2012 RE:DESIGN/Creative Directors Conference, Portland. Abstract: Digital technology and the social web have collapsed the practice (or at least the impact) of brand identity development, advertising, and user-experience design into a creative singularity. A discussion on managing an agile design process (among other things) to keep up.

1. What happens when
everything is connected
to everything.

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the plan
Quick intro
Part 1 – New context
Part 2 – New practices
Discussion

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What happens when everything
is connected to everything.
Digital technology and the social web have collapsed
the practice (or at least the impact) of brand
ID management, marketing, and UX design into
a creative singularity.
Identity + product + marketing

10. Part 1 – New context
Paradigm shift.
No room for suck.
Fragmentation > Coherence.

11. See Clay Shirky’s TED Talk on “the transformed media landscape.”

12. the truth
is coming out
one way
or another

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Brands that work. (Stop sucking.)
Read Umair Haque on “awesomeness.”

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2008 2015
iPhone turns one year old. Smartphones?
No such thing as tablet. TV?
Twitter at one million users. Robots?
Today 100 million. The internet of things?
Everything connected.
Facebook passes MySpace
as the leading social network
with 100 million users.
Today one billion.

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Who’s driving?
Branding agency
Ad agency
Media planning/buying
PR agency
Design firm
Digital agency
Product design
Analytics
Social media snake oil
etc.

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Brand / purpose driven
Brand idea / brand purpose Campaigns + programs
Overarching and enduring. Designed to fit
Allows for flexibility audience and context
and provides coherency. – time, medium, etc.
Brand ID
Brand expression
Brand experience
Brand action

17. Part 2 – New practices
Be agile.
Build a network.
Guanxi.
Be yourself.

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Agile creation
BBH: So what exactly might ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ be?

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Agile creation
Where and how do
we reach those people?
In what sequence?
What are the near comms
and long-term concerns
of the business? What are the
account executional/realization
opportunities?
Who are we talking to? production
What are they
prepared to hear? What is the
strategy creative
opportunity?
creative
BBH: So what exactly might ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ be?

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The CD (you) =
Part product master
Own the project backlog, create user stories
Part scrum master
Manage the team, remove roadblocks

22. build
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your
network
Paddy Ashdown: “The paradigm structure of our time is the network.”

24. Vulgarity · Modesty · Comedy

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As ever…
Be useful.
Be interesting.
Be quick.

26. Discussion
You buying any of that?

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Discussion
The creative process Project management
An iterative design process versus getting New clients, starting from scratch.
everything right all at once. (Pre-guanxi). Selling a discovery phase.
Who leads? The CD relative to other Client dashboards, regular check-ins.
directors in the organization – planning,
creative technology, media, account. Working through silos within our
clients’ organizations.
All the makers in one place, including
devs. Challenges when you don’t. Working from a given budget or burn
rate versus “estimating.” How much does
Importance of having a sketch of the a website cost? An identity?
long-term and iterating that as well. Two
paths running simultaneously – near-term Tracking hours vs value. Eesh.
sprint and long-term vision.
Setting aside budget for harebrained ideas,
Critical importance of measurement/ experimentation?
feedback.

28. Thanks.
—
@mlemme
mlemme@duncanchannon.com