I originally wrote this blog entry for the Central Penn Business Journal’s “View from the Corner Office” (a quality blog featuring weekly guest entries from central PA business leaders), but thought it deserved some space here too:

In an advertising agency setting, the talented and lucky ones who create the ads (or just about anything else that requires an artistic eye or written word) are called creatives and they, by default, are all part of the creative department.

My own background is as a creative, but I’ve never been a fan of the title. That’s because I believe the power to be creative and think creatively shouldn’t rest with one group of people. It’s not fair to the creatives (they’re already over worked, which is why they get to wear jeans and Chuck Taylors around the office), but it also limits the powers of creative expression and the creative expectations of those not in the “creative department.

Now I realize it’s just a word or a title and maybe I’m getting too wrapped up in the semantics of it all, but my point is this: Everyone in every company is a creative. From HR to marketing, and from the CEO to the new accounting intern. This can be applied on a company wide level (try it and see what happens), but it can also be applied on a regional level to mean that every business and enterprise in central Pennsylvania has the power to generate ideas and solutions capable of solving whatever economic obstacles we may face.

After all, ideas are the new commerce, and thinking should not only come from “creatives, it should be expected from everyone. And the sooner we, as the leaders of this creative revolution, can break down the walls that limit this creativity, the sooner we can trade our pant suits and tasseled loafers for jeans and Chuck Taylors.

Every year the Central Penn Business Journal releases its list of the “The 50 Fastest Growing Companies in the region. Pavone has made the list in six of the last eight years, but the thinkbank didn’t make the cut this time around, despite having a great year in terms of fiscal and physical growth (the competition must have been fierce, which is good news for the region’s economy).

The annual awards got me thinking about the growth of our staff over the last several months and how lucky we’ve been to add so many talented professionals to our roster.

It’s not always easy to attract talent from larger markets (in fact, it’s never easy). Late last year we were able to score what might be one of central Pennsylvania’s best “large market hiring coups in a long time with the hiring of our new executive creative director, Alan Blose. As most of you already know, Alan comes to us with 24 years of advertising experience at big agencies in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Hong Kong and brand experience that includes BMW, Volkswagen, Citibank and Kraft.

So go ahead and ask. What in the world did we do to convince him (or anyone else) to trade life in the big city for a career in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania? Well, the fact that we’re the fastest growing agency in the region always helps. But for me, the biggest equalizers between big city companies and those in out-of-the-way areas like Harrisburg are the quality of a company’s work and the passion of its people.

Combine those two factors, and it all comes down to one thing: potential. And when you’ve got near limitless potential to grow, to create, to win, to do anything—attracting smart, talented people suddenly becomes a whole lot easier.