Creative Week 2012 Highlights

 

One Show Interactive Awards

Enjoying the company of my long-time friends, Creative Recruiters from GSP (Linda Harless and Zach Canfield) and DraftFCB (Rafi Kugler) was a personal highlight during Creative Week 2012. Here we are the final night of Creative Week at The One Show Interactive Awards.

Creative Week 2012 was a whirlwind, an incredible whirlwind.  Each day started with a breakfast presentation at 8:30a.m. and ended with parties that lasted until 3:30a.m.  (Note: That’s 19 hours of inspiration, networking and good times, and it’s impossible to do it all for 5 days straight.)  Here are some whirlwind highlights:

  • The people that think the Big Idea is dead are outnumbered.  No one is arguing about the Big Insight (as a replacement) yet.
  • Curate the funny.  That’s advice from Ron Faris, the Director of Brand Marketing for Virgin Mobile USA.
  • When an audience full of want-to-be authors are asked if they’ve ever wanted to write a book, 2 people will raise their hands – the guy who’s written a book and me.
  • Adobe’s VP of Experience Design, Michael Gough, never mentions the word “creativity” to his people.  For Adobe, it’s about the alignment of 10,000 people and getting them all moving in the same direction.  Imagine the “creative” alternative…
  • Every 7 to 10 years puppets become viable again.  The people of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop believe we’re on the onset of that.
  • The best networking happens after the events.  While business cards can be exchanged during pre-scheduled networking times, the most natural, genuine (and fun) networking takes place when people are hanging out because they want to.
  • The concept of “collaboration,” with its best of intentions, continues to be the black sheep in discussions on creativity.
  • People want to work with cool people and do cool stuff.
  • If phone chargers are gold, finding an outlet to use in Manhattan is platinum.
  • 72andSunny sat on a panel for provocative advertising and then swept The One Shows (yes, plural, both the advertising and interactive awards) with their provocative ads.

Coming soon: Advertising Week the first week in October 2012.

Advertising & Design Awards & Friendly Faces

As the advertising and design award shows gear up, the anticipation builds.  Who will be the big winners this year?  Who will get the credit they deserve?  What work will stand out in the sea of product promotion?

The 91st Annual Art Directors Club Awards are currently being judged.  Today, this clip from the interactive jury was posted, and a friendly face of one creative director with whom I worked came up.

Yesterday, the face of a colleague from my advertising days showed up in the 2012 Facebook Studio Awards Jury Session photos.

It’s incredible to think that I’ve worked alongside the best of the best – the advertising creatives who are jurying Cannes and The One Show and the ADDY’s and the Andy’s…and…and…  It’s simply incredible (if incredible can be simple).

As I write about the talent I was surrounded by and that I remain connected to, I want to clarify that I don’t mean to be “name dropping” nor jumping up and down saying, “Look at me!  Look at me; I have cool friends!”  My experience, my network and my insights are not a point of pride but rather tools to better help my creative clients.  My passion is coaching and consulting advertising art directors, copywriters and graphic designers.

Also, it makes me smile to see a friendly face on a video such as this one for the Art Directors Club Awards. ;)