A Decade of Hooks, Slices and Dreams
The Dallas Society of Visual Communications invites you to tee up for the 10th Annual D.C. Stipp Memorial Golf Tournament on Friday, May 2, 2008 at the Grand Oaks Golf Club in Grand Prairie. Your swings can help kids go very far – all the way to college, in fact. For the past several years, we’ve not only had a lot of fun, but we’ve been able to give increasingly valuable college scholarships to deserving local high school grads. To continue this fine tradition, we need your help. Even if you don’t know a chip shot from a zip file, it’s a great afternoon out with prizes and plenty of fun with your colleagues. Plus, it commemorates a great friend who’s gone and celebrates the bright future ahead of some promising kids. So mark your calendar and we’ll see you at the tee.

DATE: Friday May 2, 2008
LOCATION: Grand Oaks Golf Club, Grand Prairie
CHECK IN: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
LUNCH: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
TEE OFF: 1:00 pm
DINNER: After golf including Awards Presentation

Download Information and Registration

About the Tournament
Since 1998, the D.C. Stipp Tournament has provided $50,000 in scholarships to local high school graduates who want to pursue a college education and eventual career in visual communication. Open to both seasoned players and good-natured hacks, this tournament offers great prizes, terrific company, an opportunity to pay tribute to one of our own – D. C. Stipp. Your swings can help kids go very far – all the way to college, in fact.

About D.C Stipp
After completing his studies at U.T.A. (where he was lucky enough to have Jack Summerford as an instructor), D.C. Stipp worked spent most of his career at RBMM, and was a partner there at the time of his death. He was a true professional who was dedicated to his work and the clients he served. Any paper reps or printers with whom he worked will tell you that D.C. was a perfectionist, and he worked tirelessly to do the best job he could – so it’s no surprise that his work was recognized both nationally and internationally. D.C. Stipp was dedicated to his family and always carried himself with the utmost class and respect for friends and colleagues.

During one busy annual report season he came down with a virus and reluctantly took a few days off. Once he felt good enough, though, he was anxious to return to work. Unfortunately, the virus was not done and it developed into an internal viral infection that would eventually take his life.

Anyone who knew D.C. was aware of his love for the game of golf. He would take a vacation every year just so he could attend the Colonial in Ft. Worth (his favorite golf course). If you were fortunate enough to see him play golf, you were exposed to a precision machine and saw a man truly doing something he loved.

Rising Above the Common Comma.

Commas are to writing what fire hydrants are to dogs; they break up the walk, I mean, the writing, into easy portions.

Here are a few things I know about commas:

1. Use of serial commas (or, if you are writing a screenplay, you could call it, “No Country for Old Commas.”): What do I mean by serial commas? “I like X, Y and Z.” “We covered subject A, B and C.” The rule in the AP Style Guide and many other style guides: Use commas between simple serial items but omit the comma between the next-to-the-final item and the word “and.”

If the items in the series are complicated, do not omit the last comma. For example:

The issues in the campaign are the value of the dollar, the rule of law, the failure of foreign policy, and the separation of church and state.

2. Introductory clauses and phrases:

In the middle of the movie, he got up and passed right in front of me.

It doesn?t matter how many words are in the introductory phrase. Use a comma after it and before you start the actual sentence.

Two words:

In 1976,

Three words:

In clear violation,

Four words (or more):

With a full heart,

3. Use commas between two sentences: (Note: When we join two sentences together with a comma and a conjunction, we call them clauses.)

Use this formula:
Clause plus comma plus conjunction (and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet) plus clause. (Don?t forget a period at the end.)

I wanted to walk the dog, but thunderstorms were predicted.

4. Never separate the subject of a sentence from a verb:

The soldiers and the sailors, went for R&R. (Never do that.)

My friend, brother and sister, stayed away. (Never do that.)

5. Use a comma after an introductory phrase and before a quote:

According to the EVP, “Q1 earnings suffered due to supply disruptions.”

6. Use commas between a series of adjectives.

He was the perfect, talented, charming insider.

7. Set off explanatory phrases, called “appositives,” in commas:

The magician, also called a conjurer, works with slight of hand.
The mountain climber, inspired by climbs of people who went before him, plans his next assent next year.
Mark Twain, the once millionaire, was born with the name Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

Here is something interesting I learned about commas:

Have you ever seen slashes used to separate lines of song lyrics? For example:
You are my sunshine/
My only sunshine
Back in the Middle Ages, slashes began to be used in English to make it easier for people to read sentences, to tell readers where to pause, and where to breathe when signing songs.
Commas are the modern-day vestiges of those slashes.

So, this month, every once in a while, look down and smell the common commas. Pick some and sprinkle them on someone you love.

