Matt Ingwalson
I do a lot of stuff. And I make a lot of things. I write books, songs and screenplays. I blog about culture and politics. I compete at any number of sports. And by day and night, I'm the creative director of Karsh Hagan.
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Posts
- Apr 17, 13
- That time when my mom danced around the house to Silly Love Songs and I thought it was embarrassing because I was only about eight and eight-year-olds don't know anything about life. But now I do and I'm sorry.
- That time when Jason gave me a tape with The Reflex on it and it was the first time I can ever remember thinking, "This band, this is who I am right now."
- That time when Ben pushed the play button said, "This is music that means something," and the song that came out of the speakers was A Rush and A Push and the Land Is Ours.
- That time when for our camp talent show we performed Kiss Off and my bandana fell off my head.
- That time when the cops broke up our party and we ran out the back door over a golf course and wandered back to our homes through dark suburban streets singing Vincent of Jersey.
- That time me and the first girl I ever loved listened to the whole album Ten four times in a row because we were too busy to change the tape.
- That time when Team 1209 put on Social Distortion: Live at The Roxy and started playing drinking games and the next thing I knew four years of college had gone by.
- That time when the only tape in my car was Rage Against the Machine and I listened to Know Your Enemy at least three or four times a day and I knew my enemies were the teachers who had taught me to fight me.
- That time when we danced our first dance to I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday. And I know nobody else there had ever heard it before and certainly not at a wedding.
- That time when I drove to the graves and opened my car windows so the people buried there could hear So Far Away.
- Apr 07, 13
You were born with one of four congenital answers. You default to it in the absence of skillful persuasion or overwhelming evidence. Your answer comes with possibilities and pitfalls.
Yes: You don't see roadblocks. You're open to opportunity. You get a lot done. People love you. At first. And then they start to bully you. They pile more and more onto your plate. You spread yourself too thin. Your lack of focus makes it impossible for you to finish anything well.
No: You're seen as a bully at best and an Eeyore at worst. You miss great chances to create new things. Your coworkers complain that you're not a team player. But they celebrate you after you're gone. Because all your jaw-jutting and arm-crossing protected your time and vision, allowing you to get a few things produced at a very high level.
Ask someone else: There is no upside to this as a default answer. It's a cowardly and lazy way to go through life. It makes it impossible for you to advance or take on new responsibilities. But you learn to rephrase your answer in a way that allows you to look like you're demonstrating leadership. "I know someone who could answer you more accurately. Let me take responsibility for connecting you."
It depends: You're intelligent. You think strategically. You want to accurately determine the scope of any request. But people get frustrated with you. Your probing reveals their lack of knowledge. They complain that you're evasive and wishy-washy. And you spend so much time defining problems you forget that sometimes you have the ability to reframe them and solve them on your own terms.
There is no best congenital answer. But identifying yours will help you recognize when you are truly solving a problem. And when you're just giving an answer that you can't help, one which was baked into your brain long ago.
[Ed. - This is one of those posts that started as a random Tweet and rolled around in my head for a week or so.] - Apr 07, 13
I got the money last night. All of $44. Not much, but it's my first payment as a professional author. My first royalty on sales of The Single Staircase. So cool. This morning I paid it forward to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
All profits from sales of my novella will go to charities that help protect children. So thanks to everybody who purchased or reviewed it on Amazon or Good Reads. And if you haven't bought it yet, here's the link. Thank you. - Mar 19, 13
I should write about some crazy tech thing in this space. Talking shoes, perhaps? Maybe I'm supposed to explain the business models of the next decade. But no one has them figured out. Perhaps I should mention all the innovators I finally had a chance to shake hands with? Meh. You don't care.
Everything I saw was amazing. And everything I saw will be obsolete within a year.
Except this.First, keep your eyes up and smile: Put your phone in your pocket. The real person next to you is doing something interesting. And you are interesting, too. (Even if you don't know it.) You have everything to gain by introducing yourself, shaking hands, being nice. And you have so, so, so much to lose if you don't. SXSW reminded me to say hello to people. Joyously. Without a motive. Or even a plan.Then, ask a new question: Asking how to get better at something is asking for frustration, number crunching, and incremental improvement. The most powerful questions flip the paradigm. Ask for 10% greater value, and you'll get tiny changes to existing processes. But if you ask for 100x greater value, you'll get a whole new model. Changing the question is the single best opportunity you have to spark creativity.
