What do I have to know?

A Hungarian chap looking pensive. Cheers Gaby/Crumplestiltskin.

There's a very real trait in the planning world to gaze, thoughtfully, at one's navel for what seems like a very long time. And I'm just as guilty as most when it comes to this. Sitting around and not doing quite what I should be doing, thinking about the consequences far ahead of the actual event. Which, in itself, can be hugely paralyzing. And not that useful.

Most of this lies in the economic uncertainty that most readers will be familiar with (if you aren't, stop reading this blog immediately and go and have a look at the FT, or the Beeb) - bluntly, wondering what the advertising world is likely to look like when it all hits in the next 6 months to a year. Whether this'll increase the fragmentation of the entire communication industry, and help speed it up (privately, I think it will, and I bet we'll see a rise in the number of 'communications agencies' who used to be PR/Advertising/Integrated shops).

So, this leads me to wonder just what skills will actually be of use in the next five to ten years. God knows, skills like rigorous analysis of data (whether it's qual/quant or otherwise) will still be of interest. And so will creative (though, again, whether we'll have more designers, people who know how to actually make things, and web ninjas.

Part of the nature of most planners, I think, is to want to know more about anything and everything. Turning this off is often quite difficult, especially when you are trying to balance much-needed reductive behaviour with your desire to open 15 tabs, and 5 of them are work related - the other 10 are open because you, like the net equivalent of collecting bits of string, think 'it'll be useful'.

I was having a very interesting conversation the other day with Jon Leach (formerly planning supremo of HHCL, now head of planning at Chime), about the nature of conversations, and how a lot (particularly ad agencies) of comms agencies don't wish to engage with the conversations that're going on around them, and how so many of them are pretty bad at engaging the general public/promoting themselves. And this, in short, can turn out to be death. Track your conversations - don't worry about squeezing out another 30 second spot which either won't engage or will be ignored by the general public. I'm reminded of this quote from his blog:

"If you had the choice of bringing your friends or your books to a desert island, we'd call you a sociopath if you took the books over the breathing humans. Yes, track the content, but if you don’t track the conversation then you’re missing the main story.If you had the choice of bringing your friends or your books to a desert island, we'd call you a sociopath if you took the books over the breathing humans. Yes, track the content, but if you don’t track the conversation then you’re missing the main story."

Contrary to this is the current situation though - those agencies that're doing well at the moment concentrate on their own disciplines, to become true specialists, rather than being creative generalists.

So it leads you back to the central thought - what do I have to know? Should I forsake a rigorous approach to data in favour of keeping an eye on conversations about my brand? Can I do both? Is the concept of 'T Shaped people' the only way to keep a handle on what people should learn - namely, take an avenue you think you know the most about/want to learn about, and explore it fully, without keeping your mind of the notion of other items of importance? Is the job title, as a result of this, effectively redundant?

It's amusing; I've been calling myself a 'plannerger' at work, because I am involved with a few basic account management things, and don't mind ever increasing amounts of client contact. But this, I think, may dilute my abilities as a planner (and I do believe each planner falls into either a creative or business focused role - dependent on how your mind is geared). I suppose the overall question is this: What part of your brain will be neglected (and necessarily so, to keep all of your marbles)?

Again, it ties into the question of whether google is making us smarter, or stupider (read the comments, especially the one about intensifying your personality). I think it leads to a tendancy to be a little bit more lazy, definitely - less interested in the search, and what you'll find out along the way.

And I don't want to be this lazy, technology dominated person. I want to be challenged, and learn 'what I have to know' along the way. It comes back to the notion of using a team of planners on a piece of business, or just coupling two people when trying to solve a problem - preferably with complementary skills, as each person will have an ability to 'fill in the gaps' with the other. Of course, also to keep your eyes open for any potential black swan - allowing the role of serendipity to enter your life.

So tell me, humble reader - what do you, regardless of experience in your role, think you'll need to know in the next 5/10 years? Or is it one of those navel gazing questions after all, and you don't know until you move forward?

No, I'm not going to quote Rumsfeld at you. Not this time.

Borked.

It's probably best to think of this blog like that at the moment. Via Fudj - usual rules apply.

Hello there.

I wish I could claim the lack of blogging was down to something like me having a massive mental relapse, but the fact of the matter was that I've been pretty damned busy (and slightly at loss as to what to write about - hopefully my delicious feed has kept some folks interested).

At the moment, my blog might be a little bit on the back foot, due to a buggered home computer, but I will try and keep blogging in spite of that (nabbing a cheeky laptop from work is always a good start, in my view).

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Keep on believing...

Well, it happened. The mighty Potters are going to be playing football in the Prem, the top tier of English football (sadly relegating my father's team, Leicester, which is a little sad).

And, all of a sudden, mainstream media became very interested in the last day drama of it all. And who wouldn't, let's be fair, it was a helluva story - despite the endless long throws and scrappy football that turned out to be the reality.

