 Thanks to Google, I was alerted to an Aquent reference on a blog called, "Give, Get, Take, and Have." I don't know much about it, but, astonishingly, "This blog has often been found swimming miles from shore in the Indian Ocean." Go figure!
Anyway, the (possibly Canadian) author of this blog posted a link to an Aquent mini-site called, "The Business of Touch," which provides the world with annotated animations illustrating the proper mode of greeting people in a variety of countries from India to Czechoslovakia.
To that blogger, I say, "Thanks for sharing this with your readership!"
To everyone else I say, "If you or someone close to you is going to be meeting anyone in or from another country, please consult 'The Business of Touch' in order to avoid a potentially unpleasant and/or embarrassing international incident."
Image Courtesy of s.lowrie.
Voices of Aquent
Apr 30, 2008 @ 10:04 AM · Matthew Grant
 At the end of last year I wrote a post proclaiming that I was going to make this blog more about Aquent. As part of that effort, I've wanted to introduce more and more voices from around the company into this channel. Of course, I've continued to highlight Aquent talent, their insights, abilities, and achievements, and I've also given periodic shout-outs to my environmentally conscious and often funny comrade-in-blogs, Tim Donnelly. But I know I could do so much more.
For starters, check out our Tampa office. The folks down there were talking to me about starting a local blog and so I asked them to say a little bit about the market for this one. I ended up speaking with Tampa's Isela Santisteban, and this is what she told me:
"I've been working with Aquent for the last 9 years, first in Miami, then Fort Lauderdale, and now here in Tampa.
"Tampa is like the mid-West of Florida. It's a great place to raise a family, have fun, and go to the beach! A lot of businesses are located or headquartered down here - Home Shopping Network, OSI Restaurant Partners (that owns and operates Outback Steakhouse, among other properties), and Publix Super Markets, for example - and there are plenty of opportunities for people looking to work in healthcare, finance, hospitality, technology, consumer packaged goods and related fields.
"About half the work Aquent talent do in Tampa is interactive. The rest consists of marketing, graphic design, and print production. Our clients include a number of high profile companies as well as agencies with major accounts. The way the market is right now, I can find a job for anyone with interactive experience at any level.
"What I love about my job is that today's talent becomes tomorrow's client. I'm still talking to people I placed 9 years ago and I'm sure there are people I've just begun to work with that I'll still know 9 years from now."
It's not unusual for Aquent staff like Isela to be with us for a long time. This sort of longevity gives our clients and our talent a lot of continuity. It also means, as you can imagine, that the Isela's of the Aquent-world are centers for ever growing networks of talented, creative professionals. To get in touch with Isela or any of her equally enthusiastic and connected colleagues, call them at (813) 287-9119.
On another note, and speaking of Florida, right now Aquent's training arm, AGI is busy putting on the CRE8 Conference in Orlando. One of the presenters there is none other than Todd Tibbetts, a consultant with Aquent Studios in Seattle, whom I've mentioned here before. He's blogging about his adventures at CRE8 and, more than anything else, making me feel like I'm missing out on something magical. We'll be hearing more from Todd in the days to come, so stay tuned!
Image Courtesy of soupboy.
 Back in 1992, our CEO wrote a letter to all Aquent employees outlining the four principles that guide us in the work we do. The first principle, and the one that has consistently spoken to me, is, "People make the difference."
OK. We're not the only company that espouses this value. In fact, we're not the only company for which it is true -- this slogan can be applied to many organizations, especially those which provide specialized services, such as doctors, lawyers, architects, tattoo artists, and so on.
But I'm on board with it as one of our guiding principles for several reasons. First of all, it's true in a literal way for us. We don't have a secret formula or patented product that makes us different or better. Aquent IS the people who work here and the people we represent.
Second of all, this is how our clients tend to see things. As I mentioned in my post on customer loyalty, the two things that matter most to clients of staffing companies, particularly niche-players like us, are (1) the people or talent represented by the firm, and (2) the relationship with that firm's representatives. (The latter also confirms the findings of Michael Lowenstein and others.) In other words, it's good to have a principle that actually reflects the interests of our clients.
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 We changed our name to "Aquent" back in 1999. It is pronounced with a long "a" (think: "agent") followed by a "kwent." The name has never been popular among naming pundits. About a month after we switched, Ruth Shalit, writing for Salon, said, "You could be forgiven for thinking that a functional, descriptive name such as MacTemps [our former name - Matt], for all its pedestrian clunkiness, might be preferable to a name like Aquent, which to the casual observer evokes something vaguely liquid, perhaps a mouthwash, and whose meaning only becomes clear, if then, when parsed by a listener who is profoundly familiar with the morphemic structure of Latin and ancient Greek." See what I mean?
Arcane morphemic structures aside, numerous commentators criticized the name for being meaningless, and Clay Risen, writing in 2002, gave it an "F." (He also pointed out, rightly though embarrassingly, that "... 'aquent' actually does have a meaning in English: It's a geological term for poorly drained human-altered soils--in other words, landfill," which many of our employees discovered when they Googled the name.)