That's not all I took from SXSW, of course. I learned new ways to construct storylines, a scientific explanation for laughter, why platforms need to precede content, and so much more. But strategies and tactics will not change our lives. Meeting and creating with each other will. - Feb 27, 13
Because when most people want you to do something, they ask politely. When Dave Grohl wants you to do something, "he's so happy and enthusiastic that you can't say no. You'd follow him into a volcano because he would make it look so fucking exciting! He has this weird Pied Piper thing. It's like the crazy juice, everyone just goes along for the ride."
Because when most people buy something they don't really need, they worry that they spent too much. When Dave Grohl buys something he doesn't really need, he uses it as an opportunity to publish an album with Paul McCartney and then film a documentary that's basically a big advertisement for the album he published to justify him buying that thing he didn't really need.
Because when most people write a big chorus, they call it a day. When Dave Grohl writes a big chorus, he puts it in the spot for the prechorus, which forces him to write an "even bigger fucking chorus... Basically, you just try to keep lifting and lifting. That's how it's done."
Who needs Droga or Wieden or Bogusky or whoever? I want to work with Dave Grohl. - Apr 07, 13
I wrote a post for Omnimystery News about three lesser-known mystery novels that inspired The Single Staircase. Check it out.
- Feb 15, 13
Early in January, I spoke at Caffeinated Mornings about the importance of independence in advertising. Afterwards, someone asked me about my greatest failure. I hemmed, hawed and spouted forth some barely sensical metaphors. My stumbling irritated me. Why was it so hard for me to remember any failures, much less speak spontaneously about them? Here's what I decided. And what I wish I'd answered.
What do you mean by failure? The client didn't like your idea? You missed a typo and had to reprint a brochure? You published a piece that was merely solid instead of tactically, strategically and creatively brilliant? You're wasting energy if you define these events as failures. No one died and you have another day in front of you. So keep looking ahead. Think only about what you are going to do next. In this context, there's no such thing as failure. And that's what failure has taught me. To plow right past it.
The other question I flubbed was, "How do you manage to do your job, have a family and write a novella?" I responded with a glib line about insomnia. But it was wrong for me to phrase my answer in the context of myself. I wish I had said something like this:I think I am exactly like every other creative person and probably everybody in this room. We get bored quickly and we hate it. When we see an empty space, we want to fill it. That's our nature. Not everything we do is great. That's OK. We just like doing stuff. That's what makes us, us.
- Apr 07, 13The Single Staircase isn't the only book by a Denver advertising geek. In fact, it seems like pretty much everybody in town has published something in the past year or two. A partial list:
- Fearkiller, fiction by freelance copywriter Chris Maley
- The Mysteries, poetry by Karsh Hagan's Kathryn Bass
- Autopilot, fiction by Karsh Hagan's Dave Fymbo
- Ray, reflected, youth fiction by Widefocus' Eric Elkins
- Little House on the Lake, photo essay by Cactus' Jeff Strahl
Any I forgot? Send them my way and I'll add them to the list. - Jan 07, 131. Because you'll never figure it out
I'm a fan of classical locked room mysteries. You know the type. A man is murdered in a locked room. And to solve the mystery, the reader must not only figure out whodunnit, but how the crime could possibly have been committed at all.
About five years ago, I came up with my plot. A couple puts their baby to bed in an upstairs nursery. When they go to check on her, she's gone. It took me three years to come up with a solution to my own mystery. And another year to get around to writing the thing.
I finished over the summer and hired Denver illustrator Amy Moyer, who I found through her Egotist profile, to do the cover art. Then it took me another few months to find time to proof and publish it. But it's done. At last. The Single Staircase is available on Amazon and Kindle now.
2. Because I'm giving the profits to charity
I'm going to donate 100% of any profits to charities that help find missing kids. Did you know 800,000 children go missing every year? (Yes, really.) Imagine being one of them. Or one of their parents.
In the somewhat unlikely event I make money off my book, this is an easy way for me to do some good. Anyway, it is $8 on Amazon or $4 on Kindle. Check it out. - Dec 17, 12
"You need a new job every three years."
I don't know where I first heard that advice. But it's true. Careers are like sharks. You swim or you sink. You need a new client, a new promotion, a new responsibility, a new agency, a new something every three years. Or you're drowning and you don't even know it.
I joined Karsh Hagan five years ago. The agency offered me the chance to do something I've never done before. Take on new challenges and responsibilities without job hopping. And my time here has been all hopscotch and kisses.
Not.
These years have been a whirlwind. Often exhilarating. Frequently exhausting. Sometimes tragic. And they've taught me something that everyone needs to know.
Character is not revealed through victory. Or at an office party. Or over coffee.
You learn what people are made of when you're climbing into a production van together at 4:00 a.m. on three hours of sleep because you have to chase the sunrise.
