Think. Story. Experience.

New world, old training

I met with graduates of the Miami Ad School today. 

Lots of smart folks...planners, copywriters, art directors. Or so their chosen academic streams labelled them. 

In truth, the world has changed and these guys knew it. The best of them were thinking conceptually, digitally, and experientially...and their passion for advertising (while still clear) was balanced by a passion for bigger, broader, smarter, more innovative and impactful thinking. 

It all just left me wondering why we still insisted on such narrow labels for their talents. 

How to respond to real-time feedback?

Interesting piece on TechCrunch, looking at web responses to the quality of Winter Olympic television coverage. 

We all know that the hyper-connectedness of the modern web-2.0-driven world means that good stories and bad stories alike are getting spread faster and more transparently than ever before...and that organizations are getting real-time feedback on every aspect of their performance. 

A big brand experience challenge for those organizations is going to be figuring out if (and how) to respond to this kind of instant (and, let's be honest, often negatively-skewed) feedback. 

Brands should be respectful acquaintances, not forward friends

A few years ago, my wife and I stayed at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong. 

It's a seriously stylish property and remains one of Hong Kong's more design-forward hotels. It's expensive, aspirational, premium...you get the picture. 

So....why, exactly, would anyone think that I would want to become a 'fan' of this hotel on facebook? I ask because I received an email inviting me to do just that. 

Not only is that horribly forward gesture for a place I have stayed once. But facebook...are they sure?!

I guess that the digital gurus at the Landmark think that I will want to parade my worldly status, increase my social capital, by making my fandom of their hotel public. 

But I won't. And, in the process they have just ensured  that I will tell all my friends that the once stylish Landmark has now gone tacky and mainstream. 

If I were advising the Landmark, I'd be trying to help them find ways to keep in touch with former guests in a relevant, respectful way. And I'm pretty sure that setting up a facebook group would not be how I'd start. 

Or is it just me?

Diverse thinking, not just design thinking, required

I'm slightly late to read and share this, but a smart article by Peter Merholz on how the business world needs to embrace diverse thinking, not just its latest (if important) fad, design thinking.

A constantly changing context

Working in the live experience space I'm always talking about how the world is changing...how the world of online is affecting and shaping and enabling the world of offline...and vice-versa. It's a constant battle to make sense of the changing context and landscape we're all living and working in, and to understand the implications for a bunch of other stuff.

On theat note, I liked the way Charles Saatchi responded to a Guardian interviewer when asked...

Should the country be spending money on saving old masters for the nation, or buying up works by the next generation of artists?

His answer was a perfect example of understanding how a changing environment (travel, wealth, connectedness) requires a changing response...

At the risk of being lynched – again – by the art crowd, I don't think there is a great need any more to save paintings for the nation at the cost of supporting new art. What difference does it make if a Titian is hanging in the National Gallery, the Louvre or the Uffizi? This isn't the 18th century: people travel, so there's no need to be nationalistic about the world's art treasures. Much more important is to back living artists.

Living and working in phases

It will not have gone unnoticed to my (occasional) regular readers that my output has slowed to an almost complete halt over the past few weeks. 

I wondered the other week that the weather and the general humid apathy that seems to descend on New York in summer was to blame. But perhaps it's something more fundamental. 

Perhaps, when I began blogging eleven months ago I was in an intellectual comfort zone. I had begun my third year of working in the same role. I had completed a lengthy apprenticeship in the world of brand experience marketing. And I had lots of learnings and outpourings to share. I was, in other words, in a very blogging-friendly phase of my career. 

Now I find myself in a different situation, a different career phase. One where what I think is being challenged, shaped, and refined daily as I work with new people, on new problems, in new surroundings, and for new clients. 

There's no profound observation here. Other than that perhaps we shouldn't be surprised when not every week, month, or year is the same. Perhaps it should be no shock that we (both as individuals and organisations) often find our priorities and preferences shifting rapidly and unplanned as things move from one phase to the next. 

Life is rarely a democracy

Have a read of this interesting piece by The Guardian's art critic, Jonathan Jones. Titled 'Art criticism is not a democracy', the piece makes two fascinating points relevant to any field...

ONE. Criticism matters. As Jones argues, "iI nothing is properly criticised, mediocrity triumphs".

TWO. No one is going to declare you a critic (or an expert). Instead, it's an exercise in arrogant self-promotion balanced with honest self-assessment. Here's how Jones puts it, "I don't believe my views on film or TV or music are worth anything special. But I do believe – actually I know – that my instinct for what is valuable in art is unusually sure."

I take a simple lesson from this. Everything is worth challenging and criticising, and no one is going to give you the permission to do it. Your choice is whether you want to be someone whose opinion on something matters and what you're going to do about it.

Twitter is kinda pointless shocker!

Did we really need a 15-year-old to tell us this?

This follow-up piece suggests not.

A self-indulgent link

Had a little piece on social media published online by AdAge today.

Destroying the death star

Ok, so I may have been a little hasty and harsh in a conversation earlier today. I told a recent advertising graduate that advertising was dying because it was part of the problem. In fact, think I referred to it as the death star. That was extreme and unfair!

The truth is the problem is not advertising but simply the way too many people think about advertising. Because while it may not always be the problem, it certainly ain't always the solution either.

Like any form of communication, advertising can be a powerful way to solve some strategic problems. But that's exactly the point...some problems.

The task for people who love advertising, who want to defend it, and who want to see it evolve and thrive is to become more subtle in the way they think about the role and strategic application of advertising. 

Because advertising is not the only way to sell more stuff...and sell more stuff is not the only thing advertising can do. You just have to think about it a bit more.