After 9 years, you'd think that the ridicule would have died down but, sadly, it has not. As recently as this past Friday, Jim Ferry referred to the name as a "doozy" and snidely quipped, "Well, gotta go brush my teeth and rinse with Aquent. (Oh! They are a Temp agency? Nevermind.)" Ouch.
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Back in the Saddle
Feb 25, 2008 @ 4:02 PM · Matthew Grant
 I was on vacation last week and that means I got to hang out with one of my cousins in Vermont. We were talking about work, partly because she's still trying to decide on a career and partly because, from time to time, I'm given to complaining about my job and wondering if there could be something better out there. (Of course, as all my bosses and super-bosses know, there really could not be anything better than the job I currently, and, God willing, always shall have at Aquent. Thank you for the ongoing opportunity to find personal fulfillment again and again within the hallowed halls of this, our corporate headquarters!)
I told my cousin that I was just one of those people who shouldn't have to work - I fully realize how entitled and immature that sounds - and she said, "Me too!" Sadly, she and I do have to work, and although I've settled into my ever-evolving role here, she is still searching for one of her own. In the course of our conversation, however, it came out that she had been invited to accompany a friend who is going on tour with some big rock act this summer. She did the same thing last summer with Aerosmith, and one result was that she got to take a bunch of pictures, like this one, of the Bad Boys of Beantown as they rocked Latvia. Turns out that she's sort of a natural rock photographer. Who knew? In other words, even though my cousin is now considering going to nursing school, she could end up having a career capturing the unkillable dinosaurs of rock for posterity. Which made me think not only of the many unexpected twists and turns a life may take, but also how many careers, even my own, are utterly accidental (at least, or perhaps especially, at the outset). How accidental has yours been and what have you done to make it less accidental? Or have you? Image Courtesy of jon hanson. If you are wondering why I chose this image, I have two words for you, "Saddle Grouper."
 Upon reflection, I found my last post glib and platitudinous, and I apologize for that. Having experienced unemployment and under-employment, I know that it doesn't have to be a worst-case scenario for it to be pretty lame. Looking for a job because you really need a job can be stressful, frustrating, and even humiliating. Funnily enough, when I was in those situations, I generally found work through temp agencies. Although they didn't often find me work from one day to the next, they usually did have me working within a week or two. And that was a good thing.
Of course, a source of semi-regular income does not a career path make, nor is it the high road to personal fulfillment. To paraphrase Citizen Kane, "It's not hard to make money, if all you want to do is make money." The questions that I glossed over - "What do I want to do?", "Where do I want to work?", etc. - are really the hard questions. Finding any job at all is infinitely easier than finding the job you want. In fact, finding any job at all can often be easier than figuring out what you want to do in the first place. Which is why my last post annoyed me. Everyone knows that planning for the future will give you more control over your life, that networking is the best way to get a job (better than responding to an on-line job ad, for example), and so on, but that's not the point. Along those lines, it's easy to say, "Think of 5 people you could call on to help you find a job." It's not even that hard to actually do. In fact, it's probably just as easy to think up 5 people who could lend you money in the short term to help you make rent. Coming up with 5 people who can help you get exactly what you want, given you know what that is, then actually calling them, actually asking for help, actually getting them to help you, and all that, is, well, easier said than done. At this juncture, I could say, "Which is where Aquent comes in. If you're pursuing a career in marketing or design, we ARE the people who can help you get what you want." But I'm not going to, because that would be cheap and marketing-y. Instead, I wanted to take a second and advocate "the easy way."
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 Since we Aquenters are strewn liberally across the globe, we need to make a special effort to get everybody together and remind ourselves that the wide world of Aquent includes many more folks than we see around our particular office on a daily basis. To that end, every year or two we hold a big get-together called, "BTS," which stands for "Back to School." It's a chance for everyone to hear from the CEO, John Chuang, not to mention other luminaries like the CEO of Aquent International, Greg Savage, get some training, and have some fun.
I have traditionally been the host and MC for these things and that has usually involved writing songs and poems about the company. Three years ago, I performed a "rap" song entitled, "Milllion Dolla' Client," that showcased the 22 clients with whom we had done more than a million dollars worth of business in the previous year. It featured dope rhymes such as, "I came to drop science 'bout 22 clients/ They used to be tiny, but now they're giants," and, "I know it sounds whack/ But please stop laughing/ A lot of our engagements are/ Straight up staffing!" To this day I regret that I did not capture this performance on video and post it to YouTube to be mocked by one and all for my unrepentant corporate chicanerie. Why am I telling you all this? Well, here's the rub. After I had thrown down, I ran into the CEO and he asked, "Do you think that seemed professional?" It was fairly lo-fi, goofy, and amateurish, so, I said, "No." But then I added, "My goal is always to get people to think, 'I've never worked at a place like this.'" He looked at me and said, "I guess you've achieved your goal, at least in your case, because as of now you don't work here anymore. You're fired." PSYCHE! In all honesty, I can't recall if he responded to me at all, but I believe my point was well taken. This company has always been imbued with a spirit of entrepreneurship, independence, and iconoclasm. It's also always been a place where fun and enthusiasm are not only welcomed but encouraged. Composing and performing a rap song to celebrate our success may not have been "professional," but, it was quintessentially "Aquent." Image Courtesy of Sporko.
