What will the world of advertising look like for small agencies in five years? More important, what will your agency look like in five years? My crystal ball says many of us are in for a rude awakening.

When I left my first job in advertising, the agency prepared a little going-away book with advice about how to succeed in advertising. It was tongue-in-cheek, but there was a lot of wisdom tucked in with the laughs.

The problem with experts is that they can only really tell you how it has always been done. They can tell you what has worked and hasn't worked. But the funny thing about experts, the thing they don't teach you in grad school, is that experts are...

Four calls from being out of business. That's how a colleague summed up the plight of many smaller agencies. Or the agency business in general. We've seen some fantastic, talented, historic agencies shut their doors this year. Big and small. How can we...

Game-changers don't just materialize out of thin air. You can't will them to happen. I suspect they happen like a lot of events in life: You pick a destination and then work your butt off. There's risk too. Losing a key client can be a game-changer....

A memo went out to one of our clients last week that read more like a text message than a professional letter. You know what it looked like: Every third word was abbreviated, as though it was written on the run, from a cell phone. I was appalled, and...

The documentary "Art & Copy" recently was screened here for a large audience of advertising professionals who work for small agencies. (That's the only kind we have in Albuquerque.) The audience applauded loudly when the final credits rolled up the...