More Planning-ness thoughts

After a totally insane journey to Europe (24 hours in a hotel in Newark included), I've had a chance to collect some thoughts and read some discussions on what this get together could/should be.

There's always a temptation at an event to go for a big overarching theme or way of organizing events like this, even if no one knows that topic when they show up e.g. Bar Camp. >But with many different type of people needing slightly different things from a conference, this seems to be a sure way to annoy more people than you please. It also seems a bit unnecessary - why not have multiple types of sessions for people to choose from (even if that means limiting the numbers).

So I've posted a few discussion threads suggested by various people here. They include sessions such as:

a) short sessions presenting, shaping and/or debating genuinely new ideas and approaches.

b) offering up your "trade craft" in exchange for someone else's (but all trading is done in public)

c) how to workshops on topics tangentially related to planning

d) open space sessions

This will all work if we can genuinely practice what we preach to brands - giving a little in order to get something in return.

Planning-ness 2009

So it sounds like all the creative strategists want an inspiring, instructive get together - which means something nothing like a typical conference.

Great - I'm in. And from all the comments below, on Facebook and Twitter it seems like a few others may be as well.

Here are a few thoughts and outcomes from some of the discussions and comments I've seen/had today:

a) Crowd sourcing ideas for how we organize it, where we do and who we invite seems like a good idea - but it needs some kind of co-ordinating group. So I've started a Planning-ness 2009 Facebook group to help us collect feedback and comments. It just seems like a better place to get input and ideas from a big group than this blog, and I'm hoping that people will not mind being volunteered to help do the actual co-ordinating

b) The idea of making this get together instructional - teaching people how to do stuff or think about issues - seems to be interesting.

Adrian made the excellent point that we need to approach the this get together strategically - there are a lot of interesting conferences out there. how is this different?

My (very) personal criteria for success would be to walk away feeling both inspired and that I can do something new - a new skill, approach, took etc. That kind of teaching happens in a hands on way - where we all join in.

c) Having a service component.

As with all good things, it seems really obvious now. But in this economy, with this President, it would be rude not to do something for others.

I would also love to have a brand set up a problem to solve - something for us to pitch in the way Planning for Good has done in the past. Are you there Google etc. ???

d) Logistics

OK - there's not much agreement here, but we will sort that out. That being said, it seems much more interesting to do this i our own time, on a weekend, crashing in people's houses (I still haven' given up the camping idea btw)rather than making it formal.


Lee and others have also talked about creating a brief for the conference. I'm not going to deign to write the whole thing (since most a lot of it is covered in this post and the last one), but I think the objective is clear:

Create a gathering of creative strategists that inspires and engages them, mentally and physically .

The rest is up for discussion

No Planning Conference - what are you going to do about it?

So the planning conference has been canceled - on reflection not to much of a surprise in the face of the economy. Still, I see they have not canceled Cannes this year.

It is easy to write of the planning conferences as a little bit navel gazing and repetitious, but this is probably because the conference has not caught up to the online conversation that goes on the rest of the year. But writing things off in that way goes against the philosophy we are all talking about in marketing - it's about what you do not what you say.

This is the opportunity to reinvent/supercede the planning conference. As Adrian and Gareth tweeted earlier, maybe it's not a conference at all. So here are some of my thoughts of what I/we could organize. This is not an idle post - if enough people are interested I'll put the work in....but it would be much better to crowdsource it.

So....


a) Where: an in person gathering has a real value - we all no casual unexpected conversations add huge value and can't replace online chat completely. In that case I would still suggest meeting in SF where the weather is nicer in the fall (organizing something new in August is asking for trouble). Still, using a Skype/oovoo/Facebook broadcast system with chat might well work.

b) For who: We're now pretty sure agencies are not going to pay for planners to go to a conference. So lets organize something for planners as people (which isn't that different than their professional selves). Lets make it on the weekend and make it attractive to creative/strategic minded people across industries.

c) What: the biggest question! Do we really want a conference? On a very personal level, I would like to have a live version of Howcast - people from various discplines conducting workshops teaching how to do things like run a successful political lobbying campaign, tell a story, evaluate a screenplay etc. The idea would be to start with one person's process and that have the group improve the process or add thoughts to add to the learning.

