Niko Herzeg Marketing

“The pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is.”

He was the youngest of sons. And whether Mother Nature, or Kennedy nurture, he was (to me) always just off. Not a charismatic leader like JFK. Not the headbuster and deal maker like RFK. But  likely the Kennedy who did the most for his country.

Not by giving great public speeches or stumping, or kissing babies and going after the biggest prize (though he did, based on assumed heir apparent rights, and failed spectacularly because of Chappaquiddick). No.

After outliving other peoples expectations, he found his strenghts and home in the US Senate where bills get passed or not, whether a president likes it or not. Where bipartisanship matters. Where practising the art of the possible, as Von Bismarck would call it, is a skill in greatest demand and shortest supply.

The Senate is where the gruntworks gets done, where consensus is created, sides are polled, opinions gathered to ensure the best possible version of a bill has the greatest possible impact in the lives of people it is suppose to serve and help.

Kennedy and his Senate staff had written about 2,500 bills, of which more than 300 were enacted into law. Kennedy has co-sponsored another 550 bills that became law since 1973. Even more were written that failed to get a vote, but were usefull to keep or get those who did pass, in better shape.

That is more impact than many presidents put together. Tangible output that improved lives and people. As many that have, many more don’t even have his name to it, most likely the people who benefit from it don’t know wo championed it. But should they really know or care?

He did not always sell the work, nor did he device the bills, or come up with the big initiatives. Yet he did something more important; he made sure that the work worked when it got out of the backroom dealmaking, soundbite on sunday morning partisan wars. And all these bills and success came about, because he accepted the reality that he would never become President, and that he did not need to become one to make a difference and impact.

We as the youngest brother to the Creative and Account Manager, need to realize something as well. First and foremost our role. We are here to create context for others to shine, to help those who do the magic, come up with powerfull, moving, and selling work.

Secondly the fact that if something bad is made and sold to a client, this is a short term gain and if something good can’t pass because it can’t be presented with clear and overall benefits, that this is a long term loss. And we are to blame. We did not make the work passable enough, we did not get best out of our creatives, or dug deep enough to find the core problem and solution.

Call it masochism, but behaving this way (all the blame our fault, all the glory, other people’s work) will build up trust and allies, both needed if we wish to do more then the average. Kennedy was often a willing scapegoat for failure of the Left or posterboy for Liberalism to be used by his Republican Senate friends when election time came round. He knew it was the price of business and knew it created I.O.U’s when the Senate work came back around.

Finaly: We are the fine print, not the soundbite. Because as Senator Ted Kennedy said, service to the our public, both business and consumer, is our pursuit and reason to work and fight. The sooner we realize this, the better we’ll be at our/my work.