Finally getting round to post what's going on here during the first two days at the APG conference in San Diego. Much better coverage by Mark over here, Zeus Jones here and Aki here , but here are a few thoughts.
Missed a few of the main sessions unfortunately including the fantastic Sir Ken Robinson who is getting stellar reviews. You can see his talk at TED below where he focuses on the importance of creativity in education.
Eric Ryan of Method was fantastic talking about the brand and the company. Shows what planners can do with real conviction and courage and in the world outside ad agencies. Very inspiring. I found his focus on company culture really fascinating and powerful - his point (and I believe he's right) is everything flows from this so focus on it (especially when you are a true challenger in a category of big, established, 'old' brands). Also was very good at challenging the rather passive nature of most client/agency relationships.
Lots of good breakouts that I've seen so far (and heard about), including a very good session for department heads by Tim Williams of Ignition Consulting on the role for planners in ensuring agencies get paid for value creation not time spent (or polyboard produced) . Couldn't sadly catch Ed and Aki talking about the impact of blogging on planners and agencies, Adam Morgan and Mark Barden on what innovation really means, or Domenico Vitale on the importance of belief which I'm sure were brilliant (and much better than what Mark and I did) but sadly clashed with the time slot we had to present.
Managed luckily to see two very good sessions. Rob and Adrian from Zeus Jones were brilliant on how change in business requires change in marketing and therefore change in planning. Mark Earls was great on how planners need to stop being so 'clever' and self-important and realize that we're part of a team working in a very different marketing culture. Hopefully he'll post some of his very funny youtube clips.
Both of them have pointed out that a lot of the breakouts seem to point to some convergence on much needed new ways of thinking and doing in planning. The need to challenge the outdated assumptions, thinking and actions that characterize the great majority of planning today. So much so that four of the breakout sessions at Mark's prompting all included the same slide of a quote from one of the co-creators of planning Stephen King who in 1997 voiced his disquiet at how little account planning had changed in the 30 years since it's birth - "I'm just surprised that no-one's thought of a better idea (about planning) yet."
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