Creative Ways to Find Work Can Be as Creative as the Work Itself

When he's not looking for contract work with local agencies or marketing directors, Jamesgang is looking for clients. Or a job.

Washington DC (PRWEB) February 14, 2005 -- At the moment, there is only one gang member, unless you count his flat coat retriever mix, Tucker.

"Maybe someday there will be a gang," Gary James, the executive director of Jamesgang Communications said. "But for now, I'm it."

James is a strategic brand consultant and an Accredited Public Relations Professional (APR) with 30 years experience in integrated marketing and communications currently residing in Washington DC. "That's a fancy way of saying my experience covers business launches, creative advertising, copywriting/design and professional public relations services," James said.

In past lives, as a creative director or copywriter for various advertising or public relations agencies in southwest Florida, his client work has included the national launch for Art Ulenes Vitamins® for Men and Women, media promotion for Butter Buds® and Sweet NLow® , the start-up of Buyerside® Real Estate services and "lots of creative stuff."

But at 51, James says translating the experience into income has become daunting. "I haven't followed a traditional path, so headhunters don't know what to do with me. Online job search engines are difficult because they don't combine advertising and public relations....you either follow one track or the other," James said, and adds, "and going back and forth between the 'American Dream' - to work for yourself - and as a employee, apparently makes [reviewers] crazy."

"The advertising agencies today seem to want fresh-faced thirty-somethings and not seasoned veterans. Associations want people with association experience. Eclectic seems to work only with furniture," he jokes, but what can you do? You continue refining the resume and sending it out."

As an advertising creative director and copywriter, James has garnered numerous awards in print, radio and television for clients in industries as diverse as financial, health-related, real estate, retail, and entertainment, in both the private and not-for-profit sectors. His strategic communications and marketing plan created for the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA, resulted in the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, DC's Business Volunteer of the Arts award 2001.

Gary created the positioning statement, concept and radio copy, for a successful traffic building campaign for Smithsonians Freer and Sackler Galleries, "Zen in the City: A Place to Contemplate. Life and Art," campaign which won two creative awards, including an IABC Award of Excellence.

"The project begin in March, I believe, of 2001. The launch took place during the first few weeks following 9/11. The posters were actually on a truck from New York and were delayed." Though attendance was down throughout the Smithsonian's region-wide museums, the Freer and Sackler galleries experienced much smaller attendance losses. "In many ways, the campaign apparently proved to be comforting."

Recently, he was a partner in the branding firm ICBM, the name an acroynm for "Integrated Communication and Brand Marketing." After almost two years, he and his partner decided to call it quits when they were at a point "where we didn't owe anyone any money," reflected James. "It was a shame. We had the talent. We had the desire. What we didn't have were good-paying clients."

So, for now he networks with fellow PR practitioners through the Independent Public Relations Alliance. He's a member of the International Association of Business Communicators. He pitches for client work on his own. He's settled on 'creative communications' in an attempt to define what he does. He talks to friends who may know someone that is looking for "contractual creative types." And he sends out those "combo functional/chronological" resumes for the all-elusive 9-to-5 job.

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