Divorcing worth from art

I absolutely hate corporate-speak. 

Living here in San Francisco, the worst is actually tech-speak. The language of startups, unicorns, VC funding, AI-something-something. I think I’m going to start photographing every AI ad I don’t understand (95% of them).

Once, I photographed an event here that was a fireside talk + happy hour and at the Q&A section, an attendee asked something like, “So about synergy—how do you see this synergizing with SOMETHING TECH and, you know, we want to have synergy between departments?” Okay, that wasn’t a direct quote. In all fairness, I have no clue what he asked (hence, “something tech”) because he used the word “synergy” three times in one sentence, and my mind rebelled. This was two years ago and the word usage is thankfully in decline in tech.

Perhaps this is confirmation bias, but I’ve never seen a study on corporate-speak before, so I was very happy to have stumbled upon this study. Researchers at Cornell created a Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR), “a tool designed to measure susceptibility to impressive-but-empty organizational rhetoric,” and a corporate bullshit generator that mashed a bunch of statements with actual quotes from businesspeople. The results? 

Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence. Those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making.

The study found that being more receptive to corporate bullshit was also positively linked to job satisfaction and feeling inspired by company mission statements. Moreover, those who were more likely to fall for corporate BS were also more likely to spread it.

Essentially, the employees most excited and inspired by “visionary” corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions for their companies.

I’m probably going to cite this study again, because I’ve been thinking a lot about the loss of critical thinking skills. 

At a different event, which I actually attended, someone asked a panel of arts professors how to frame creative work in a way that business execs can understand. The answer was a little disheartening: you have to change your vocab to prove your creative worth. This wasn’t the example used, but similar, like exchanging “art director” as a title with “brand strategist.”

Working in any creative field, the work often feels intensely personal, so you feel offended, resentful, or frustrated when the non-creative people, aka decision-makers, don’t understand what you’re doing or why it’s worth the money. It also doesn’t help that the new thing in AI tech is optimizing and replacing “taste.” Not the food kind, the cultural kind of “tasteful decision-making.” 💬 “Now A.I. companies are attempting to hitch themselves to a similar aura of artisanality, even as their core products promise to automate all that is human into obsolescence. Last year, Anthropic hosted a pop-up café in Manhattan (what could be more hipster?) and gave away baseball caps embroidered with the word ‘thinking,’” written in The New Yorker.

In a refreshing article about what creative people have learned in their careers, one said:

Art director Matt King has also experienced a change in mindset over the years. "Early in my career, I had the artist complex," he remembers. "Everything I did, I poured my heart into, which left me with very high highs and low lows. I had to learn business and realised I have a profound gift for connecting with people. Now, that's where I get a lot of joy: the design is so good because the connection is sound."

And in The Artist’s Way, which I’m finally in Week 12 of, Cameron writes about how sometimes you do put all you have into your art, but the market isn’t ready for it (yet) and that it doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth creating. I’m still learning how to not feel totally worthless when I don’t get booked for projects, but the frequent ghosting from inquiries has helped. Don’t worry, I’ve also confirmed that ghosting is common and my working theory is that those who are ghosting are not business owners, and have no “skin in the game.” Those seriously inquiring have done their research and will respond, even if it’s just to say no. The rejected creative thing you pitched was a bad fit, not a reflection of what you are worth. One way around this is to embrace the learning process and the "bad" things you create as you learn. Once The Artist's Way is over, I plan on attending a recurring event called "The Bad Art Club" and will report back on my experience.