An ongoing, always-in-beta speaker series co-sponsored by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association.
On Monday, March 8 Faris Yakob (@faris), the former Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson NYC, will be talking about what technology actually is [and what his job was], why it scares people, why everything changes this year, how advertising has to adapt to a post-scarcity media environment, and what cultural latency is.
Prior to McCann, Faris was the Senior Strategist and Digital Ninja at Naked Communications; a Speaker at the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium; and a Strategic Media Planner at OMD.
This is our second event in the third season of Conversations About The Future Of Advertising. As usual, we'll be conversing at theFine Line Music Cafe,318 First Avenue North in Minneapolis.
The event is free. No RSVP required. Just show up.
Doors open at 5:00pm. Faris' presentation starts at 6:00pm—sponsored by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association.
This is how we'll kick-off the third season of Conversations About The Future Of Advertising—with an impassioned presentation by Edward Boches(@edwardboches), Chief Creative Officer/Chief Social Media Officer, MULLEN (Boston) on his personal evolution as an agency leader in the face of historic change.
Edward believes everything has changed, but the real change is the individual's new power, influence, participation and control: both as a consumer and individual.
So, what does that mean for agencies and marketers in 2010? Edward will speak from 20+ years as an national agency creative director and executive on the classic innovator's dilemma—how do you change into something new without losing the value of something established?
All this and more will be wrestled to the ground on Monday, February 8, 2010 at the Fine Line Music Cafe 318 First Avenue North in Minneapolis.
The event is free. No RSVP required. Just show up.
Doors open at 5:00pm. Edward's presentation starts at 6:00pm—sponsored by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association.
BIO: Edward is one of Mullen’s four original partners. Over the last 26 years he has helped define the agency’s creative standards, established its public relations group, integrated digital design and production into all of the agency’s operations, and most recently launched its growing social media practice. The latter -- comprised of strategy, PR, content and analytics -- is both a department and a mindset working to master marketing in the new consumer-driven world. Along the way, Edward has been an award winning copywriter, a celebrated creative director, and a never-ending advocate for ideas that build businesses. His work has introduced new brands (Nextel, Monster.com, Lending Tree, Oxygen Media) and invigorated established companies (Timberland, GM Credit Card, Stanley, Four Seasons). During his tenure, Mullen has grown from a 12-person creative boutique to one of the country’s top 25 agencies, with 600 people in four offices. Edward is also the Editor in Chief of TheNextGreatGeneration.com.
The insights will be deep and useful. The subject-matter diverse and relevant. The conversation inspiring and pragmatic. Here's the initial line-up for the 2010 Conversations About The Future Of Advertising speaker series. (We'll ultimately have four dates in all.)
Each sessions will occur, once again, on Monday evenings (doors at 5:00 p.m., events start at 6:00 p.m.) at the Fine Line Music Cafe on First Avenue North in Minneapolis.
Edward is one of Mullen’s four original partners. Over the last 26 years he has helped define the agency’s creative standards, established its public relations group, integrated digital design and production into all of the agency’s operations, and most recently launched its growing social media practice. Edward also acts as chief advocate for TheNextGreatGeneration.com and speaks frequently on the merits of crowdsourcing.
As Chief Technology Strategist, Faris is tasked with helping to work out how brands, people and technology can play better together. Before his current position, he spent 5 years being the Digital Ninja at communication strategy agency Naked Communications. As a strategist Faris has worked on brands such as Sony, Google, Yahoo!, Nestle and Virgin Mobile, in Sydney, London and New York. Faris regularly writes about brands, media, communications and technology for Fast Company, Contagious Magazine and Forbes.
At Droga5, Hashem works with brands to shape their digital marketing and helps to keep the agency and its creative work ahead by tapping into the latest innovations in technology, media and the web. Before joining D5, Hashem was Digital Strategy Director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. In 2007, Hashem was the youngest person to be named in AdAge’s “40 Under 40 to Watch”.
As Chief Digital Officer for TBWA Worldwide, Colleen is responsible for developing and implementing a global digital strategy throughout the TBWA network. Her areas of expertise range from digital postproduction and motion-graphics design to creative campaign development across digital platforms. Prior to joining TBWA, DeCourcy served as Chief Experience Officer at JWT, and as the Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at Organic. Colleen was the Cyber Lions Jury President at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2008.
Thank you, everyone who turned out, brought co-workers, clients and friends and helped spread the word. We live in an amazing community here in the Twin Cities, in large part due to your willingness to turn out and participate.
UPDATE: Video recap from the event is embedded below (scroll down). Thanks to all who turned out! It was another great crowd. Thanks especially to Matt from MIMA for the cupcakes.
