Meet the Author

Some battles are fought on the battlefield. Others are fought on a Word document.

Ok, not really, but look — writing a book is hard. Like, really hard. So it’s only natural that when our co-founder, Adam Harrell, finished his first published book, we celebrated in true Nebo style with good drinks, good food, and darn good people.

It’s no secret that we have a vast amount of information at our fingertips. Marketers can craft detailed campaigns all without conducting a single customer interview (I don’t suggest doing it, but hey, it can happen).

As a marketer, I think it’s pretty neat. I geek out whenever Google Analytics gives me another way to learn more about a target audience. It only makes my content that much better.

And as a “digital native” consumer, I don’t really think about it much. I don’t surf the web and freak about the information I’m giving. As long as you don’t ask for my social or credit card number at random, I’m pretty much good.

Then I stumbled upon this read from Inbound. Essentially, it’s a bit of a “the sky is falling” to marketers who are obsessed with data (AKA all of us). It’s also bound to give you the heebie jeebies in that little “consumer” part of your brain that thinks, “Wait. Are marketers really that creepy?”

No, we’re not. At least, we shouldn’t be.

The advertising world has a problem. It’s ads like this:

For me, writing began as a passion when I was young. It was how I shared my thoughts and feelings when my physical voice failed me (as it often did). Ideas came easily to mind, and my fingers flew across the keys as I typed pages and pages of thoughts and stories.

For someone who hadn’t lived very much life, I had a lot to say.

Like many creatives, I turned my passion into my profession. Because writing was something I enjoyed and something I was good at, I felt I had found the biggest life hack when I realized people would pay me to write.

That’s what us copywriters do. We get paid to write. We write other people’s thoughts, stories, and manifestos. We write their product descriptions and company profiles and websites. We bring stories and brands to life through great writing.

The great copywriters are those who can write like anyone. They’re those who can adopt any brand’s voice and tone, those who can take a fraction of an idea and turn it into something truly beautiful and epic and on-brand. Those who can be anyone.

But what happens when we forget how to be ourselves?

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a hundred times: agency life is great, but it’s also tough. Things move at lightning speed, project loads get heavy, and we all drink too much coffee to keep up with all that’s going on.

Which means from time to time, we need to blow off some steam.

We’re big believers in being happy. In fact, we think it’s the most important thing in life. In order to be happy and enjoy work, you need to enjoy the people you work with. Which means you need time to chill out, bond, and have some fun.