It’s heartening to see how seriously everyone takes creativity. No matter how late the night prior, there are queues at 9am everyday and the auditoriums are packed to capacity.
Innovation, creativity, content and data are all central themes as you’d expect. However the biggest lessons I’m taking out are the more unexpected ones.
1) Disconnect to reconnect.
There’s a lovely tension playing out (at least as I’m interpreting it) between our collective desire to use technology platforms to engage with our consumers AND the anthropological need for us to actually ‘disconnect’ if we are to really do that effectively. Only when we have disconnected will we be able to have any real impact when we ‘reconnect’.
Arianna Huffington’s thoughts on this topic have been a big talking point. Equally, TED speaker Eroon Kang who advised, ‘take yourself out of the loop in which you live’ if you want to find creative solutions to problems.
As I see we’re now so connected there’s fear that we get distracted all the time. Meaning we fail to fully form opinions, take time to dwell on issues and actually get in touch with who we are as people. It’s not to say we don’t use these channels as insight tools or to leverage relationships with consumers but first, step away from the crackberry and look at the world around you.
2) Despite technology advances core human desires stay the same.
Mashable presented ‘A day in the future’ and the level of connectivity anticipated is mind blowing. Although again it comes back to understanding core human desires first if your brand is to be effective in this space.
Stefan Olander from Nike highlighted that the need they meet at Nike has been the same since inception. It’s been about ‘helping people (athletes) get better’. How technology now enables this is unreal but it still addresses the same human need. Only staying true to that human need can you ever effectively leverage technology.
3) Speak ‘Bad English’.
Fredrik Haren launched a beta version of his new book ‘One World, One Company’. In it there’s a series of case studies with successful global brands. One particular highlight is his interview with the Volvo Group who has production facilities in over 20 countries. When asked how they work successfully as one company, the response was: we use ‘bad English’. Given majority of the time you don’t have native English speakers conversing, this approach means each person should speak to the level of English that the other person can understand. Thus placing the onus on the English speaker to use simple and clear language and also allowing the weaker English speaker to feel confident in speaking up.
So, with all that in mind I am logging off now, heading to the bar to observe some core human desires and speaking bad English to anyone that will listen …
Katie Rigg-Smith
Chief Strategy Officer
Mindshare Australia