{"id":2826,"date":"2022-06-02T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T03:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2024-05-02T08:37:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T14:37:08","slug":"creative-legend-john-cherry-leaves-deep-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/creative-legend-john-cherry-leaves-deep-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative legend John Cherry leaves deep legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

On May 8,\u00a0Nashville lost one of its most creative legends.<\/p>\n

John Cherry (aka \u201cBuster\u201d) may not be as well-known as the country music stars who many typically associate with Nashville. And he was never a part of Nashville\u2019s flourishing healthcare industry. But, for many old-school Nashvillians, Buster\u2019s influence was profound.<\/p>\n

Co-founder of the advertising firm Carden & Cherry, Buster was the creator of Ernest P. Worrell character\u00a0played by actor and comedian Jim Varney who starred in over 4,000 \u201cHey Vern\u201d commercials throughout the country.<\/p>\n

Long-time Nashvillians will remember the Ernest commercials\u00a0that were made for Purity Dairies, but the lovably clueless character pitched everything from banks to theme parks and eventually grew into a cultural phenomenon. With Ernest\u2019s catch phrase, \u201cKnowhutImean,\u201d Carden & Cherry became one the most successful ad agencies in the southeast.<\/p>\n

I was first introduced to Buster through my cousin who worked for Carden & Cherry in the mid-90s. It took only a few minutes to recognize that Buster was a character like no other. Casual, creative, humble, funny, and kind. He had a way of instantly becoming a trusted friend.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the early 2000s that I got a chance to work with Buster when he hired our website development firm to help him build a rather complex website. Like any project with multiple moving parts, dependencies, and deadlines, getting to the launch date was not easy.<\/p>\n

With the entire team under some pressure to deliver, Buster\u2019s communication and leadership style taught me some important lessons about both business and life.<\/p>\n

Those lessons I learned from Buster all those years ago are now part of my \u201cKnowhutImean\u201d List:<\/p>\n

Be radically genuine<\/strong>. Leaders who are genuine are effective because they enable everyone around them to be themselves without shame or anxiety. This not only reduces conflict and keeps a project centered, but it\u2019s also motivating.<\/p>\n

Be respectful<\/strong>. If you disagree with someone, do it respectfully 100% of the time. Buster once told me, \u201cNever raise your voice to improve your argument.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creativity is not just for artists<\/strong>. In the tech world I work in, many of us naturally gravitate to logic. Buster was a prolific painter who was able to apply creativity to business. Thinking of myself as creative instead of logical has made me a better software developer and businessperson.<\/p>\n

Address problems early<\/strong>. This seems like an obvious one but before I met Buster, I often found myself falling victim to \u201canalysis paralysis\u201d while a problem on a project festered. Observing his approach of erring on the side of good and quick solutions versus perfect and slow solutions helped our company become nimbler.<\/p>\n

Befriend coworkers<\/strong>. There need not be a boundary around being friends with coworkers.\u00a0There\u2019s an unwritten rule that your work life and personal life must be two separate things.\u00a0Buster had a lot of close friends, many of whom are people he worked with.<\/p>\n

Buster will be missed but his influence on Nashville and those who knew him will endure, know what I mean?<\/p>\n

JJ Rosen is the founder of Atiba. A Nashville custom software development and IT support<\/a> company. \u00a0Visit www.atiba.com or www.atibanetworkservices.com for more info.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean. On May 8,\u00a0Nashville lost one of its most creative legends. John Cherry (aka \u201cBuster\u201d) may not be as well-known as the country music stars who many typically associate with Nashville. And he was never a part of Nashville\u2019s flourishing healthcare industry. But, for many old-school Nashvillians, Buster\u2019s influence was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atiba-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}