This is it! Our final speaker for the 2009 series is Michael Lebowitz, CEO of Big Spaceship. He'll be joining us this coming Monday, May 11 from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. (doors open at 5:00 p.m.) at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis.
No RSVP required. Admission is free.
Michael founded Big Spaceship in 2000. An architect and board member of SoDA (the Society of Digital Agencies), he is also a member of AIGA's Visionary Design Council and the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences.
An innovation-led digital creative agency, Big Spaceship partners with brands to create deeply engaging experiences, products and relationships. Telling stories and starting conversations across the digital landscape, the company has garnered many accolades for its work, including One Show, Clio, Webby and Cannes Lion awards. Big Spaceship holds more FWAs than any other firm and was the first American agency inducted into the FWA's Hall of Fame. Big Spaceship's work for Epson, Sony Pictures, HBO, OfficeMax, Adobe, Corona, NBC Universal, Ford, Target, Royal Caribbean, Nike, Coca-Cola and LG demonstrate a strong breadth of strategic thinking, creativity and production in the digital space.
On Monday, Michael will speak on "Living in a Post-Advertising World." He'll touch on getting rid of the mindset of making "ads that people will love" and focusing, instead, on an understanding of creating a value exchange between brands and their audiences. Michael will also talk about the major infrastructure issues facing advertisers and agencies—noting these challenges encourage opportunistic thinking: "Never waste a good crisis." Finally, he'll discuss shifting from campaign thinking to persistent strategy that affords us the ability to make products and experiences of incredible value.
Don't miss this final event in our 2009 series. Michael's presentation promises great insights, examples and inspiration. Bring your friends and co-workers!
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Here's the recap video of Michael's presentation from MIMA Live (Michael's presentation begins about eight minutes in):
UPDATE: What a great crowd last night! We had around 200 show up. The video of David's presentation is embedded at the end of this post.
David Armano, newly Senior Partner at Dachis Corp (previously VP Experience Design at Critical Mass), and blogger at Logic+Emotion, will be joining us Monday, April 27 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (doors open at 5:00 p.m.) at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis.
The event is free. No RSVP required.
David graduated from the Pratt Institute, studying computer graphics and visual communication, before starting a 14-year career in digital marketing and experience design. He's held creative and strategic leadership roles at Digitas and Agency.com, as well as Critical Mass, working for clients such as HP, Allstate, Fifth Third Bank, Miller Brewing, Grainger and Bally Total Fitness. David's work blends strategy with design to look for new opportunities around the evolving Web (otherwise known as Web 2.0) to enhance customer experiences and bring brands and people closer together.
David's presentation: "The Future of Advertising. WTF?" will draw from his experience working with major brands in the digital space, connecting and mashing up advertising as PR, enhancing service design and integrating product innovation. He'll speak to the relevance of micro-interactions and macro word-of-mouth; the future of work—from silos and assembly lines to networks and signals—and the effects these forces are having on the (currently) fuzzy agency model. As always, David will discuss the power of value, utility and a good story, regardless of where it's communicated.
UPDATE: Another fantastic turnout this evening! Many thanks to everyone who showed up, despite the Twins home opener, for Bob's inspiring presentation. A video recap of the event is embedded below.
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Bob Thacker, Sr. VP, Marketing & Advertising for OfficeMax, the man who brought Michael Graves to Target and commissioned ElfYourself.com, joined us Monday, April 6 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (doors
Bob is infamous for exhorting his agencies to, "Don't make ads, make
news." And his career demonstrates the strength of that direction, including roles as Sr. VP of Marketing Services at Sears Roebuck, VP of Marketing at Target and CEO/President of BBDO, Minneapolis. Bob was twice selected by Ad Age as one of the
"Top 100 Marketers in the Nation," and was elected to the Retail Hall of Fame, which honors only one retail professional each year. He's figured out how to collaborate with traditional advertising and digital agencies and PR firms—from big shops to boutiques.
His career includes deep experience with media planning, campaign integration, marketing technology and the challenges and opportunities that come in collaborating with empowered consumers—not to mention figuring out how to achieve more with less.
Bob will be speaking about getting big ideas with small budgets, with obser
vations and insights from his career, focused through the lens of our turbulent times. Bob says, "I hope that I might enlighten and inspire the CATFOA audience to persevere and even prevail."
We've hosted seven events so far in this series. Here's the first that digs into the future of advertising from the client perspective. Check out this recent interview with Bob from Businessweek magazine for more insights. This is going to be
Hosted since 2007 by Tim Brunelle, adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and CEO of Hello Viking, CATFOA seeks to improve the quality of interactive marketing and advertising developed in the Twin Cities through enlightening presentations and their resulting conversation.
