So far on this blog I have pretty much stayed focused on photography, Photoshop, digital imaging and their respective business aspects. Recently I read an article in the New York Times about Shane Battier “The No-Stats All Star” who gave me a little inspiration. No, he has nothing to do with photography or Photoshop. Throughout his NBA career Shane Battier has been considered “at best, a marginal N.B.A. athlete”. Why? If you look at his stats he just doesn’t look  that great. So why all the recent accolades? Here’s how the article explained it.

“Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win.”

The article goes on to explain how the Houston Rockets were able to recognize his talent by “rethinking the game”. The key was to find new ways to “use statistics to find new and better ways to value players and strategies”. Other sports such as Football and baseball have already been using this method with results to back it up. So why was this an inspiration to me?

Shane Battier is the first NBA player I can relate to (maybe Spud Web since we’re both 5 foot 7 inches tall). He may not have the kind of athletic talent or the “typical” super-star stats of say… Kobe Bryant, but he elevates his entire team with his play. Until recently his contributions were invisible, and it seems he was fine with that.

As a retoucher I have always tried to be “invisible”. The best retouching goes unnoticed. As a business  person, my goal has always been to make our “team” or our clients look good. I’ve never received any personal awards for my work, but our clients have won many awards for projects we/I contributed to- and I’m fine with that… really.

It is a shame that more industries don’t have more people like Daryl Morey and Houston Rockets’ owner, Leslie Alexander who are willing to look beyond the obvious stats. Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would never be hired by the majority of companies today- both of them dropped out of college without a degree. In fact their resumes would probably never reach a human– being filtered out by automated keyword software.

One of my favorite stories about the photo business comes from my friend and former business partner, who was was an exceptional photographer. An ad agency called in his book for a “rice” shoot. He was thinking “great I just did this great shoot for ‘Uncle Ben’s Rice’, I’ll send over some of the shots”. Later he received a call from the art buyer who informed him they needed someone who could shoot “uncooked” rice- since his shots were of “cooked rice” they couldn’t hire him for the job. True story…

So when you approach your business, hire your staff, develop your strategies… how do look at the stats? With the way things are going in today’s economy maybe it’s time to “rethink the game a little”.

Filed under: Editorial, Photography, Tutorial, bill gates, daryl morey, houston rockets, magical ability, nba player, photographer, retoucher, retouching, shane battier