Out of the Mouths of Babes

My older daughter, Megan, turned 27 on August 28th. They say that your kids will teach you far more than you'll teach them, and with both of my daughters this has proven to be true. In honor of Megan's birthday, I thought I'd share one such teaching, er, learning moment...

When Meg was about four, the two of us were driving back home from the Palo Alto duck pond, a favorite hangout of ours. We passed my office, which I pointed out to her. She asked, "What do you do at work, Daddy?"

The question was simple enough, but I struggled to come up with an answer. How do you explain marketing communications to a four year old? Heck, I had to explain it to a lot of adults. So I decided to take a shortcut and limit my explanation to one of our more visible roles: advertising.

Just as McDonald's sells burgers and Mattel sells toys, I explained, my company sells things, too. McDonald's puts ads on TV to try to convince people to buy their food. And in the same way, I help create ads that tell people about the products my company makes, so that they'll be encouraged to buy them. I went on for a bit longer, not quite sure whether my explanation was getting through. "Do you understand?" I asked with some anticipation.

"Yes," she said, matter-of-factly. "You try to make people buy things they don’t want to buy.”

My first thought was that I had not explained it very well, and maybe I ought to give it another try. My second thought was that I might have explained it better than I'd intended. As I reflected on the excesses of my profession, I realized her innocent comment was more spot-on than I wanted to admit. Let's face it: sometimes we get so passionate about pursuing our craft that we forget this important truth: "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." I made a mental note: don’t just watch what you do, watch how you do it and why. Because she's watching, too.

Thanks, Megan. Lesson learned. Happy birthday!