And when you're sweating at the agency at midnight pulling a deck together for a presentation that's happening in nine hours. Tick tock.
And when you realize that if you don't win a pitch, a friend is going to lose his job. So you find a way to make it happen.
You learn what people are made of when you're all standing in the same room staring up at the ceiling or out the window, trying figure out how you can bear to go on after someone you all loved dies.
Celebration is nice. And important. But it doesn't teach you much. I've learned to welcome the foxhole. To be inspired by it. To let it bring out my best. To trust my team. To find ways to win.
And you should learn that too.
[Also posted on the Karsh Hagan blog and the Egotist.] - Oct 15, 12
I have a post on the Karsh Hagan blog recapping the ADCD show. Check it out, if you're so inclined.
- Oct 03, 12
- Aug 31, 12
1. 7:30 Syndrome
2. TILT! SHIFT!
3. The Black Dress Theory
4. The Modal Layer
5. Back Office Winner
6. Scrolling for No Reason
7. Taxi Takeover
8. Permanent Rod
9. Suck at Illustrator
10. Blue Up the Sky
11. Crazy in the Header
12. Officing From Nowhere
13. Born Digital
14. Crush the Horizon - Jun 11, 12
I have worked with people who are always kind, always reliable, always creatively excellent. But not many. Maybe five. Certainly less than 10.
I have also worked with people on the other end of the spectrum. Full-scale hacks lying and stabbing their way through their lives. But only a couple.
One of the people in the former category decided to eject from the industry recently. His departure probably doesn't qualify as a blow, but it is kind of a bummer.
It got me thinking. I've worked with hundreds - maybe thousands - of people. Only a dozen of them lie at either end of the spectrum. Which means my career has been defined by the huge mass of people in the middle. Good people who are just trying to live their lives, take care of their families, do their jobs, and have a little fun along the way. People who are occasionally lazy. Sometimes irrational. At times belligerent. Open to the infrequent dishonesty.
You know. Humans.
Working with excellence is easy. Just throw it the ball and get out of its way. Working with awfulness is also easy. Run. Fire, if you can. But working with humans, absorbing their failures, celebrating their wins, and forgiving their imperfections - that's hard. It is an evolving, inconsistent and subjective process. It guarantees that I, too, will fail. And need celebration. And forgiveness. Lots and lots of it. - Apr 23, 12Gotye's "Somebody That I used To Know" unfolds not as song, but as story. It has three acts, with character introductions, climaxes and grieving along the way.
Don't bore us, get to the chorus? Pft. Gotye spends the first 1:30 of the 4:04 song in murmur mode. He's developing a character, a man relieved that an impossible relationship has finally ended.
Conflict is introduced at the beginning of the second act in the form of the chorus. Deep inside, our protagonist is confused and angry about just how completely his girlfriend separated herself. "But you didn't have to cut me off / Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing."
The third act begins at 2:33 with the introduction of the female lead. She has her own desperations and regrets. She feels her ex demanded a complete separation, that he told her it was the only way he could go on with his life. And at the climax at 3:02, his cries spill down over hers like a mountain waterfall that will not be pushed aside by the wind.
The dénouement starts at 3:47, the boiling subdued by haunting, inevitability and loss. Unlike classic dénouement, the protagonist isn't any better or worse off than at the start of the narrative. The story concludes with the same indie hopelessness that you'll find in movies like Winter's Bone. The characters have cried without finding a shoulder, opened their hearts and found nothing waiting.
[Ed. - I don't really like the video for "Somebody That I Used to Know," but you can watch it here. And I doubt "desperations" is a word. But it seemed so perfect, defining for me that feeling that you get when you have fucked up absolutely everything, and you don't know how to make any of it better.] - Apr 19, 12
The problem with effort is that as you progress towards the top levels of any given skill set, you have to work exponentially harder to see incremental improvements.
Imagine a novice guitar player. It takes him a month or two to learn a few open chords and soon he is strumming his way through a selection of campfire classics. This is enough for many people to label him a "guitarist." The next level of musicianship requires him to learn moveable chords, pentatonic scales, and a few hammer-ons well enough to work them seamlessly into songs. This requires a bit more effort. But within a year or so, 90% of people will nod their heads and say, "Hey, you're pretty good at guitar." To get to the next level, he has to learn some theory, to study major and minor scales and their relationship to chords, to spend hours with a metronome, and to integrate this knowledge so fully it becomes instinctual. It may take years. Yet to the untrained ear, it doesn't sound terribly different from what our imaginary guitarist was playing before. He soldiers on and spends a decade mastering sweep picking, tapping, and palm muting. But he finds these techniques are only usable for a few seconds of any given song, and most listeners don't recognize them anyway, lumping them all into the category of "Playing Guitar Real Fast." A virtuoso - Vai, Gilbert, Buckethead, Bumblefoot - has invested tens of thousands of hours developing skills so refined that only a tiny fraction of human beings can possibly appreciate them.
