After a day and a half of wpp's Stream2007 event, I have met some terrific people, participated in some great conversations and activities and generally gotten with the program.
So, what's 'the program?' How can we get a large marketing company, dominated historically by advertising agencies, to become more innovative, collaborative and to work outside their comfort zone. Well, the tech industry in different parts of the world seems to have a good time (fun + social + productive) at these unconferences. Let's see if that might work for these folks.
So, strickly speaking, this type of gathering is a bit inorganic to this crowd but that doesn't mean it cannot work. In fact, I think it is working for many. In the morning, we ran a session to organize the bloggers and vloggers in the crowd. It was well attended and lively but one question I asked was name a conference you have been to that you would consider a good, or even, great experience and why. There were answers but what there was also a disconnect. Someone in the group put their finger on it, "ad agencies don't go to conferences, we go to awards shows."
Interesting. So, this type of conference is new for many of the attendees.
Assembling them here with the Kinnernet format is an attempt to see if a little of the electricity that sparks some of the tech community will work on advertising agencies. Spark ideas by mixing up odd-fellows and odd exepriences. Oh, and let go fo the reins a bit.
One thing seems clear. Through wpp's digital acquisitions/investments and the people they have invited, the event is not as dominated by the ad agencies as they might have been in previous years. The mix between tech geek and marketing geek seems more even. With a little VC sprinkled on the top.
I ran into someone who felt strongly that this is the type of idea-sparking will be good for the agencies. This will help them/us be the guy/gal who brings the radical ideas to clients. Agencies, especially ad firms, have always been the source of the big campaign idea. That's not enough anymore. Our big ideas need to be about business and a larger sense of creativity. This unconference clearly stated wpp's commitment to this leadership role.
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