Inspire. Provoke. Excite. Delight.

There are four things a piece of creative work can do. It can inspire. It can provoke. It can excite. It can delight. Manage any one of them and you've earned the attention you were given. Manage none and you've committed the only real sin in this trade.

You were dull.

Dull doesn't announce itself. It doesn't fail loudly. It just slides past — unread, unremembered, unmissed — and takes your budget with it. We put the numbers on exactly what that costs over here, and they are worse than you'd guess.

Dull is the only unforgivable thing. Everything else can be fixed.

The fix is never a bigger budget. It's a decision, made before anything else gets made: to be one of those four things, and to refuse to leave the room until you are. Inspire them. Provoke them. Excite them. Delight them. Pick one and don't settle for less.

A plain scone works. It's solid, it's fine, nobody complains. But plain is easy to walk straight past. The jam and cream is the part you remember — and the part you come back for.