ROTNEM = MENTOR

Joey Tribiani, Friends, was not known as a wise man.  But, often, the words he spoke were oh so true.  One of my favorite episodes was when he was reading "Cujo" by Stephen King and got so scared he had to put the book in the freezer.

I totally get that.  

The summer right after I turned ten, was the year I discovered Stephen King and he scared the ever living crap out of me.  

I don't think I got a good night's sleep for months.  One of the moments that scared me the most was in "The Shining".  The scene played out in the movie with Jack Nicholson very well. The boy is standing in the hall and kept saying "Redrum, Redrum" over and over again.

I knew.  I knew and I didn't want to know that he was saying "Murder, Murder" but (insert creepy music here)... backwards.

Flash forward 30 years and the same backwards talking trick is going on, but now with a much less scary premise.

ROTNEM, mentor spelled backwards.  This practice is happening in large agencies across the country.  Junior staffers are training their senior counterparts.

It's actually quite ingenious.  The "kids" all know social media.  They are living it every day. Think about how they live.  They will never own an album, no CD, no cassette, no record, no 8 track. All of their music will always be files on a computer or ipod.  They know social media. 

The C level executives at these large agencies all started in the business before computers.  Talk about a generation gap.

So the juniors are teaching the seniors.  Mentoring up instead of down.  Rotnem.

I think it is a very cool system and I am glad that it is happening.  Eeryone is getting educated and encouraged to participate in social media.  The more the merrier.  Jump on in, the water is fine.

But that underlines a very significant difference between agencies large and small.  The large agencies are so big, with so many layers of beauracracy, that they have to put teams of jr. staffers in place to keep the senior executives up to date on new technologies.  

In smaller agencies, we are all in the trenches every day getting the work done.  We don't have the layers of staff keeping those with the knowlege and experience away from the work.  We all roll up our sleeves every morning and dig in.  We all work directly with clients and are keeping up with new technologies because that is what our clients need.  Everyday.

Jaci Russo

Sr. Partner

The Russo Group