the clueless manifesto

The Clueless Manifesto is a funny and rather "insightful" text from Passionate, on how to appreciate and use the benefits of cluelessness, because, after all, as the text's motto itself states: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

Supporting her assumptions with examples which prove that limits are always much more psychological than actually real, Kathy created her manifesto in spirit of Apple's Here's to the Crazy Ones:

Here's to the Clueless Ones
The ones who see things differently
They're not fond of rules (granted, that's because they don't actually know about the rules)
They have no respect for the status quo (see previous statement)
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things.
Maybe they have to be clueless.
How else can you take on city hall at the age of 12?Or break the impossible record?Or build an internet startup without VC bucks?
While some see them as the clueless ones,we see a fresh perspective.
Because the people who are clueless enough to thinkthey can change the world, might be the ones who do.

Apart from the content of the manifesto, i also liked her last phrase a lot, and that would be: "Do not underestimate us." It reminded me about an earlier Adliterate post in the "Advice to young planners" series, with some valuable "short, sweet and incomplete" suggestions from Richard Huntington & fellow commentors. I guess "be clueless" would also fit.

1) See the world differently to everyone else

2) Try to be interesting first and right second

3) Read weird shit it always comes in handy

4) Speak in analogies – the more bizarre the better

5) Even if the thinking that you are forced to go with isn’t the most inspiring always know you had a better strategy up your sleeve

6) Think about brands and categories you don’t work on – develop latent strategies for these – it is good practice and they may be useful at some point

7) Think and communicate clearly always – radical doesn’t mean complicated

8) Learn to use a video camera, learn to use Avid, learn to use Photoshop, learn to write a blog, learn sound editing software; creative tools which come in handy for briefs, insight videos....since the very process of learning them makes one think more creatively too.

9) Create a book. No junior creative gets a job without showing their book and no junior planner should simply assume talking a good game is enough. Take a leaf out of the strtegy safari part of this site and compile your strategic ideas book full of smart radical ideas for the brands you think deserve better thinking.