Breaking Rules and Sharing Secrets: Navigating Generational Divides

A couple of things happened over the past 24 hours. The first was a previous employee reached out to me for some advice. To retain anonymity, let’s say this person wasn’t an employee from my time in Scotland, and his name isn’t Hamish. The second was, I was searching through old hard drives - yes, I still own lots of those - and discovered a bunch of old notes for articles like these. Thoughts I’d compiled in 2012 as I “embarked on a new challenge as creative director, head of production, and board member for the 10th largest production company in the country.” It’s weird what we think is important at different points in our careers, hindsight truly is 20/20.

What’s interesting is that my views about corporate production in 2012 haven’t really changed in 2024. My methods, experience, frame of reference, and influences all have. And my patience has run out. But ultimately, the way corporate production is viewed across the board seems similar a decade later. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll understand this is exactly what irks me most and is the fuel for my desire to reimagine the entire show. Here’s a quote from a previous version of me. Hot off a big year of creative recognition (that’s shorthand for winning awards and generating record revenue) and truly believing I could change things from inside an established organization. Hindsight… there you are again, and now I'm not sure that's actually possible.

“An ode to the corporate film: The red-headed stepchild of film production, the place forgotten soap opera directors go to die, a genre void of creativity, originality, and talent - a second-class citizen in the artistic pursuits of filmmakers or the high-impact glamour of the Mad Men. A common misconception from outsiders looking in, but a perception all the same.”

That links me up nicely to Hamish. He was seeking advice about navigating the internal workings of a creative agency, which happens to be my specialty. It's the reason I thrived when employed at a career track company. As Motorhead would say, “It’s all about the game, and how you play it…” Anyway, the specific challenge and outcome are irrelevant. The point is, it reinforced (yet again) that there is no coaching for young people in creative agencies that helps them have a better working experience, and I think that’s the biggest problem with the industry status quo.

You can’t reimagine business communications without changing the experience of the people making the business communications. That means people working in agencies need to be better served, and people commissioning agencies need to be better informed.

Now, let’s be frank here - I am a 43-year-old white man. I have an experience of the corporate ladder that isn’t representative for many, but the game itself is built by people like me, for people like me. The reason I still get calls from people like Hamish is that I have very little riding on the success of the game; in fact, I just may want to make it obsolete. Therefore, I’m quite willing and able to show you the side quests that help you level up and the shortcuts to get you what you deserve.

Oh, I’m also a geriatric millennial. So, supposedly, I’m currently placed as the ideal leader of corporate America because I’m a millenial who can speak Gen Z, Gen X, and a bit of Boomer. There’s no Babelfish for that. You just had to be born between 1980–85 to know how to work across generational divides.

Want to know some funny stuff we (and only we) can supposedly do?

• Geriatric millennials can read the subtext of an SMS just as well as they can pick up on a client's hesitation in their facial expressions during an in-person meeting.

• It might not be my favorite thing to do, but I can actually answer the phone or listen to a voicemail.

• I was on Friendster and MySpace, signed up with Facebook when it was pretty much for college kids only, and used Instagram when it was just hipsters with filters on their photos. So it's no big deal to learn whatever the next big social platform is—even if my six-year-old has taken to asking me what it was like in the 80s (as if it is an eternity ago) and today when I mentioned him going to college in the future responded by saying, "when you and mom are dead?"

• Because I remember a time before emails and texts, I fully understand how to use the good old post office, and I like my mailman.

• According to a Buzzfeed piece about our microgeneration, we "geriatric millennials" can feel as gloomy as Gen X and as upbeat as millennials, so we fit in real nice with everyone due to ultimate, pragmatic balance.

So what about all of this? Well, today feels like a good day to tell this community about the existence of the “Because I Can Know” project. It's an endeavor I've been working on that's based entirely around education. I aim to educate young creatives or anyone with aspirations of working in creative services about what's involved and how to thrive. It's about creating safe work environments for others and yourself to ensure you can deliver the best work of the Serious Creative type.

The project is also designed to help people on the client side have a better experience with their agency, making them more informed and ensuring their voice is heard in the creative process, rather than at the end. To quote those online influencers - it’s about giving them the knowledge to “10x the value” they get from their agencies. And that means those super-unique skills from my microgeneration will be put to the test, translating across the generational divide. Because I can know, you should too.

And this is why it can't work from inside an established entity. You’ve got to be willing to break some rules and share some secrets.

So, from a geriatric millennial to the corporate production industry, let’s move things forward.

As you were. Or this time, maybe not.

MrMcK.

Mark McKenna specializes in unlocking the powerful stories within businesses. He has spent nearly 20 years at creative agencies serving clients at the intersection of corporate communications, advertising, and public relations. For the last decade, he has held senior leadership roles, providing counsel to leaders of the largest organizations in the world.

Mark's career includes time spent in London and New York, working with Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 clients on their communication challenges across EMEA and the Americas. He empowers companies to drive progress through strategic storytelling and content production. He has experience working across various sectors, advising on solving critical business issues with creativity.