5 Tips For Tumbleweed Season

Not Seen: Co-Workers

If you've worked in adtech for any length of time, you know what an August calendar means: vacation time. Either for you, the people you are working with, or the people that need to sign off on anything of major consequence.

As someone who has worked almost exclusively at start ups for the past couple of decades -- and at some start ups that have gone away with varying degrees of warning -- I've also had the experience of not having much in the way of time accrued at a new gig to take off when everyone else does. Here's what I've learned about Tumbleweed Season, under the hope that it proves helpful to you.

1) Collaboration is going to be really unpredictable. I've frequently come in to the office during slow times and expected quiet sessions where independent study and long-term thinking was going to rule the day, only to find a stray exec or senior sales personnel with very urgent needs. Don't assume that your day will be uneventful.

2) Commuting can be a joy. The comedian Bill Burr has a highly misanthropic but accurate routine in which he talks about how much nicer the world would be, if there were only a lot less people in it. Just in the last week in the Bay Area, my usual time in the car for the morning drive has dropped 15-20%, with no major crushes or delays. It can't and won't last, of course, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can. (Sadly for my friends who still work in NYC, this season isn't providing the same benefit.)

3) Travel makes for interesting dayparts. The nature of work in the connected age means that your contact who is spending time in Europe, Asia or the Pacific is still likely to monitor their communication channels, but maybe with less frequency or urgency. If you are prone to checking your device at all hours, you really need to break that habit before it destroys your health... but in the meantime, consider time-shifting your email sends to hit the in-box at a more sane hour.

4) Deadlines may be just as urgent, but for different reasons. Vacation schedules can make for an effective bit of leverage, in that many clients will want to clear the decks of projects before leaving. That can give you the impetus you need to push things forward, but only if you keep things simple. Deep complications aren't your friend in Tumbleweed Time.

5) T'is the season. At many of my gigs, Q4 has been an all-hands experience, with any number of seasonal creative needs crushing the team from mid-October to mid-December. Working ahead for your top clients in the summer months, especially for perennial tasks that can't look too much like last year's, but not too much different either, is best done when you've got some time and space to think -- and can keep you from truly insane weeks later.

Besides, looking at icicles and snowflakes in your marketing and advertising projects is a very good way to take your mind off summer heat...

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