Learnings from Planning-ness

Planning-ness, the 2 day event organized by Mark Lewis (of DDB) to fill the gap and disappointment left by the cancellation of this year's AAAA's Account Planning conference, is over. And it was a huge success. The theme was "Get excited and make things", we had amazing speakers, great energy and most importantly just plain FUN!

Below are some of the themes that resonated with me the most:

DAY 1

Grant McCracken's notion of Corporation Respiration: breathing culture in and out.

David Brown on making documentaries: the key is the story and its compelling characters, casting will be critical and spending time with the actors will dramatically improve results.

Mary Jane Stevenson and Emily Duncan from "Organizing for America" presented narrative as an organization tool in grassroots movements and storytelling as the most powerful weapon in creating connections and engaging all kinds of audiences.

Ken Eklund, creator of many ARG including "World without Oil", on the importance of the state of play, experimentation and collaboration.

I was very thankful for the opportunity to volunteer at the event and very glad to see the Academy of Art University getting involved in this kind of events. This was all thanks to Cameron Maddux, faculty and director of Account Planning, who is promoting the importance of ART in advertising, business and schools.
RIGHT: At the Barrel House photo from Cameron.

Inspired at Influx Curated

Last Thursday it was BSSP's Ed Cotton's Influx Curated Conference : 30 speakers. 5 minutes each, the brief: to inspire.

The following are the most resonaning moments:

1. Kanyi Maqubela from Virgance and his Mobs for Good

2. Joshua Brody from On your Feet and "Stand by me". He made a case that we underestimate ourselves: "Nobody expected to come here and sing, yet you were asked to and you did it, beautifully and in harmony"

3. Paul Kim from Mozilla and his idea of "overrated surprise"

4. Mark Barden from Eat Big Fish and the power of YES. Jelly Helm (StudioJelly) later elaborated on this notion from the perspective of someone who has been in Advertising.

5. Gary Hirsch also from On your Feet and the importance of the audience and the idea of incompleteness to allow co-creation. "Allow room for interpretation, don't try to control all"

6. Jennifer Pahilka (Web 2.0) says brands will success when they become a platform for something (just like the web did).

Some of the themes or macro trends that continue to be preeminent are:

1. Collaboration, constructivism and co-creation
2. Narrative, and the importance of creating a connection through Storytelling
3. Ying-Yang, a balance of optimism and pessimism, understanding the power of Yes and the power of No
4. The rise and fall of Advertising as a creative industry
5. Designers are becoming social activists

We are living in challenging times, there is amazing opportunity if we learn to defy our culture of fear and a number of invisible rules.

on documentaries

insights captured using video as a vehicle to story-telling and using big wave riding as vehicle to capture the spirit of surf

moving