Stan has been honored as one of The Wall Street Journal’s “Giants of Our Time,” an Inc. magazine “Entrepreneur of the Year,” and an Art Directors Hall of Fame inductee. The Richards Group was named America’s Best Creative Agency by the American Association of Advertising Agencies in 1997. In 2006, Graphic Design USA ranked it one of the six Most Influential Agencies in America.

First, the cliché: Creatives are restless. On good days, they have the attention span of a caffeinated finch.

Now, the problem: For too many people who hire creatives, the above rings true.

Ask anyone faced with building a team of terrific, committed creatives, and you’ll hear the same theme played back:
Attracting top talent is hard enough. But keeping it? Next to impossible. The siren song of higher profiles, newer challenges, and greater opportunities will have today’s star hire following her muse out the door tomorrow.

And yet, through decades of building a thriving agency, an amazing client roster, and several dozen feet of trophy shelving, what makes me proudest about The Richards Group is our unheard-of staff loyalty. The creative tenure here sets industry records; our 24 group heads have been here an average of 16 years. Better still? We’ve several young teams with growing profiles who have yet to be poached. And it isn’t for lack of trying.
These are all folks who could work anywhere, who get constant calls from headhunters promising big money, fame, and the moon. So, what do we do that keeps them with us?

Money matters.

Let’s start with the easiest answer: Pay them fairly. The best creatives will tell you they do their jobs for love, not money. Still, when the pay is good? The love is deeper. For our part, we embrace profit sharing and bonuses. Whatever your approach, don’t just tell your partners you value them. Prove it. Good creative is the coin of the agency realm. Good creatives deserve good coin.

Money doesn’t matter. Craft and challenge do.

Yes, this point contradicts the first. Welcome to life with creatives. To keep these contrarians happy, worry less about their bottom line than you do their top priority: staying creative. For my part, I believe that no one should ever work on garbage. It leaves a stench that no amount of money can ever wash off. So we don’t work on garbage here. It isn’t tolerated. Yes, not every job can be a Super Bowl spot or spread ad. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a level of craft and wit to meet. Meet, then be pushed to exceed. I will always expect our work to be the best of its kind. And thus to be rewarded with pride and surprise the real currency of creatives.

I know for a fact that our folks get constant offers to leave for more money. Most choose to stay because they see greater value in raised expectations. So set the bar high, then challenge everyone to soar over it. When the same assignment rolls around for a second, third, or fourth time, let your folks know it’s not Do it again, but rather it’s Can you outdo it? As long as you walk the walk, they’ll appreciate the push. After all, this is nothing that great creatives don’t already tell themselves.

Give them a say, not just a voice.

Don’t overlook the fact that creatives are problem solvers. If all you ask and expect from them are clever lines and handsome layouts, you’re missing a big opportunity. One of the reasons they communicate so uniquely and cleverly is that they see things differently too. So let them challenge each brief your planners provide. Let them adjust a strategy they find lacking. Let them own a problem; it will help them provide a solution. It will also let them know that they’re not just hired guns in fact, you trust them to call a lot of the shots. That breeds loyalty faster than any pay raise or promotion.

Shake it up.

Another cliché, if you will: Vision and wit are like muscle. They have to be exercised constantly to grow. But and here’s the part too many people overlook they also need to stretch. They need variety. To put it another way: No one denies that Popeye is strong. It’s just that he needs to lay off the forearm curls. To that end, give your team a chance to flex new muscles now and then. At The Richards Group, this is easy, given our 60+ client roster. Our creative groups often swap members or sound an alarm for outside help. But even when the need isn’t there, we still push folks to dig for assignments outside their comfort zones. We make it a point to let everyone work on the big-budget cherry assignments; we also encourage work on spec for smaller, quirky brands. When every week brings a different challenge, who needs a different job?

One last point: Everyone deserves respect.

I won’t belabor this, because if you don’t get it, you shouldn’t be hiring. Just remember to treat your creatives as you do your clients, your family, and your friends. They’re adults. They want to work. They deserve your trust and respect. Give them rules, yes. But also give them room to surprise you.

Nothing good can happen until you do.

Join us for the first TRIBEZA Experience, co-sponsored by AIGA Austin and celebratng the April Visual Arts Issue, which features the work of legendary photographer Dan Winters. Winters, who has captured telling portraits of everyone from His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Angelina Jolie, will join us for conversation and a lecture, in which he will share his thoughts on his early work and his ever-developing sensibility behind the lens.

TRIBEZA Experience with Dan Winters
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
6 - 8 PM
Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum
1800 N. Congress Avenue at
Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
3rd Floor

Download the 2007 San Antonio ADDY Winners Book  and see what San Antonio has to offer. Good work!

About the American Advertising Federation (AAF) San Antonio was established in 1920 as the San Antonio Advertising Federation. Our mission is to enhance the advertising industry in San Antonio by providing quality support to the diverse community of individuals dedicated to their advertising craft and by communicating the advertising quality in San Antonio to local, regional and national audiences.