Should be 6/20

Internet fails here...


So the internet decided to complicate life as well as an already hectic schedule so now I'm posting all of these one after the other. So lets go back in time *Lost flashback sound effects* Okay, it's now Monday, June 20th.
The first seminar of the day was the one I was the most excited about. It was Microsoft & BBDO. I'm literally obsessed with BBDO so I was freaking out to hear what they had to say. They definitely didn't disappoint, giving a great presentation about all of the different screens in our lives and how they are archetypes in our lives. This was fascinating to me! They described the TV screen as 2 archetypes; the everyman and the jester. The everyman is the long time friend, the one you feel comfortable with, a trusted friend. The jester is the guy who entertains and brings humor. They gave statistics, and moved on to the PC screen. They referred to this as the sage. Kind of an older sibling or an older guy that stands for wisdom who's there to guide you through life (think, Hans Solo of sorts). I thought this was particularly interested because they mentioned how sometimes we're even jealous of it, like we would be of an older sibling for being know it alls. I never thought of my PC in that way. The next screen was the mobile phone. This is where they really sold me. They described this screen as a new lover; intimacy, lover, lives in the moment, these are the kind of representations of it. It's a very personal relationship you have with your phone. This was also the one screen with no generational gap, a lover is a lover, everyone has a bond with their phones equally. The final screen was a tablet, or the wizard. This is like a obi-one kanobi in your pocket (exact description guys). This is the guy that makes things happen in a mysterious way. They do things we haven't seen before. *Magic* No, but really, great seminar. My seminar was Kraft Foods. So I'm not gonna lie, I didn't think this was going to be that great. I for some crazy reason didn't know who Malcolm Gladwell was, how I don't know. I must have been living under a rock. This guy is amazing, one of the best story tellers in life. He talked about why it's better to be third then first. He started off with a war between Israel and Syria and gave a description of how Israel was third after USA and Russia with their intelligence but implemented it the best against Syria and turned the war into a "turkey shoot-out." Then he explained how apple and facebook are also third. He said the order was the inventors, the tweekers and the implementers. All of the presentation was him with a mic standing in one spot, and it was one of my favorites, even more than BBDO. The guy is just amazing at telling a story and weaving it all into the point. He kind of made me of think of a highly skilled preacher or someone of the sorts who ties in lots of broad things to a very narrow and effective idea. I thought it would be hard for the next seminar to be as good, but, Draftfcb didn't disappoint at all. I think what made me love this particular seminar was the perfect marriage of psychological research and advertising. They talked about different instances when you get a moment of insight. One example was the mann gulch fire where only one man survived because of this moment of insight. They went on to explain the research that the neuroscientists conducted and how they proved that you can predict, within about 8 seconds if the participant would have an epiphany or not. The whole seminar was about advertising, even though it kind of looks like they strayed a bit. The point of knowing about this moment of insight and alpha waves and such is so that as advertisers, creatives, etc, we can create the right environment for the perfect idea to come. They proved there was no gender difference with this, insight is insight. Another point they made which I thought was truly brilliant was that of the importance of criticism and the failure of brainstorming. With regards to the brain storming, they talked about how criticism pushes you and draws you out. A fun fact I didn't know that ties into the point is Pixar. Apparently, they come in everyday and shred old boxes of movies. The brilliance in this is that you fail fast. Rather than trying to avoid failure, you're coming towards it head on and deciding to fix it early on, when it's not so much of a problem. This routine has worked out for pixar seeing as they have 11 out of 11 highly praised movies. For this same reason they argued that brainstorming doesn't work. This is because there is no criticism really involved. You're floating around a cloud of your own ideas and it's not really progressing. The failure is hiding out in the back. Awesome, awesome seminar. My final seminar, and my most futuristic, was PHd. It was basically a showcase of all the new technology that's on the horizon. They had amazing new concepts on everything from optimized social networking, to new organic LED devices, ultra HD, it was intense. I had actually already seen some of the things on yankodesign.com but it was still cool to hear him explain how everything would work and why it was so close to mass production. The views on what society was going to look like in 2016 was intriguing as well. Overall, the whole seminar is just hard to explain without pictures, but, it was interesting to say the least.