Categories: Articles

Confessions Of A Real Life Mad Man

Episode #382 of Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

One of my business partners at Twist Image is an advertising industry veteran. He helped build one of the most well-regarded agencies in Canada for well over a decade. When we first met (over a decade ago), he half-joked that it’s surprising how many highly-intelligent individuals would like to be a part of such a miserable industry. Like I said, he was half-joking. People love Mad Men and it’s not just because of the fashion. It was a crazy time when brands were looking for all kinds of edge over their competitors and these newly-formed ad agencies were just making stuff up as they went along. It was crazy times. George Parker was lucky enough to have entered the industry back then. He lives to tell the tales. For over thirty years, he worked in the creative department for agencies all over the work. He wrote a monthly column for AdWeek for close to a decade and has been a contributor for Ad Age, Business Insider, Quartz and more. Currently, he is still an advertising consultant, blogs regularly at AdScam (which is hilarious and brilliant) and he writes books (his most-recent being, Confessions Of A Mad Man). He is free to speak his mind and he doesn’t hold back (so, this one of NSFW). Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast #382.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.