Knowing about my dyslexia since childhood, and wondering how it would affect my success as an adult, reading articles such as these reinforce our (dyslexics) resolve and self-worth as contributing members of society, and give us kudos as current and future success stories.



The excerpt from a great article I read on money.cnn.com



http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/05/13/322876/index.htm



"(FORTUNE Magazine) – Consider the following four dead-end kids.

One was spanked by his teachers for bad grades and a poor attitude. He dropped out of school at 16. Another failed remedial English and came perilously close to flunking out of college. The third feared he'd never make it through school--and might not have without a tutor. The last finally learned to read in third grade, devouring Marvel comics, whose pictures provided clues to help him untangle the words.

These four losers are, respectively, Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, John Chambers, and David Boies. Billionaire Branson developed one of Britain's top brands with Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Schwab virtually created the discount brokerage business. Chambers is CEO of Cisco. Boies is a celebrated trial attorney, best known as the guy who beat Microsoft."

(An excerpt from Hispanic Business Magazine)



I was very proud to see one of my clients, Arenas Entertainment, featured in Hispanic Business magazine. It was an honor to work with Santiago and his team, in preparing the winning pitch that landed the ABC account for Arenas Entertainment.



Although it took many long hours crafting the winning look, creating concept art, and drawing the storyboards, the effort paid off, and ABC/Disney made the right choice by choosing Arenas to handle their Latino marketing campaign. I salute Santiago and the rest of the team at Arenas, it was a pleasure working with them, and I've never seen a harder working team.



(for more info, browse to the link below, and roll over "campaign development")



http://www.adbcreative.net/services.html

I'm often asked this question whenever I meet people at various business functions in the Los Angeles area.  It always starts with the question, "What sort of business are you in?"



The response (always leaving them wanting more) is, "I run a design firm."  Just enough, but not enough.  In my mind, the answer intrigues them, becuase like many of the other suits at these functions (of which I am on occassion, a suit), they are often bankers, insurers, or real estate agents.  Then here I am, a suit that not really suit-like, with an un-suit-like business.  That's when they ask me the open ended question, "So what do you design?"



The idea is not for me (the CEO) to simply blather on about my design firm,  but to get them to ask questions, to engage them and open their minds about how they need my company's services, more than my company needs their dollars.  That's where we get into value pricing.  They then can get more value out of the service, than they are putting into it dollar-wise, in their minds, because now they are actively engaged in the process of what my company is doing, and how it will do it for them.



Again, this process of give and take question and answer isn't about blathering on about my company at business functions, but it is really to engage them in what my company actually does for their company.  Think about this the next time your company tries to sell products or services.  Are you telling your customers what you do? (Talking at them)  Or are you engaging your customers in a dialogue that makes them feel like they are part of the process, thereby "buying into" your services before they even write a check?   (Dialoguing with them)



So, what do I design?  I don't.  My company provides creative services and tools for companies to better serve their customers, and builds their brand awareness in the marketplace to expose more customers, and ultimately increase sales.  That's the short answer, for adb Creative provides many more services than can be listed in a one-sentence answer.  My job?  Run the company (CEO), and be the creative force behind the company (Creative Director) in partnership with the client.  That's right.  Partnership.  Design firms, creative firms, ad agencies, whatever you call us, should never dictate design to our clients, but that's a subject for another day.



Always leave them wanting more.



- A

Welcome to adb Creative's first blog entry!  For those of you who have visited in the past, you may have noticed a recent re-branding of the site.  This is pretty normal in the creative industry, as we have to stay fresh to stay competitive, and do the same for our clientele.



There are many exciting things coming up in the future for adb Creative, such as sponsoring a MySpace banner contest for a hot new singer, Szilva.  The winner of this contest will not only be featured on Szilva's MySpace page and have their banner posted all over MySpace by Szilva fans, but they will be featured here on adbcreative.net as a contest winner, and have their own page here for a limited time, to be seen by the many corporations who visit adbcreative.net for their creative needs. 

Aaron D. Baldón

CEO/Creative Director

ADB Creative Corp.