Closing Shop: My Last Post

In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell wrote about the meta-story called The Hero’s Journey. A model from which infinite and highly varied copies can be reproduced each resonating with the essential spirit of the model. It, in a nutshell, follows this path:

The reader finds the unsuspecting hero living in his safe comfortable ordinary world. But soon the hero is called to action (either by himself or someone else). He is asked to cross a threshold into a foreign special world so that he may attain an object of desire (which could be either physical or mental). Though this special world is intimidating, even dangerous, he soon encounters allies, tools and tests to help him along the way.

Eventually he discovers where the object of desire is kept: the cave (an dark, complex inner sanctum – either physical or mental – which, to penetrate and emerge from, will require a great deal from the hero). In what is called the approach to the cave, the hero prepares himself either mentally or physically for this task. Upon entering, he confronts his greatest challenge: the ordeal. But thanks to his preparation, tools and learned skills, he is able to overcome the ordeal and seize the reward.

But the tests are not over. On the road home the hero faces one last challenge which causes something in him to die (either physical or metaphorical). Who he was in the past dies, and who he is now, thanks to the adventure, is born. This is called the resurrection. No longer the person he was when he entered this adventure, he is now stronger, braver, more intelligent, more enlightened, more human, more alive...more whatever. It is only after this resurrection the he can return to his ordinary life as a new being with new insights gained from his adventure. This last stage is called Return with the Elixir.

A story that flows through each of these stages can be considered complete. (Admittedly I’m oversimplifying the requirements of story here.) For this reason, I feel that Whistle has been a complete story for me:

I left (Threshold) my analog world (Ordinary World) for the digital blogosphere (Special World) after an internal desire (Call to Action) to start a blog. My whole goal was to find new ways of thinking and doing in advertising (Object of Desire). Along the way, I met tons of brilliant helpful people from whom I found inspiration and knowledge (Allies, Tools).

Nevertheless, I became frustrated with the blog and my thinking. It felt uninteresting and unproductive (Tests). I felt like I was writing about the wrong stuff and looking in the wrong places. So I sketched a redirect to figure out a way to get what I wanted out of this blog (The Approach to the Cave). I realized the underlying systems of marketing that influence its outputs were what I had to focus on – which is a pretty damn big bear to wrestle (Ordeal).

I used everything I’d learned up to that point and more to write about agency structures, the creative process, innovation algorithms, office design, experience design and the fact that an agency’s most important product is failure. After some mental gymnastics, I found what I had came looking for: transformation design (Seize the Reward).

Weeks went by as I tried to translate my intuitive and scattered belief in the value of transformation design into a coherent articulation (The Road Home). After a lot of work, I think I’ve figured it out.

And for that reason, I’ve decide to close Whistle (Death) and open a new blog (Resurrection) named Volume 2 (Whistle was volume 1) dedicated to developing transformation design in the marketing space and sharing that journey and knowledge with everyone (Return with the Elixir).

New adventure, new blog.

I’ll of course leave Whistle up, but won’t post anything new after this post.

Thanks to all of you who helped me in this past adventure. You’re comments, emails, suggestions, and support really made this a worthwhile transformative experience. I hope you find Volume 2 interesting as well.

“I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”

Errol Flynn