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I've started hanging around coffeehouses with a twentysomething student named Leslie. Born and bred in San Francisco, Leslie finished a major in psychology only to realize she'd rather not be a psychologist. What she really wants to do is cover the news, maybe someday writing about companies like yours. I meet her each week over lattés to offer advice on her reporting assignments for class. In return, she helps me understand what kind of salvation students like her hope to find in the media trenches these days. Ironically, the reason I have time to help Leslie with her deadlines is that I've abdicated my own. After nearly eight years, I decided it's time to leave the cozy confines of Adweek and exercise my vocabulary in other ventures. Mentoring Leslie is part of it. There's also a book about health and fitness waiting to be written. Corporate life will just have to wait. Covering the ad game and its personalities—both real and make-believe—has certainly been addictive. Louie, the Budweiser lizard, is probably my all-time favorite character, although plenty of flesh-and-blood eccentrics come in a close second. (A personal revelation: People with the genius to breathe life into a brand almost never use inanimate terms like branding. Or integration.) In the early years, I was amazed at how illogical parts of the business seemed. Now I take it for granted that an agency that is a master at promoting a certain type of product can have only one client that sells it. That most assignments have to be won in elaborate contests where shops offer their most valuable asset—ideas—for free. That the creative lifeblood of this field is made up largely of a bunch of youngish white guys with remarkably limited life experience. Yet it all seems to work. What still astonishes me about advertising is the megatons of talent, energy, time and money that are spent expressing the most simple idea. Lee Clow pushing a new combination of tortillas and beans. Cliff Freeman introducing an extra-large pizza. The late Howard Gossage, San Francisco's ad guru and philosopher, often described what you all do as "wielding a multibillion-dollar hammer to hit a 39-cent thumbtack." He was also convinced that advertising and marketing should offer the audience a positive experience. TV ads, sponsorships, event promotions and direct mail don't have to annoy, trick or bore people, do they? I found life here at Adweek to be well-tuned to the vagaries and vola tility of the field we cover. Rarely—make that never—has my virtual newsroom been a neat, tidy or dull environment in which to toil. I'll miss that. And I'm afraid the freedom the magazine affords bumbling writers like me to chase down stories has probably spoiled me forever. Back when I was in Leslie's shoes, coming of age in another uncertain era, I was hooked on author Douglas Adams' wacky Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. What could be more appropriate for both our times? Creatures exploring the universe after Earth is destroyed to make way for a space highway. So, in taking my leave as Adweek's roving reporter, I borrow my tagline from the title of one of Adams' books: "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

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Joan Voight

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Joan Voight