In a time of such radical change in our marketing world, we all need to search out ideas on the best way to adapt and thrive. Yesterday, the New York Festivals was in town for their award show and they presented a number of panels in the afternoon. They had a tough time filling the room; the Chicago ad community rarely takes time from their busy workday to go out for lunch, let alone a panel that may or may not prove worthwhile. That’s understandable but also unfortunate; now more than ever we can all benefit by sharing our experiences and insights. Hopefully, that’s something we can change in the coming years.
After sitting on a panel titled “Is Craft Dead?” (Short answer? No. And neither is e-mail, Facebook or God, no matter how SEO-friendly those types of proclamations are.). After that, host Alan Wolk led a panel on Social Media–an area of deep interest to anyone paying attention to that emerging mass channel of opinion. Of all the statements and suppositions presented, Escape Pod founder Vinny Warren made the most practical sense. A veteran tweeter (follow him at @vinnywarren), he characterized the whole platform as ‘energy.’ It takes passion to regularly stop and send out some thoughts on your day and to Vinny, all those comments amount to ‘energy.’
In a world of immediacy where data and ideas spread like wildfire, the challenge of finding wheat in the dunning landfills of chaff can be exhausting. Using Twitter as means of tapping into consumer-generated energy makes a ton of logical sense: like energy, Twitter flows continually, and thoughts that don’t stick disappear like so much wasted electricity on the national grid. You either use it or lose it. In most cases, losing it isn’t a particularly tragic thing, but if we can harness all that consumer wisely, we can access all sorts of information, inspiration and good ideas wrested from real world experience on our clients’ behalf.
Which is, you know, helpful.
By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79
PS: On behalf of all the panelists, here’s a quick thank you to Gayle Mendel for her hard work on bringing in this event. We deeply appreciate your efforts.
Thank you Dennis. Was a pleasure to have you on the first panel and I’m glad you stayed for the second one.
Vinny’s point, as you note, was spot on: social media is all about energy. We can call it by lots of fancy names, but that’s what it boils down to: someone is excited about something and they want to share it.
Now the follow-up on that: getting clients to make products that get consumers excited– isn’t all that easy. But company’s that don’t do so risk going the way of the dinosaur.
That means listening as well as talking, and listening is something many corporate entities (as well as people) have a tough time with.
Thanks again for the post.
The first NYF THINKBIG (TM) Speakers panel discussion was amazing! Imagine Chicago advertising’s most brilliant creative minds assembled together sharing their vision and opinions. Where else could you be a fly on the wall and earvesdrop on this creative, engaging, at times hilarious group of ad men and women in action. BIG Thanks to everyone who particpated, and Vinny, the ‘energy” is contagious.
thanks dennis. i knew i’d say something that made some sense. at some point! and thanks Alan for asking me on the panel. it was a lot of fun and i learned a few things. and craft is not dead. Kraftwerk is dead!