Mark Lewis and his Planning-ness brought at the University brilliant minds from different industries, interesting planners from all over the world, and an atmosphere of great passion.
It all started on Friday at 8:45 with "How to build culture into an organization" by Chief Culture Officer Grant Mccracken, his description of the Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta set the start of probably the most insightful talk of the weekend. His belief that corporations should look at culture as a key point for the brand was supported by examples taken from Quaker, Levi-Strauss, and Best Buy's mistakes. His new book Chief Culture Officer is available and highly recommended.
A-
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My second favorite workshop was "How to save the world" [or better "Where idealism meets pragmatism"] held by Max Schorr, co-founder of GOOD magazine.
Based on The Awesomeness Manifesto
- ethical production [Cradle2Cradle]
- insanely great stuff [iPhone]
- love
- thick value
Max's workshop challenged participants to break up in groups and come up with an idea for a business that would "code" the awesomeness' pillars to wall street
- growth
- return on capital
- risk management
- management quality
An SROI [social return on investment] tied with ROI.
How virtue creates value for business and society.
Our group came up with an idea that we called community banks. We thought, what if big banks such as Bank of America opened community banks in places where people don't have easy access to checking accounts. It would be driven by a franchising model, where BoA would buy a corner at a 7 Eleven for example and educate locals to bank in a smarter and safer way. We noticed how many people did not have bank accounts, and this idea would give communities access, education, and trust in banking. Moreover, the cost for the bank would be close to zero, the growth would be exponential, and local "bankers" could interact with consumers better due to a closer understanding of their culture and language.
B+
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Same awesomeness level was Adrian's and Rob's "How to plan in the 21st Century".
The two guys from Zeus Jones touched points that I had the chance to talk with students and professionals during these last months. The need of new tools for planners to adapt with the new advertising/branding/marketing era.
After a quick preview on Modern Branding,
Modern Brands V1
View more documents from Zeus Jones.
Here is the result after less than 5 minutes:
Rob then split the audience in groups based on month of birth, and asked to think about a new "tool" that would replace the ones on the board.
This is what we, March group, came up with
March Making Planners Doers
View more presentations from Zeus Jones.
I suggest to watch the other months' ideas as well at Zeus' Blog.
B+
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I wish I could give a brief recap to all the other talks attended, but I prefer to keep it short.
However, I recommend to take a look at the great presentation from Gareth Kay and Jason Oke on Connections Planning in 2009, and read the article written by Gareth. My favorite point of this presentation was "to learn from other disciplines that create meaningful interactions"; dear old symphonic thinking.
Nick Baum on "How to design a successful application" where I had the lucky chance to work on a group project for Google Chrome with Mark, Max, and a great AKQA's web/interactive designer;
Ken Eklund, game director of WorldWithoutOil, I loved his concept of "If you want to change the future, play with it first";
Joe Lambert and the power of great stories. In his late and super brief workshop, Joe fascinated us with two easy yet powerful exercise and asked volunteers to share such stories. Wish he stayed longer;
and finally but great, Stephanie Redeiner from The Talent Business, who made us wonder about what we really want from our lives, and how can the job we choose help us find those desires.
Finally, thanks again to Mark for organizing it, Cameron for hosting it and all the participants for a great weekend of insights and fun.
I can't wait for the next one, in the meanwhile...let the drummer kick it!
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