Is long term strategic planner over

Twins, originally uploaded by J.T.R..

Since the on take of the digital world. We have all continued to discuss whether the long term strategic process is in fact the best way to address our brands future. With things changing on a daily basis and our ability to access real time data at any point how can we take the time to wait for the next planning cycle to do address it.

Technology and our consumers are changing and we must adapt to truly take advantage before it becomes the norm. Not sit back and wait for things to pan out in our favour. Because they wont

Then while we chatted about, something special happened... we were forced to... by a simple thing like the economy collapsing. Its funny how terrible situations are often the only thing that make people wake the f$%k up.

But the truth is being truly adaptable to the needs to consumers is in fact the only way forward. Because guess what... they will change brands to someone smaller more nimble who is.

Here is a nice blog post on the differences made when Office Depot in the US adapted faster to their customers needs. Waitrose in the UK also adapted quickly by launching a cheaper essentials range that aided in it not missing out too badly during the decline of consumer confidence and drop in overall spending.

The guys at W&K also looked to adapt the old account planner brief creative brief producer do some stuff... model for Nokia for their supernova campaign. Which included a faster more nimble team including planner, producer and client. So they could continue to build content and adapt to the needs of the audience over a 3 month period.

The industry has talked about fast strategy at an IPA event. With everyone giving their tricks they have used over the years that I created a widget for here a few years back.

We need a prepared mind constantly taking in data and being able to adapt to the situations at hand. But in focusing on this too much we might in fact loose the essence of the brand and our abilities to truly identify and take advantage of future opportunities as well as the one in front of us.

So we need split personalities and split calenders. Time that addresses whats in front of us. But also has an eye on the horizon and what we need to do to keep the business at its core essence but always keep it moving forward.

IPA Fast Strategy Debate Cards Mashup

So I have been meaning to do this for a while. But I have finally made a mashup of the cards from the IPA Fast Strategy debate back in april. I hope you find it useful. You will have to download Microsoft's silverlight to view them though. Enjoy

Great rundone on communications strategy

Strategic Communications Planning - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Strategic Communications Planning

I guess in the world of communications strategy it is still somewhat of a black box to some people. A lot of clients sometimes don't get what all this work can lead to. But a Canadian guy called David Fleet has a fantastic overview that you could take clients or juniors through. I have to thanks servantofchaos for putting me onto it as its a great resource for all.

I often do things by second nature due to some great mentors in my past pushing me that way. I learn from people not books or texts. Although I can get a lot from reading and have changed my ways somewhat. My current position is still due to some great bosses I have work with. But I often find it hard to teach people who are different to me who arent inquesitive and like formal learning from text books or the like. So this is going to be hugely useful and I am definately going to get them to read this. Thanks David (scribd is a cool program too)

'The Prepared Mind'

uploaded by mike fischer on flickr

I have been throwing this around in my head for a while and it came up again with an event invitation from the IPA around 'Fast Strategy' which is going to be run by Richard Huntingdon of adliterate here in London.
So to link the two I started thinking about the usual planning timeframe, which I believe would go something like this. Take a brief, go out and discover or search for the information you need to build the context. Identify GAPS, get some more research and maybe create a strategy, talk to creatives about it, sell it to the client. Brief creative. This all happens in a reasonably long period of 2 -3 months. Im sure everyone does it differently but it takes time
But what happens if you have the 'the prepared mind'.... what happens when you know before you are asked.
Mat Milan highlighted some of this in his great presentation on insights.... and his link to the TV character Columbo. The key things were:

The prepared mind is......

• A repeatable process
• Always running its process
• Always asking questions
• Prepared to look beyond the obvious

I think these are great. But I would like to broaden it out and put it in the context of 'fast planning' which is the reality of today no matter what department of plannig you work in. In the high tech, information rich world we all live in. I think there is more to ad to that.

The prepared mind is.....

• Always discovering
• Always cataloguing new information
• Always sharing with others
• Always linking old with new
• Always ready to go at any given time

I believe the modern world allows us to deliver 'fast strategy' as we have done a lot of the analysis before the problem hits our desk. We have consistent clients for a reason. Never giving up on knowing more and linking important things together, will enable us not to make a decision from gut feeling on the fly. But to make a decision because we could have addressed some of the hard work beforehand.

I have found with blogging and my fascination ,as well as involvement in the web 2.0 world. I can have everything at my fingertips. My constant need to discover has lead me to all sorts of places. People within my agency (and now friends in others) are starting to realise that if you need any information quickly, I probably have it on hand or can get it quickly. Even if its not on my clients, I often send out things to others for theirs. Delicious has everything and anything on it. This blog has a million things, all the blogs I read have great stuff. My custom search engines are great ways to get to things. There are millions of other options as well.

The truth is I believe we can deliver 'fast strategy' without loosing all of the strengths of time. This constant flow of information should allow us to pre-empt problems and construct an answer at the ready. This also gives us a great perception with our clients. As they have the feeling that you really do know their busieness and care as much as they do (Im an idealist by the way) Oh my god. It sounds like all those stories of technology speeding up the working process could be true. Lets not jump there just yet. But I guess we just have to make sure we synthesise, prioritise and utilise the information appropriately to create the best insights, strategy and ideas. But I believe the prepared mind.... can do this with ease.... Its just how prepared do you have to be? I will just keep on trying, until I find out.

Some presentations on slideshare

After 18months I finally bought I nice macbook pro and felt the need to play around with the presentation software. So I brought out an old preso from a while back where I looked at how media agencies could utilise the 'Art of War' philosphy to build their own cultures to drive business in the new age . Then I also summarised in a pretty way the experience realms from the book 'The experience economy' which I am currently reading. After getting so much from slideshare in the past 18 months I thought it was time I gave something back. Its not half as good as some of the stuff I have found on there, but you have to start somewhere. Check it out and tell me what you think.

The Art of War for agencies

| View | Upload your own

The Experience Economy

| View | Upload your own

enjoy

Campaign: 'Who owns Brand Strategy?'

There is a bit of an interesting article in Campaign this week and it touches on my post about what are my favourite brands and why ??. My favourite bit is James Kydd the Brand Managing Director from Virgin discussing exactly my point on not just getting agencies to create it. But to know consumers and live it within the company itself. Its amusing to have someone from each area talk about their element and how important they are. At the end of the day we are all important. But we just need to see our thinking and work go into the fabric of the company. Not just the marketing people on the edges.

Russell Davies made a few points in a presentation the other day that in the not too distant future there will be a rogue force of media, planner and creative consultants that are brought in for projects. Then other agencies will execute it.