But it got me to thinking. Dangerous, that. When exactly, does a story, or event, cross over and become 'mainstream'? How exactly is 'mainstream' achieved? Why do we regard something as mainstream? (Barring the recent London elections, or tragedies, obviously).

It's interesting. I still tune into the good old BBC as my first choice of news, followed by whatever my RSS reader (tuned into the New York Times, The Indie, Telegraph & The Guardian) says is worthwhile.

And, let's extend this further to, yes, you've guessed it, the great 'where's the industry going?' debate which seems to uniquely conflict the ad industry at the moment. Either Mindshare are taking over the world, or PR companies are, or maybe even management consultancies (when they inevitably bring creative in house).

For a comparative junior in the business, it's not a simple case of boning up on your APG case studies and doing the odd blog post (though I wish it was). To try and define what'll become 'mainstream' in communications has become like trying to pin the tail on the donkey after about 5 whiskeys, blindfolded and after having eaten a very heavy meal.

So who do you trust, and talk to? Those hipper than hip digital agencies? These, who promise metrics and interactive experiences, the likes of which you've never seen before - which can seemingly create measurable worlds, which of course everyone will want to interact with. Or maybe a media agency, with 13 floors of econometrics, management consultancy and extreme targeting. Or maybe, just maybe, the traditional creative shop, with its base of ideas.

The latter option reminds me an awful lot of a religious theory I read when I was a wee nipper (good old AS Level Philosophy), about the God of the Gaps. Essentially, the theory can be distilled down into this - there were areas which Science cannot account for (time before time can be measured, essentially). For those bits, you fill in with God/your chosen Deity. Could creative agencies become like that?

NB: For what it's worth, I think the next split will be between those who properly outsource creativity and those who outsource analytics. 'Creative' agencies will have PR, Experiential and all the rest of that gubbins. T'others will, I think, become like management consultancies. What does everyone else think?

That's enough musing. Now have some music:

Restlessness...

.Damned cool picture. Nicked off Flickr, but I can't remember who from.

This is a blog post that is scuttling out of the ether that has been the last few months (I'm pleased to say worky stuff has slightly died down).

I look upon planning at this stage as a little bit of an Everest (or at least, a Ben Nevis). There's always so much more to learn, and I definitely think that the planner of the future needs to be able to process so much information (and not go mental, as I have, by subscribing to far far too many RSS feeds) and synthesise it simply. There's still a danger that we behave a little bit like Jack Nicholson in The Departed, whose character sums up the old model of comms neatly: 'I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me'.

The problem with this is that as advertising is pushed from all sides, from mee-ja agencies who have whole departments devoted to carving up audiences for a product or service, to PR agencies, who claim to understand the science of communication far better than their ad counterparts, to design agencies (who are, as has oft been said, the new management consultants) ad agencies scrabble around to try and pick up pieces of a new puzzle which they don't have the instructions to.

Simply put, we can't work harder with the information we have been given. But we can work smarter, and build upon what we already know - that people's cognitive attention spans are limited, and, as Clay Shirky puts it here, look for "[that] place that a reader or a listener or a viewer or a user has been locked out, has been served up passive or a fixed or a canned experience, and ask ourselves, "If we carve out a little bit of the cognitive surplus and deploy it here, could we make a good thing happen?"

This, in my eyes, is the future of communication. Destroying the 'canned' experience, of the same thing happening every time - messing with people's heads, making them laugh, smile, and want to play with our content.

And, quite simply, asking 'would I want to engage with this?' should be a mandatory on every brief (or at least, asked), rather than assuming that people will want to - and Christ, I've been guilty of just assuming that this is the case (or been complicit in it, at any rate).

All of this musing has led me to realise that sitting in the office isn't going to get things done. I need to be out there, be slightly more of a bedouin, engaging with all and sundry, especially if I'm ever going to understand the range of brands I'm working on at the moment - and by that, I don't mean a cursory trip to the factory, or subscribing to a few loyalists' blogs, nor going along to the odd focus group. I mean actually exploring people's passions, and whether or not they can be applied to the product/service I'm working on.

And one slightly more practical thing that I have definitely realised is that damn, I need to get me a laptop. Having a slightly knackered desktop, both at home and at work, doesn't do me any favours. Being able to bugger off to a cafe to crank out a brief, or concoct a 'fast strategy' should be the order of the day, if there's a need to (I'm not convinced that fast is always right, though).

Something which isn't the order of the day, but still surprising, is that we're still top in my absence. Goarn the Potters..

Some moments will be lost forever...

And some won't be. Thanks to Betty Blade, usual rules apply.

Bet you've been wondering where I've been. Well, unless some clever person has found out my password/offed me in a particularly clever way, I'm back again.

I probably, like a naughty child, should explain where I've been. Well, mostly, i've been working. Been learning planning, the processes behind it and just getting back into the swing of things. Along the way, I got my very first print ad out (I'd suggest you click on the image):

I've also learned what Zero means by 'Doesday'. And, indeed, just how much I've got to learn. I think advice from NP and others about learning planning holds true; you never, ever stop learning, whether it's brushing up on basic PowerPoint skills (yes, mine do still leave a bit to be desired, but hell, clever thinking trumps dissolve ins, heh), looking at my Outlook and groaning, or dealing with creative teams.

