Conceptual Skills

It is often important that we approach a subject from an unusual angle. Sometimes this is because a certain approach has been tried so often that the public no longer pays it any mind, sometimes it is because the wrong approach will not yield the intended result. This is what I mean by conceptual skills.

Example: I worked for Stevens Institute, located just across the Hudson River from the former World Trade Center. The Stevens Community had an unusually good view of the 9/11 attack, and the Institute felt a pressing need to offer some closure and solace to those who had witnessed it. The challenge was, how to approach the subject in a way that would offer some comfort rather than reopening the wound?

Stevens commissioned me to make a documentary, and my approach was to focus on the attempts already underway at a grass-roots level to come to grips with that difficult time. I created a film incorporating the music and art that had taken over the streets of lower Manhattan after 9/11.

I have an early test strip of the documentary on my Facebook page. The full piece may go online later this year. It was originally intended for the Stevens and Hoboken communities only. (I can arrange private showings – it's on a DVD – for anyone interested.)

For its intended purpose of bringing some measure of healing to a shocked and saddened community, the After 9/11 documentary was a great success.

In the marketing world, and particularly in direct mail, many of my pieces have become client standards. That is, their efficacy exceeded previous marketing attempts and were allowed to run until they either wore out their welcome (overexposure) or (rarely) were replaced by new attempts that exceeded their high-water marks.

In politics, my campaigns changed the way political marketing campaigns were handled in Hudson County and, eventually, nationally.