PHD ‘Inspiration Sessions’ and White Papers Without The Paper
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 by Ed CastilloOne role the Strategic Planning Group @ PHD is happy to play in the life of the agency is to provoke critical thought (media-based or otherwise). When such attempts resonate, they can inspire news ways of looking at targeting, behavior, communications, etc. To this end, we’ve been offering a monthly respite from the rigors of daily work called “Inspiration Sessions”; an opportunity to quit Excel, turn the Blackberry off, and think about something explicitly provocative (and implicitly relevant).
A recent session featured Jill Botway, Omnicom’s President of US Strategic Business Units and first female member of the prestigious Explores Club. Jill discussed what she had learned about teamwork while exploring previously uncharted regions of Indonesia with a room filled with media planning/buying professionals.
In another approach to inspiration, we have conducted “White Sessions.” White Sessions, like white papers, are intended to offer up deep dives into issues otherwise considered too technical for casual consumption. Unlike white papers, however, White Sessions harness the power of video to present content that is actually inspiring, as presented by people who are actual experts in their field.
Last Friday we had a White Session based on a TED presentation by Wade Davis (A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence). Wade’s mind-boggling talk covers his experiences with cultures radically different than our own, encountered in his anthropological and ethno-botanical studies.
As media professionals, we are often required to profile/segment groups of people by their attitudes and behaviors. Wade’s talk certainly explodes the idea that the variables we use to define/describe groups of consumer are fixed, or necessary properties. My belief is that we can become better observers of culture by realizing just how arbitrary culture actually is…
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