In P. H. Mullen Jr.'s Gold in the Water, swimmer Sergey Mariniuk is puzzled by the same phenomenon. He finds he only needs four hours of training every week to achieve speeds that guarantee him a slot on his country's Olympic team, but he'd need upwards of 20 hours of weekly training to knock another three seconds off his time. A 500% increase in effort to achieve an almost immeasurable increase in speed. He decides the added struggle is not worth it. After all, what's the difference between seventh and sixth place?
It's not that effort is bad. It's that it is most efficiently applied to learning new skills, not refining existing ones. This is the exact opposite of the way most of us lead our lives. We jump and sweat, trying to reach the next plateau, never realizing that amazing things are easily within our grasp if we're willing to walk in an entirely new direction.
[Ed. - I am not sure I agree with my own post here. But it is an idea that has been rattling around in my head for awhile and I enjoyed writing it. I think that I think that excellence has some intrinsic value. And while effort may not be efficient, it is still worthwhile.] - Apr 07, 13
Just one of the pieces of film from our 2012 summer campaign for Colorado. See stories about the work in The Denver Post, Westword, 9 News, Channel 7, and The Denver Egotist. And for the full story of the production, check out the Karsh Hagan blog. - Mar 21, 12
I have heard some iteration of this sentiment from three agency leaders in the past year:
I have been trying to find the right interactive director for my agency. I keep hiring these brilliant, inspirational thought leaders and they always flop. Great speakers, but they just can't get projects done. The next hire I make, I am am going to ask to see applicants' code. And if they can't show me actual code they have written, I am showing them the door.
This makes sense to me. After all, I have never met a creative director who didn't start his career in the trenches, creating work as a copywriter or art director. Why should any director-level position be different?
But then again, maybe it doesn't make sense at all. Not all great workers are suited to be managers. (I know genius creatives with stellar portfolios who never became creative directors.) And not every great manager was a screaming success as a worker. (For instance, John Fox never played a down in the NFL.)
I don't have an answer. I'm not even sure I am asking a question. It's just what's rolling around in my head. Who wants to buy me CD: Y0? - Mar 15, 12
My brain did something really disturbing last night. Something I wouldn't have thought possible. Something so flabergasting to me that I am blogging it now in the hopes someone might understand how the brain can work in this marvelous but terrifying way.
The first thing you should know is that I sometimes dream entire original movies. These movies are often long, graphic, densely plotted horror movies. I wake up feeling like I watched a very sick, very scary piece of underground cinema.
Last night I had one of these dreams. And I noticed some elements early on in my dream-film that seemed out of place. A misplaced seam on a jacket, for instance. At the end of the movie, there was a huge twist. (He was the killer all along! Here's how he killed his victims! Here's why!) The end of my dream-film explained the misplaced seam and other elements from early in the dream.
Think about that for a second. Some part of my brain composed the entire script of a dream in advance, including seeding it with clues and foreshadowing. That means my composer-brain must have known how the dream would end all along. Then, somehow, my composer-brain was able to keep all these elements secret from my audience-brain so that it could be surprised (and disgusted) by the big twist.
I only have one brain, don't I? Don't I? - Jan 09, 12
I was always a little odded-out when people told me they liked the old karsh.com. It was missing most of the work we've done in the past two years. And it provided only a snapshot of the 60-something people that make our agency what it is.
On Friday we launched the new karshhagan.com. Besides a much broader array of work, it has a spiderweb navigation system that lets you browse the site by exploring our connections to campaigns, clients and each other. Check it out. Rachael has a more in-depth look at the site on the Karsh Hagan blog. - Dec 21, 11
- Dec 08, 11
For the three people that read my blog and not The Denver Egotist, here is "What I Learned This Year 2011 #3: Matt Ingwalson" in its entirety:
In January, I learned that energy is 99% of my job.
In February, I learned that if a business wants to be indecisive, it better also be rich.
In March, I learned that scrappy wins. That you can shoot great TV for less than you think. And that you should couple the print and video shoots if you can. Twice this year, I found my way into situations where a film director also happened to be an amazing photographer. Both times, magic occurred.
In April, I learned that 50 people can jump around hugging each other without it ever getting awkward.
