourself that others won't necessarily have.

2. Get an RSS feed reader and read all the ad-blogs, and other relevant ones too. It take about 15 mins a day, and it's seriously impressive (and useful) when you can constantly keep your team on top of all the latest relevant and cute creative things.

3. There are always, and now more than ever, a lot of trends/buzzy fads going on - what exactly does viral mean, PVR, customers customising things, media neutrality, tribes, whatever. My point is that eventually you will find one that you think is interesting and that literally no-one in the industry knows very much about. This means you can get stuck in and do some thinking where no-one has thunk before. Good for your learning, and it's great for people in the agency to actually regard you as the authority on anything at all, when you're just the kid.

I think there are some other good things prolly, but this is too looooong already to go on without a spellchecker.

[Elisha Nichole Greenwell]

I have beena jr for about 4 months at CHWA- an African American shop. Although I am finishing up my MFA in planning, I obviously was hired as a jr and it is frustrating to be in a jr position, yet feel capable enough to act in a mid level role. On that note, what has worked best for me is partnering up with jr account and creative people that I have a good amount of faith in a doing things we weren't neccessarily assigned. Sometimes nobody cares, sometimes somebody really apprecites the thought but doesn't can't use it for one reason or another and once in a while somebody thinks it great and wonders why we aren't given the opportunity more often. It might feel like a waste, but its good experiace regardless and when you are finally asked to do some noteworthy work on a brand in your agency you will be well prepared and equipped with a unrestricted viewpoint that wasn't bogged down by client demands and timelines. Good Luck!