When I was in business school, we produced about one financial model a week. I often wondered what business school must have been like for one of my mentor’s, Jerry Speyer, who attended the same school, Columbia Business School, in the 1960s. How did they produce spreadsheets on actual spreadsheets? Similarly, my father wrote what few papers he wrote in college using carbon paper, typewriters, and when he splurged on hired typists. And what of Mad Men who have the luxury of napping and drinking while copy is being set?

I led a session for our team today called “quick and dirty mocks for clients.” My goal is for our team to be able to mock up customized ad programs for brands in under 60 minutes; for both our destination site and the Viral Network. Clients want the general idea quickly. Polishing and smooth edges are for when the order is set and the program is to be put in place. In a quick and dirty mock, there are no errors, but there is also no polish. It’s a sketch, it’s an idea, it’s a back of the envelope calculation. Which brings be to rough estimation. If you can’t do the business math on the back of an envelope to size an opportunity or deal, you’re using false precisions or overcomplicating. False precision is the devil in every financial forecast. The only thing that works is linear growth extrapolations for a 6 month period, and rough hacks for years out. But why quick and dirty and why back of the envelope? Technology has allowed for much greater speed and precision of production. In a business school semester, students now produce 12 financial models per semester with greater precision than the single model our predecessors in the 60s turned out. The speed and volume is now a force that there is no going against. Columbia Business School wants a model a week from it’s students. In business the quickest, most responsive, and productive have an edge. A partner recently apologized to me for firing 5 emails with 5 ad plan revisions in a hour, my response, “Keep it coming, how else we get the deal done?” Don Draper pitches Life Cereal (while drunk) with a single pitch board that probably took days to produce. Rather than use the technology of today to produce 40 slides for Life, use the technology to produce 40 great client ideas, each just a few slides. If the client doesn’t like it with one slide, he or she won’t like it with 20. Further, no one spends as much time with your documents as they used to. Instead of 4 interoffice memos, it’s 1500 emails, docs, and ppts. Still no room for slop and carelessness but quick and designed for a 5 minute glance. And with that, point made, and I’ll end.