In May, I learned how hard it is to add staff. You think it'd be all sunshine and flowers. But there are tons of worthy people out there. And every new employee has the potential to jack up your team's chemistry.
In June, I learned that music may be the most important element in a spot. And that failing to sell a great track can be just as devastating as failing to sell a great script.
In July, I learned to love creative testing.
In August, I learned that energy is 99% of my job. Again.
In September, I learned how to almost die on a Jeep trail. I also learned how it feels to stand at the top of a high mountain pass in the middle a big production crew on a sunrise photoshoot and suddenly be struck by a single thought. "My dad would be so proud of me right now."
In October, I learned that it is vaguely unsettling to achieve your goals. My whole professional life, I wanted to be a creative director at Karsh Hagan. And then I got that job. And I had to look in the mirror and say, "Now what?"
In November, I learned that it is almost impossible to change a preconceived notion.
In December, I learned that advertising is nothing like history. We are judged not on the results of the previous year, but on our potential for the next one. 2011 was good to Karsh Hagan. And to me. But it can and must be fucked off. It's over. What's next? - Nov 10, 11
A month or so ago @chrisreinhard wrote something about how few songs have perfect moments in them. For some reason, the comment stuck with me, and I started making a mental list of musical moments that took my breath away.
After awhile, I began noticing that a high percentage of my list came from songs that could be loosely classified as metal. Like the gripping transition from the chanting of "Waking the Fallen" into the heavy, hooky, mute-and-release intro to "Unholy Confessions." Or the vocal explosion out of the breakdown and into the climax of "Stinkfist," a song for which there is no polite or safe Internet link.
The moments that captivated me most brought dark and seemingly irreconcilable elements together in an unexpected but somehow unavoidable moment of release.
"Release" really is the only word for it.
This construction is very like that of a horror movie, where the torturous second act exists to heighten the excitement of the third, when the victim must earn her way to redemption.
(The parallel with sex is even more obvious. I mention it only to prove that I am not willfully avoiding it.)
When you look back on the very best moments of your life, will you remember summiting a mountain after a grueling hike or deadlifting 400 after five years of training? Or will you remember something lazier: sitting in the grass on a sun-soaked summer evening? Could it be that bliss is too creeping and transitory to really captivate us, and that perfection is created by the brokenness that precedes it?
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Info
- Marketing and Advertising | Greater Denver Area, USExperience
- Sept 2011 - PresentCreative Director / Karsh\Hagan
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Tweets
- listening to @tstanfieldmusic performing to support cancer research at @ddpizza
- I had no idea there were this many Miami Heat fans in my Twitter feed.
- Working in the office of @leuzstewart because, um, I am too lazy to walk back to mine.
- "The only thing I had going for me was a fear of 'sucking.'" from @epicallyharshed https://t.co/le941ujvb5May 20, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @DU_MLAX: Pioneers win!!! 12-11 Final http://t.co/E3S51LiBCa
- "@DU_MLAX: Pioneers head into the locker room trailing UNC 9-4 #DUGameDay" - streaming on ESPN now! #ncaaLAX
- @copymatt Infernal Affairs. Miami Vice.
- RT @MakingColorado: RT @jennarconlin: Time for the #makingcolorado creative retreat @StanleyHotel. Follow the team at #cocreativeteam http:…
- Some Photos of Karsh Hagan's #WeAreMakers Kegs With Legs Party - The Denver Egotist http://t.co/18sWelhTAn
- May 17, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Oh yeah, so that's what it's like to stare at the ceiling all night. Awesome. #insomnia
- @Jay5280 ditching #KegsWithLegs at @karshconnect is a terrible idea! Also, where are my answers to my inbox issue? #crickets
- Congrats to @karshconnect AD Camille King for making the @MakingColorado dream team! On @denveregotist http://t.co/fgSSDkO7B3May 15, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- @Jay5280 hashtag it. See if we can get #helpsavemattsinbox trending.
- I wouldn't be here w/o mentors. I've tried to pay it forward. Now I get hit up by 20 job hunters daily. I don't have time. What should I do?May 15, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @denveregotist: Thursday's Kegs With Legs at Karsh Will Celebrate 'Those Who Do' http://t.co/Hpya1CCokwMay 14, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Here's to Lakewood, CO's own @Chris_Broderick being on the cover of @GuitarWorld
- RT @MarkHeylmun: I don't wanna be a "everything was so cool back then" kinda guy. I wanna be a "wait till you see what happens next" kinda …
- You spend one week on production with someone and suddenly you're dressing alike @mixmasterbecky @bonniecarheden
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