It would also be interesting to add/curate a performance component to this event - music, art and design that reflect interesting areas of cultural development.

When I step back this may be starting to sound like a bit of a planner's Burning Man. Bu that wouldn't suck to badly.

a reminder

In Cannes this week I would be very surprised if the Obama campaign did not win a Lion for its work during the election campaign. But it's worth remembering that they have not stopped and rested on their laurels. Ture to the edict that it's the dialogue that counts, they have continually and evolved their work to support ongoing legislation.

The picture above is from the President's work to gather support for health care reform By curating stories of the desperation people feel without healthcare, his organization has not only created a huge amount o content that will pop up in search, but also a banquet of stories that both feed the press and make people feel heard.

Maker Faire

The DIY trend is well and truly re-established in America. And by DIY I don't mean all of us who go down to Lowe's or Home Depot every weekend in an attempt to save money on home projects (that end up costing us more half the time anyway). I mean the art/skill of building, hacking or re-constructing things - anything - your self.

Its an art that started with shade tree mechanics and in fact most people who owned a car in the 1950's. In fact, the ethos of self-reliance, responsibility (for keeping one's own things working well) and invention are core American values (think how far lewis and Cark would have gotten without them). Now, with the help of media like MAKE and Howcast they are being pushed into technology and art - but in a way that is more accessible than at any other time.

As a man with two self confessed left hands one of the things I enjoyed about the Faire was that they were projects Aidan and I could feasibly do. OK, maybe the robot ones were a bit far fetched but the 100 bottles of Diet Coke and 600 Mentos were well within our reach. But that, after all, is the promise of the web - open learning, knowledge sharing and the ability to mess with stuff. Which means if there is a maker Faire near you - you have to check it out.



Playcrafter is a website where you can build your own gmes, level by level. Best of all, it's free (or at least the basic level is). They provide the tools - you sequence the action and build the challenges.







Orbiting Eden make handbags with digital photo frames embedded in them. Perfect for mums who like to show off their offspring (or pets) at a moment's notice.



Moto Development Group displayed a huge flat, touch screen sensor table. They had set it up for Blackjack and it worked fairly well (after you got used to how hard to press it. Everyone was wnet nuts when Microsoft showed a prototype of somethign similar - this was just ok. Has te iPhone just made us used to touch screens?

Apart from this were some fantastic sculptures and of course, 2 guys, 102 botles of Diet Coke, and 600 mentos!!


















This was a fully working giraffe robot - very cool piece of work but crap photo by me.

Stop H Commerce

One of the most common strategic tricks is to create or name an enemy. Giving them a face or a persona gives your consumer something to compare you against or gives your company a target to exercise their vision against.

McAfee's enemy is/are hackers. But most people don't ever think they will be hacked. So DDB is helping McAfee put a face on hacking and show them what is really going on. Rather than spend money on advertising, the agency have filmed a series of webisodes unveiling that world to everyone out there.

The first episode is above, produced with Moxie and directed by Seth Gordon (King of Kong, Four Christmases). You can find more at www.stophcommerce.com

twitter serendipity

I've written several times before about the power of randomness and serendipity to provide new information about a brand. Now that serendipity has made its way to SMS. Secret Message Service is a way for people to share secrets anonymously via text - sort of a PostSecret crossed with Twitter. Most of the responses have been in French (the site is run by a blogger in Paris) but one could easily see it spreading to English.

While not using the Twitter platform currently, this type of site brings up an interesting question - is it valuable to people in some situations to follow those they don't know, even if just out of curiosity?

Brands that will die

GM have announced that they will shutter the Pontiac brand. Obviously, the company needed to shutter some of its operations in order to survive and Pontiac's cars have always been lacking. But, then again, that is true of many of the GM brands. Which makes the choice of Pontiac a little surprising. Pontiac is the one of the strongest muscle car brands because it was accessible. People in the 1970's could go an get a Pontiac, work on it themselves and make it better. Not something that was ever true of Buick.

Pontiac will surely not be the last well known brand to die in this recession. in fact, here is a list of 12 more that financially, are about to topple.

Any other nominations?