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.

Creative Week 2012

The eve of Creative Week 2012 is upon us. This week, May 7 – 11, Manhattan and Brooklyn will be buzzing with sessions on creativity, panels on storytelling, and awards for the best design, advertising and interactive work in the country.

As a Creative Week Contributor, I will be tweeting from events live @DS_Coaching and posting blogs on the Creative Week Tumblr throughout the week. I’ll be attending everything from The Freelance Shift panel to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Legacy session to the Education Summit to the highly-anticipated Creative unConference to The One Show’s Design, Advertising and Interactive Awards as well as The 91st Annual Art Directors Club Awards. It’ll be a wild and creative ride. Stay tuned.

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