Random Thoughts And Deep Thinking Out Here In The Desert On The Eve of TED.

CAVEAT #1: I AM ATTENDING TEDActive IN PALM SPRINGS, NOT TED LONG BEACH. I USE THE TERM "TED" AS SIMPLE SHORTHAND BECAUSE, FRANKLY, IT'S EASIER TO TYPE AND IT GETS TIRESOME TO CONSTANTLY DELINEATE BETWEEN THE TWO LOCATIONS IN TERMS OF EXPLANATION SINCE MOST OF THE SPEAKERS ON THE PROGRAM ARE THE SAME, SO ASSUME TEDActive FROM NOW ON.


CAVEAT #2: THIS BLOG WAS/IS INTENDED TO BE A SHORT TERM SNAPSHOT CHRONICLING MY EXPERIENCES, OBSERVATIONS, MUSINGS, INSPIRATIONS, AGGRAVATIONS, ETC AT TED 2011 (SEE CAVEAT #1). HOWEVER, AS I AM PRONE TO TANGENTIAL FLIGHTS OF MENTAL FANCY THAT DON'T ALWAYS STICK TO THE SCRIPT - AT LEAST NOT OVERTLY - THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TYPE POSTS.


Here are some random, small world things that may/may not be related to attending TED that I would like to get to in this post:


- Weirdly, the IAB Leadership Conference is happening here in Palm Springs at the same time as TED.
- They are discussing copy testing at said conference.
- There is a Newsweek Article about Chicago - "America's Hottest City".
- Rahm Emmanuel and Dan Sinker.


First, Palm Springs may or may not be your first idea of a digital-techno destination mecca hotbed, in fact, besides being the youngest person on the plane (and I'm not young, mind you) en route, I mostly think of Palm Springs in terms of that Entourage episode where Team Vince all bivouacked out to the desert to gobble 'Shrooms and seek the answer of whether Vince should appear in the Benjie movie in Season 5.


Maybe perhaps it's the ideal place to seek some answers.


Well, the IAB is wrestling with a doozy of a question, and I quote (actually copy & pasted from their site):


" . . . as they address head-on two non-intersecting conversations taking place right now in the digital industry:

• the belief that marketing success derives solely from expertise in data gathering and analytics
• the belief that marketing success derives entirely from creativity, context and content.

Quite simply, is the future of marketing a question of man versus machine?"

Wow. That's pretty heavy stuff. Very-TED like question. Maybe WATSON will show up with some answers? I actually would like to go hear some of this, but I have a TED to attend!! In fact, in a half hour there is a Kickoff celebration - a Food Truck Party in the Parking Lot (hey, I like all those things - food, trucks, parking lots and parties - hoping the gestalt/combination makes for a good time tonight).


I guess I'm curious about the IAB's/ANA/4A's pov on the above questions, digital metrics and how it affects OR is affected by creativity. I will be following that one. My very very very superficial reaction to copy testing digital campaigns is, no surprise, not happy. I guess, again without knowing the details here, isn't the internet one giant testing machine? Doesn't it already measure behavior? Isn't that the beauty of an interactive system? Instant and prolonged feedback?


Hmmm . . .


So Newsweek is proclaiming that Chicago is now hip. And goes into deep detail about why. Makes my head spin a little bit when a publication like Newsweek uses the term "hip". Kinda makes me uncomfortable. Like when Phil Dunphy explained "wtf" on Modern Family. Anyway the positive attention for the city is nice. I did think Rahm getting the nod as Mayor would help the image of the city in terms of the coasts. Speaking of Rahm . . .


So Dan Sinker has been outed as the man behind @MayorEmanuel, maybe one of the funnest/funniest fake twitter accounts since @BPGlobalPr. Though, I must say, I did find Dan's portrayal as the f-bomb dropping Chicago Mayoral candidate hilarious conceptually, the joke got a little old in the constant barrage of tweets. So I liked the idea a whole bunch, SERIOUSLY, it's once I got the joke I almost didn't need to see the tweet(s). I know I will be alone in that sentiment.


NONETHELESS . .  here's the small world thing. We had Dan speak at one of our Energy BBDO Salons, which (watch this) is modeled at least in spirit to a TED Talk, where he talked about "side projects" (it was a very cool talk) where Dan talked about the importance of having creative side projects (I can't do the talk justice here) and how that's how he gets to new and different ideas. Evidently @MayorEmmanuel was one of the side project he was brewing up when he came to see us last year. And I love the description of Dan in the linked Atlantic profile: "The genius behind @MayorEmanuel is Dan Sinker, who has a heart made out of Chicago and balls of punk rock. "

See that? TED>IAB>Chicago>Mayor>Questions<The Desert>Answers.


Maybe not so random after all . . . 

Of Course The Flight To TEDActive Has Wifi

CAVEAT: ONE FINGERED TYPING ON AN AIRPLANE THERE WILL BE TYPOS. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW. OK? OK THEN.

En route and up in the air. With inflight wireless, I feel contextually obligated to post.

