Well, a fun day at the APG Battle of Big Thinking today. I rocked up early at the Earth Galleries in South Ken at the Natural History Museum - great setting for the day. I took plenty of pics but the quality is truly dreadful - which is odd because usually they are excellent. Apologies for that - I took notes but they are too jumbled right now and I often like to reflect on what I have heard during the day before committing to paper/blog what I have learnt or heard. That's for another time.
Richard Huntington and I spoke after the event and agreed the morning session was very good - the afternoon felt a tad less inspired (apart from Russell obviously) and we both felt we had probably got more notes out of presentation techniques than anything else that we could put our fingers on - needs the overnight test perhaps.
The Earth Galleries - today's battleground!
Anyway we mingled with various friends and acquaintances from around the circuit, Richard Huntingdon, Merry Baskin, Stuart Smith, Chris Forrest, Leo Rayman, George Bryant, Janet Grimes and good old Steve to name a few - and of course Russell himself - who took pics of everyone to include in his presentation - very clever that Russell...
Nervous mingling beforehand
Russell and Stuart
Malcolm White was superb as the host and kept us all suitably amused and entertained through out the proceedings and really was a tremendous chat show host for the day. God forbid it all goes tits at Krow - but I'm sure he would have a great career in broadcasting - tremendous as always...
Malcolm wiping away a tear of joy that it went so well...
We saw some interesting presentations from a host of great speakers including Simon Thompson from Motorola, Greg Nugent from Eurostar, Ivan Pollard from Naked (who won his bit), Marie Oldham from MPG, a very tired and emotional Jonathan Durden from PHD (slightly bizzare presentation - hugely entertaining though), Gordon Pincott from Milward Brown, Roy Langmaid from Promise, Justin Gibbons from Work, a brilliant Mr Chris Forrest from the Nursery (genius in my opinion - close run thing for me between him and Russell), Jim Carroll - who was superb also:
Jim Carroll gets into his stride - beautiful presentation incidently
- John Owen from Dare, Andrew Walmsley from i-Level, Mark Cridge showing why he is as successful as he is - great, Trevor FCUK Beattie - wonderful, warm and all about the little things like filling up the kettle - inspired:
Trevor making a good point about banks here
- Nick Hastings - Malcolm's partner in Krow, Chris Clark from Nitro - (who John Grant thought would win incidently - wrong John sorry!), Derek Day and Helen Edwards from Passionbrand, Moray MacLennan from M&C talking about one work equity (still not convinced Moray) and someone who wasn't Rita Clifton. Phew I think that's everybody.
Anyway - Russell's presentation was brilliant - obviously - we knew it would be and he delivered it beautifully. The man was clearly enjoying himself - and we did too - thank you Russell - I bet you won it by miles. Richard Huntingdon reckoned afterwards that if it was really all about 'big thinking' - then there is no-one who does big thinking better than Russell. This is all a bit random below but is a sort of outline of what he did - I am sure he will post the whole thing but this is the general gist:
'Darth Strategist' glimmers in the gloom...
He points out what planners are generally thought to be - dear old Magnus Pyke of all people (Russell did you deliberately make the uncanny physical connection between him and Stanley Pollitt incidently?)
Good use of those handwritten typefaces here...
nice reveal as he begins to show the future of the planner - a sort of Samurai warrior called the Ronin (full of powerful metaphors here - we all like this of course)
Some fabulous low budget 'Cogs' ads from Japan - genius - he hardly has to do anything and we're smiling!
He went on to show lots of ways planners could operate, from synthesizing complexity in agencies and funneling ideas and executions into the process keeping it fluid and non-linear and helping to create simplicity in client organisations and fueling innovation at every turn. I am sure I have missed loads and for that I do apologies in my haste to post this (and I have probably fudged the entire thing possibly but this what it seemed to be about to me anyway among a whole host of other things).
A grand finale with great music and pics of us all among the greats - beat that for a finish - perfect - we all laughed out loud and applauded!
Tense moments and voting...
Who will it be?
Absolutely no surprises there - well deserved!
The biggest thinker of them all...
All in a day's work - off home on the bike then (with a very uncool looking basket). Strange they left together though - after Malcolm made it clear he could influence the outcome and all that... hmmmm. Well done Russell - well deserved - couldnt have been won by a nicer chap!