...A Camel is a Horse Designed by a Committee...

Day two of this meeting was a beast. We did a lot of work, and with clients sitting in for the morning and early afternoon sessions, it proved to be a long day. I found myself over-caffeinated and progressively descending into a darker and uglier mood, perhaps because I found myself disagreeing with some of the things I was hearing. They say there's nothing personal about constructive professional criticism, and I do believe that, I suppose. We all need to be open to having our work improved upon, right? Every piece of communication can always be refined...right? Except today, I saw a campaign I really felt strongly about get voted down because the group did not understand it. Not because it was bad work, not because they could point out real flaws in it, but because they did not understand it. I found that appalling and unacceptable. It's because it hit close to home...

The work was for Detroit Public Schools, and LB/Detroit had put together a successful campaign that increased enrollment numbers, rallied the district together to meet a budget crisis, and reinvigorated a moribund system. My fiance and most of her friends work in Chicago Public Schools, and I don't think the group of panelists sitting around the table really understood the problems faced by this client. They rather sheepishly dismissed a case study with what can only be called flimsy reasoning. The conversation upset me. Teachers are a breed unto themselves, and they are on the front lines of our society, dealing with serious problems and dishing out life lessons with a certain stoic nobility. The educational system in the US is facing deep, entrenched problems, and it's amazing that my agency had an opportunity to help address some of them in one particularly troubled district. That's an initiative that deserves applause. I guess I just want to see the folks at LB/Detroit recognized for their accomplishments...or maybe I just want to give all the teachers i know an award, because what they do is vastly more important than what I do. Either way, this one particular vote on one particular campaign threw off my whole afternoon and left me muttering to myself in the corner. I guess that's democracy, for you, right? If you're in the minority, you're screwed. I believe Thomas Jefferson said it best: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."