Building a Butterfly Superhighway

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One of the unexpected joys of aging is re-connecting with people you knew years earlier and discovering that you have more in common now.

I recently met up with Toby Barlow at the Crosby Hotel over tea. Toby is based in Detroit where he founded an award-winning advertising agency called Lafayette American.

I’ve known Toby since the 1980s when we both attended St. John’s College in Santa Fe. We reconnected in recent years, bonding over shared interests in business, writing and communications.

Toby is a Mad Man. He worked at WPP for many years leading the Ford account. He has also helped create ads for Absolut Vodka, Barnes & Noble, The Sundance Channel, De Beers Diamonds, Kleenex, and Doctors Without Borders.

He’s also a Renaissance Man. While working full time, he managed to find the mental space to write two books, Sharp Teeth, a horror thriller, and Babayaga, which blends Russian folklore with Cold War intrigue.

The day we met up he had just flown in from Detroit and headed straight to MoMa to catch Christian Markley’s exhibit, “The Clock,” a 24-hour video art installation composed of thousands of film and television clips where timepieces or references to time are mentioned.

Toby said Lafayette American had a great year, winning a Small Agency of the Year award from Ad Age. One standout project for the firm was rebranding the Toledo Museum of Art to tackle the challenge of getting people back to institutions post-COVID. The approach doubled neighborhood visitors.

The other thing that meeting up with Toby reminded me was how much potential we all have for growth. I think when I was younger I assumed that you get more and more narrow as you drill into your career.

In addition to his agency work, he’s a big advocate for his adopted hometown of Detroit, serving on an an advisory committee for the Michigan Central’s renovation efforts.

Toby’s a good role model for expanding your horizons because he always has new projects percolating.

Currently, he is working on building a “Butterfly Superhighway” across America. As part of that, he’s trying to get people to plant more milkweed, the Monarch Butterfly’s only food. And to do that, he’s trying to change the name of milkweed so it sounds less terrible!

You can Google the website to see a couple dozen suggestions for new names ranging from Butterfly Brunch to Monarch Milk. There is also an option to submit your own.

Toby’s headed to Mexico City in January if you happen to find yourself in CDMX and want to talk advertising, literature or Monarch butterflies. Hit him up via LinkedIn.

I guarantee that he’ll expand your horizons.

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