As a creative, you have to be a student of advertising. You need to keep up with the ad blogs, trade mags and industry trends - not only to help land you a job but also to find inspiration from past or current campaigns or even op ed pieces. Remember, you have to hunt everywhere.
And you also have to be a student of Now. You have to stay involved in culture, art, music, design, literature, TV, current events and of course, social media, random memes and Internet hijinks.
You need to know how social media works and affects people's lives and what new, cool and interesting technologies are coming out and what people are creating and curating right now - as high-brow as the Guggenheim and as low as failblog.
Any and all of these things can be used to fuel the idea for your next campaign,
find an innovative way to reach people
or start an artistic revolution.
I asked a bunch of my colleagues - writers, designers and art directors - where they go for inspiration.
Here is the epicest inspirationalest list ever:
Click. Bookmark. Be inspired. Create something amazing. Repeat.
Warning: while it is part of your job, don't spend all day on Facebook, Youtube or Random Blog #7 and expect you can always pull the Researching Card. Save most of your Interneting for your personal time.
