Don’t be the James Franco of corporate communications

Then I saw the one-man show, “Bring Me the Head of James Franco, That I May Prepare a Savory Goulash in the Narrow and Misshapen Pot of His Skull” by Chicago actor Ian Belknap.

Now I have a new opinion: He’s terrible. (Franco, that is, not Belknap.)

Belknap went on a two-hour rant, complete with a PowerPoint presentation, showing the audience that Franco’s work—his several graduate degrees, his poetry, his novels, his performance art—is all for “show.” He’s masking himself as an artist. He’s not creating art for the sake of creating art. He’s creating art so that we’ll all pay more attention to him.

OK, OK—enough. This post isn’t supposed to be my mini-diatribe about how I agreed with the playwright; it’s supposed to be about how you can avoid being the James Franco of your marketing department.

Bear with me.

One of the best parts about the play was when Belknap took a moment to explain the difference between amateurs and dilettantes. An amateur is someone who has a passion for their craft and does it because the love for their craft inspires them to keep working at it.