What I've been most impressed by is the people around me; there's such a mixture of skills, talents and mindsets. Yes, I know I wanted to get into advertising for the stimulating conversation and lateral thinking, but little did I know I'd have been involved in so many peculiar and interesting conversations (from the Quantic Soul Orchestra to the best briefings people have ever been involved in, to what motivates mums of six month old babies - the latter was an eye opener, let me tell you).

And of course, as for the stuff outside of work. Well, it's been a nice mixture of watching the mighty, mighty Potters stride to 4th, a bit of gigging (the Manics were best the second time around) and some socialising with a lot of old (and some new) friends.

I'm going to try and do some more cliched London things, and document them here. Never done an open top bus ride or visited the Tower of London, but hell - here's a line in the sand, I'm going to try and do them soonish. Yes, it's horribly touristy, but that's the joy. Reading some Peter Ackroyd at the same time will hopefully help fill in the gaps as well...

Can you care too much?

Or not enough in this man's case.

Well, I've no doubt that a fair number of the readers of this blog have noticed that England's Euro 2008 campaign has ended, in spectacular style.

And, amidst all of the caterwailing that followed, the inevitable accusation came - that these pampered, over exposed, overpaid players just don't care about their country. Because I'm a perverse bugger who tends to try and see the other side of things, I think the opposite is true. If anything, I think they cared too much, that got inside their minds, and they bottled it, despite obviously having the technique to be able to get a result.

As for McClaren, well, it seems the opposite is true (I tried to find the photo of him with an umbrella, but sadly couldn't track it down). Out thought by Slaven Bilic, dear oh dear.

And it got me thinking about caring about things, and the notion of caring too much. It's particularly relevant to me, as I (when I'm unsure of what to do) worry unduly. Part of that is when I'm doing and learning new things.

It can be almost paralysing, especially if you publically handwring - something which doesn't help anything or anyone (and was, let's be honest, shown by the England team in their 'performance' against Croatia).

But should it be surprising? In this world, where continuous partial attention rules ok, where shuffling through vast libraries of music is the norm, and where everyone has about seven tabs open on their browser, there's often a worry about priorities.

And given that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in something, according to Radio 4, it can seem like a massive mountain - will my performance be adequate, whether I'm an international footballer, an ad bod or a barrister? I guess the difficulty comes in just experiencing things, and not worrying about whether you'll be up to the task (which is, I think, what happened to England on Wednesday).

So yes, experience and trying and failing rules ok when it comes to learning. Care about that. Everything else is just unnecessary window dressing, and hey - if you don't chance your arm when you're learning, when will you?

I like free things...

John's new book.

...but I like smart thinking even more.

Given that I'm currently trying to think about a lot of green issues for a lot of the brands I'm working on, this post was particularly timely.

Greenormal is a great blog. Have a butchers, if you don't already. I really like how John has shed some light on the notion of green thinking, and how it relates to the dichotomy between green and commerce. I can't wait to have a read of the book.

Having a 'green matrix' is a particularly fine idea, and potentially a great framework to use when talking to organisations about how they can update their thinking, behaviour and, subsequently, their communications. (Notice how that came last).

Link to John's post (at least, the first 50 people) if you fancy reading some more on this topic...

Brain Food..

Depends what you mean..photo via Bifurcate.

Time for something not directly about my workplace (aka, getting this blog back on rambling nonsense mode).

It occurs to me that quite a lot of my time as a planner is spent filtering out what I have to, and what I don't have to know, in order to know about a certain subject, whether it be a brand of car, dominos, faberge eggs or Stoke City.

Now, the danger is, with this filter in place (and I'm sure it happens at every workplace, or whenever you just want to relax), you lose the ability to challenge yourself, and at worst, intrigue and inspire those around you.

And it's something which can't always be easily done. But sod that; to be stimulating, you need to be stimulated. It's why I get on the tube every morning and read classic literature and not the latest 'man falls in love with cactus' story from the Metro. I need to be pushed, to be challenged by my reading, viewing, or whatever it is I'm listening to on my iPod.

It's just so easy to rely on random fodder for your mind, something which requires no thought, no challenge your preconceptions. Particularly when you are exposed to so much information on a daily basis. Well, I didn't get into adland, or indeed, do anything in my life, without wanting to be interested and interesting on a daily basis. The need to be interesting should overwhelm everything I do.

Bluntly, I can do that by reading Fitzgerald's account of madness, by going to gigs, by going to the V&A once and a while. Not by being chained to my desk, as much as I like my work colleagues.

And no, obviously I recognise the need to crack on, to do work. But in times where work dominates things, this should serves as a little reminder to myself (and hopefully to others) to make sure I keep on being alive to all the many cultural nuances out there. God knows, there are enough of them..

If anyone has any brain foody suggestions going on in London in the next month, hit me with them..