ID Strategy Conference 2006

Mok's Presentation Makes Rounds on Blogoshphere

Clement Mok's presentation has been getting some recent airplay from bloggers outside of the Strategy '06 event:

From Organic's 3 Minds

"Agency 2.0

Earlier this month, the IIT Institute of Design at Chicago hosted its second annual Strategy Conference, billed as a "business conference about design, rather than a design conference about business".  One question on everyone's mind was the future of the advertising agency.

Usually we hear from traditional agency heavyweights like Bob Jeffrey, CEO of JWT. But in this case, the lead voice was Clement Mok, now back at Sapient as Global Director of Design Planning."

From Experience Planner:
"I especially identified with Clemont Mok’s thoughts on this subject. Mr. Mok recently gave a presentation at Strategy Conference. You can download his presentation here [PPT 13 MB] and the accompanying podcast here [M4A 19.4 MB]."

Roger's Ripple Effect II

This is why blogs are becoming so influential in how humans are evolving communications.  Talk about networks.  Roger made his presentation in Chicago and is already getting picked up in the blogoshpere.  In this case, Mark Vanderbeeken's Putting People First (a terrific innovation/design blog).  Mark blogs from Turin Italy—so the Ripple effect has already made it to Europe.

Related comments can also be found on Nussbaum On Design and Logic + Emotion. 
Don't be surprised if video of Roger's presentation shows up on You Tube.  ;)

Snake Oil + Creativity

Clement Mok was absolutely right when he talked about the Advertising business containing “snake oil salesmen”.  He was equally correct when he added that some of the most creative minds work in this industry.  I’m really glad that Clement dared to use the “A-word” at a conference that draws designers, design thinkers, businesspeople and creative problem solvers.  What Clement describes as “Advertising 2.0” is happening in real time—and has been for a while.  And it’s picking up steam in a big way. I like to refer to it as “Marketing 2.0” as that covers a little more broad ground.

Clement referenced two leading shops who are paving the way in this field.  R/GA and Crispin Porter.  They are leading the pack—but there are others right behind them waiting to pick up where traditional advertising has left off.  I’ll name some names: AKQA, Critical Mass, Organic, Avenue A/Razorfish and Digitas (Full disclosure—I work for Digitas).  These are all firms who understand that Marketing has gone from “push” to “pull”.  As Clement beautifully presented in visual format, the next generation of marketing depends heavily on integrated media placement and measurable results.

So—back to the world of IIT, and the intersection of business and design.  Why is this relevant?  The next generation of “marketing firms” are employing creative problem solvers not unlike what IIT produces.  The caveat is that we take these design thinkers and creative problem solvers—then pair them up with copywriters, planners and brand-focused individuals.  Marketing 2.0 is a big deal because it combines brand with experience—resulting in the hypothetical goal of heavily influencing the customer experience across a variety of touch points and channels.

I really enjoyed Clement’s presentation—and the fact that he chose to talk about the next step in advertising.  His deck was beautiful and simple—he brought the value of design to his presentation.  The only thing I thought it was missing was a few examples of what Marketing 2.0 can look like.  So, from my perspective—here are a handful.

Mini Cooper (design an build your Mini)
Nike ID (Customize footwear and clothing—be sure to click customize)
American Express (Consumer generated media)
Shop Composition (Rich shopping experience)
Nikewomen in the news (R/GA vs. 30 second spot)

As someone who sits somewhere between experience design and marketing, I'm glad Clement brought this topic to the IIT venue.

Roger’s Ripple Effect

Similar to ericniu’s last post, our lunch roundtable veered in a similar direction.  The “communication gap” is something we all seem to be struggling with in real time.  I facilitated the session titled “Playing In, Around and Outside of Your Sandbox”—the premise being that firms are increasingly spreading their wings in related areas of expertise.  But what the table all seemed to agree on was that there is a need for “next generation” talent in order to do this.  We're all looking for people who can thrive in interdisciplinary situations and are self-motivated to innovate.

The communication issue is key.  And I agree with the notion of creating a safe environment to help facilitate this dialogue—we need to do more here.  Authentic collaboration is not neat and clean.  It’s messy business.  But with the right kind of environment and communication techniques, it can happen.  Innovation only comes from the collaboration of interdisciplinary teams, even if the spark starts with an individual.

Back to our roundtable, we had a mix of folks from such diverse firms as Marriot, Closerlook, Ecco Design, Pathfinder and Doblin—but what we all had in common was this issue.  How to get our teams to work this way—and what type of individual is needed at the ground level vs. the top tiers.

I see this in my practice as well (Experience Design for an interactive agency)—we have traditional copywriters, brand strategists, interaction designers, technologists, project managers and marketing people all mixing it up.  Talk about messy.  But on the rare occasion when we get to authentic collaboration—great things happen.  I put together a simple visual model to illustrate the pieces that come from this collaboration—“T-Shaped Creativity”.  T-Shaped Creativity is only possible when commincation is happening—the pieces that make up the "T" don't come from one person.

So a huge thanks to Roger for calling out the “elephant in the room”.  It’s not enough to cheer on innovation—we need to figure out how to create environments where it can actually happen.

4:20 Bruce Nussbaum, Business Week

3:45 Measuring value: Mok, Redenbaugh, Davis, Alexis, Benjamin

2:30 Jeremy Alexis, ID & Cynthia Benjamin

2:00 Russell_Redenbaugh, Kairos Fund & Natalia Davis Kairos Fund

11:20 Clement Mok

11:10 Doug Look