Excited for tomorrow with David Brooks and Homaro Cantu of Chicago's own Moto on the sked.

These are the familiar ones to me, but one of the best parts of the experience is the surprise talk.

The one talk from a person with a background I don't connect with and a topic that doesn't (on the surface) seem to catch my ADHD-addled interest.

One year it was a from a woman who crocheted a reef (I think).

Often, these have been the most inspiring talks. So that gets me excited when I look over the program and don't recognize a speaker.

It also causes me stress. Like a hyper conference nerd, I am always haunted by the fear that I might miss The Most Important Thing or Talk or Experience. So I try to get to it all. Like a cram to gulp it all down.

Which makes me glad all will be re-broadcast on the site later.

Another stressor is simply the amount of content to input in a day. As a professional creative person, I am always absorbing and storing ideas, language, images, impressions, faces, moments, flashes on mental hard drive for, hopefully, a productive output later at a relevant time. But the sheer amount of input over the next couple days always comes close to frying the noggin. Plus I have curb my enthusiasm "to make something" out of all the input. I'm a compulsive creative soul . . . I need to output as much as I need to collect fodder. Look, before you feel too sorry for me, I know that these are not big problems/issues in the scheme of all things, believe me.

One of the arguments to attend TED in either Palm Springs or Long Beach in person, analog-style is to mingle (connect, network, expand, socialize, whatever) with the other attendees.
My last TED, I didn't capitalize on that aspect of the conference as I much as i wanted to/want to this time. Those of you who know me, know that I am quite easy going, easy to talk to, but yet, you know, though the conference is set up to make it comftable to connect, a little social awkwardness always creeps into these things.

Anyway, this will be the last of the pre-TED musings. About to transition to real time observations.

Stay tuned.

Before TED . . . TEDxMidwest

Last October, at the MCA, the inaugural TEDxMidwest launched.

It was really exciting to get two days of TED-inspired talks in a very authentic TED-atmosphere right in Chicago. I personally enjoyed Jason Fried of 37signals talk and hearing Katrina Markoff of Vosges chocolates discuss creative inspiration.

Plus David Lowery was the musical host. I aggressively lobbied for "Take the skinheads bowling" but he mostly stuck to Cracker tunes.

In fact, the TEDx idea is one of the aspects I 'm most excited about. I think it is a great way to expand and distribute the best stuff TED has to offer outside of having to attend the Long Beach or Palm Springs events. And it obviates a lot of the "elitest" criticism I referenced in my last post around the TED brand by branching out into various communities.

It also is super cool to connect with Chicago people that dig this kind of stuff and who are up to numerous interesting and innovating things. I've often been blown away by the Chicago creative scene - whether it be music, art, architecture - and now there seems to be a new wave of energy here. Especially with a lot of the tech stuff happening.

Anyway, if you live in and/or near Chicago, dig creative, media, arts, etc, I highly suggest checking out TEDxMidwest 2011. It will be in October again and part of Chicago Ideas Week.

See you there.

TED 2011 . . . thoughts before arriving.

Attending a TED conference is, well, overwhelming.

But more on that later.

First I want to purge some awkwardness.

I feel, natch, some unease about taking a full week away from the office and my family. At this point in my life it's a major deal to do both. I carry a lot responsibility in both areas and do not like to think I might be neglecting either/or. So though I am very excited about this week coming, it is not without some anxiety.

Also, I think there is an element of TED that can be (should be?) mocked. If any of you followed the Sarah Silverman/Chris Anderson twitter fight last year, it certainly brought some issues about the conference to the forefront - some criticism that may have been (more or less) latent and "outed" in a very big public way.

Criticism such as the conference, the speakers, the conference attendees and the TED brand are/is . . .
- smug
- self aggrandizing
- elitist
- pretentious
- narcissistic
- cultish
- "they think their poo smells like roses"
- etc

This I pulled from a Facebook page of TED hate/criticism.

So yeah, that's out there. And maybe some of it is true. But there's always Haters and this gives them something to Hate with a capital H. A large part of what drives this is that the audience is "curated" (even that sounds pretentious, eh?) so you have to be invited to attend. This automatically is going to rub some people the wrong way. Especially if they apply and don't get an invitation.

Oh well.

The way I look at it, I certainly don't participate or attend any activity or organization without healthy skepticism anyway, so though I value being a part of the TED community, I am neither prosthelytizing nor irrationally exuberant about what it has to offer. So let the cynics spew their vitriol.

But it does have a lot to offer that is good, and thus this blog.

I will be sharing my perspective, experiences, thoughts, ruminations, conclusions, et al during the week of TED 2011 with my family, friends and fellow co-workers at Energy BBDO and Proximity Chicago.

What's great is that we have set up a webcast of the conference at our Energy offices so the entire organization can at least have access to the talks. Granted, the talks all migrate to the TED website at some point, but there is some value and excitement in seeing the real, live thing as it it unfolds.

So for those of you able to tune into the Webcast, view this is another layer of the experience.

Please feel free to comment or email with thoughts and questions.