Kev Chesters writes:

Whilst watching this
thoroughly depressing, supposed "feelgood" movie the analogy occurred
to me between the process of the show and behavior of a lot of
clients/agencies in terms of the creative process and decision making.
Most especially with the lifelines.

"Ask the Audience" –
it occurred to me that this is rather like abdicating responsibility
for decision making on the right creative solution to a few people
above a pub. This would certainly avoid having to take responsibility
or taking a risk in any way based upon your own expertise or experience.

"Phone a Friend" –
leads you into the tempting but very dangerous trap of looking at what
the most successful competitor is currently doing and attempt to copy
it.

"50/50" – the
"multiple routes" option. Rather than focus upon one great idea and how
to make it greater then why not split attention between three creative
routes because then we will have an a, b or c to ask the audience
about. It will surely make the decision easier to have more choices,
won't it? Er, I'd argue no. and it might just possibly reduce your
chance of getting to something brilliant by 66%. Not good.

And it occurs to me
that, just like on the show, the simplest and most effective way to win
in this task is still to "know" the answer and go with what you know is
correct – based upon knowledge, experience and informed opinion without
having to abdicate the decision to a last resort "lifeline".

"Creative solution A, Chris, Final answer. I just know it"

Laura Quinn writes:

Over the weekend a group of account handlers and planners went on the first of five Wieden + Kennedy agency three-day ‘Master Classes’ in digital media and communication, brought to us by the lovely people at Hyper Island

We started the 3 days with a bit of team building – creating a page illustrating 3 moments in our life that have defined who we are. Jon Tapper’s page was a triangle with the word ‘ME’ in the middle. We certainly learned a lot about each other…

Next we all sat in a circle and admitted that some of us hadn’t used Twitter and weren’t sure we understood it. Alex chose to add that he thinks it’s a shame no one sends postcards anymore. We all agreed to resolve the Twitter issue before the weekend was up.

Then the proper stuff began…

Guest speaker Jonathan Briggs came in to give us some super-smart thinking on measuring effective e-commerce, including what will forever be known as ‘That Amazing Chart’.

Mark Comerford, self-proclaimed “journalist educator and generally strange guy” started a (surprisingly fierce) debate on the social effects, behaviours, and outcomes of the rise of digital media. All delivered with the strongest Dublin accent in Sweden and a staggering array of expletives.

Mickaehl Ahlström  presented his thinking on media channel strategy. Like a quiet, Swedish, digital, version of Richard Branson. In a good way.

And Laura Jordan-Bambach from LBI talked through her personal opinion on online comms. Our very own Welcome to Optimism blog was in mentioned, we’ve never been so proud….
(Yeah, right.)

In between all the discussions, debates, reviews and reflections, we did manage to squeeze in a posh dinner.

…and took on some briefs of our own to get our online creative juices flowing. Being the future-facing types that we are, we even went post-digital with the presentation style, opting for two big bits of paper, some felt tip pens and a large portion of sandwiches.

By Sunday afternoon our eyes and minds had been thoroughly opened. No big answers, no definitive decisions on what happens next, and no magic wand. But a huge new space opened up in our heads to start thinking digital in a totally new way.

And from one of our lot who said on Friday morning that tweeting what you ate for lunch was boring and pointless, came this tweet on Sunday night: “Cauliflower cheese is ace”.

Vive la digital revolution!