Whassup, Aquent?
Feb 5, 2008 @ 10:02 AM · Matthew Grant
 
I said I was going to use this confounded blog to talk more about what Aquent is up to, and, tarnation, I'm going to do it! First of all, back in December, our DC office landed a $5.2 million contract to provide the Library of Congress with web services for their New Visitors Experience Project. The contract runs through June 2010. Nice! Secondly, our Detroit office was selected by the readers of Corp! Magazine as a "Best of Michigan Business" in the "Staffing Firms" category. We've got a great team of hard-working, experienced, and friendly folks working in Detroit and it's nice to see them recognized by their community. Finally, although it might not be news to some of you, even I sometimes forget the extent of Aquent's reach around this vast green globe. I mean, we've got 5 offices in Australia, 5 more in Japan, 3 in China, and 2 in India, not to mention offices strewn about Europe from Warsaw to Barcelona and from Manchester to Prague. We've got 120 staffers in London alone (which may make London a bigger Aquent-town than Boston, where we've got our headquarters - got to check on that)! Who knew? In other words, people who work for Aquent work on cool projects in cool places for a cool company. Wait, wait, wait. That sounded like marketing puffery, so let me rephrase it: Some people who work for Aquent work on some cool projects in some cool places for some cool companies. And you could be one of them! (Ugh. I try to dial down the puffery and I turn my moment of honesty into a crass promotion. I'm so ashamed.)
 In one of my last posts, I addressed the issue of "voice" and the difference between the "corporate voice," which I tend to use for this blog, and my own voice, which peeks through here and there but is more or less repressed. That post was sparked by the realization both that I was using the corporate voice without anyone explicitly telling me to do so and that I knew implicitly how the corporate voice should "sound," again, without anyone ever instructing me on its proper use.
Although I was focused on a curious sociological fact - i.e., that people learn how to act "professionally" by osmosis - with a little bit of navel gazing thrown in for good measure, the comments I received got me out of my own personal quandary ("How can I write for Aquent and still be me?") and have set me on a new blogging path. Specifically, the words of Kris Rzepkowski resonated strongly with me. As he put it, "The corporate voice of Aquent is the sum of the talent they've chosen to retain." In other words, the real issue isn't whether I'm using a stilted or sterile corporate voice instead of my own scintillating and incisive voice. The issue is that the voices of Aquent's many talent are not being heard here. Of course, I have profiled and written about Aquent Talent , and I thought I had made it clear that I welcome guest bloggers, but nevertheless this blog has remained "mine" in many ways. Accordingly, I resolve in the 2008 to get more voices of Talent on this here blog. I also hereby resolve to write more as "Talent" myself. I first came to Aquent as a temp back in the MacTemps days and, in many ways, still think of myself that way. I also think that there are some valuable career lessons to be learned from the meandering course of my own. Finally, and this will be a big and shocking break, I want to make this blog more about Aquent (which, frankly, was the suggestion of Lewis Green). I've consciously avoided adopting a "Rah Rah Aquent!" tone on this blog and, even when writing about Talent that we work with, I've taken pains to highlight their skills, experience, and insight, and not dwell so much on the role that Aquent has played in their careers, even though their connection to Aquent is the main reason that I'm writing about them. A year ago our COO said, "I'm still not sure if the perspective of the blog should be 'I bleed orange,' or not." Now, I may stop short of bleeding orange, but I will write more openly and enthusiastically about this company. I've worked here for over 10 years and think that the people I've met, both Talent and staff, are cool, interesting, and deserving of praise and, frankly, hype. So, Happy New Year, everybody. I'm looking forward to 2008 and I promise, with your help, to make this blog ever more smashingly fabulous. Cheers!
Image Courtesy of Pear Biter.
 My name is Matthew T. Grant, PhD and I work for a Marketing Staffing company called Aquent. Aquent has been in business since 1986 and I have been working here more or less continuously since 1993. I started out as a temp (what we now call talent ) doing presentations and administrative support. I began working for the corporate headquarters in 1995 and have held many roles in human resources, corporate communications, and marketing. My title is Minister of Enlightenment. I've spoken internationally on a variety of topics ranging from process optimization in marketing organizations to figuring out whether your website is a cathedral or a fork.
This blog, brought to you by Aquent, focuses on the career challenges and choices facing people in marketing professions. By marketing professions I'm referring to marketing, advertising, and design (of the print, web, and product variety). While you will find here discussions of trends, innovations, and big ideas in the relatively vast world of marketing, the common theme will be: What does this mean to marketing organizations, the people running them, and the people who aspire to work in or for them? To that extent, you will also find information regarding career development, job-hunting, recruiting, and all things associated with doing the work of marketing.
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