(posts_in_the_category): Lean Into Change

Each week, Maxus NY gather and compile a list of the most interesting things happening in and around NYC for the week ahead. This is our Do Interesting Things weekly series and is released every Friday to inspire people to get outside their comfort zone. The initiative started to give people a reason to get out and experience new and interesting things with the view to broaden the mind and foster creativity. We encourage our staff to experience the best that NY has to offer, and share their experience at our bi-weekly staff meeting, exemplifying our mantra “Lean into Change”.

Each week, Maxus NY gather and compile a list of the most interesting things happening in and around NYC for the week ahead. This is our Do Interesting Things weekly series and is released every Friday to inspire people to get outside their comfort zone. The initiative started to give people a reason to get out and experience new and interesting things with the view to broaden the mind and foster creativity. We encourage our staff to experience the best that NY has to offer, and share their experience at our bi-weekly staff meeting, exemplifying our mantra “Lean into Change”.

Each week, Maxus NY gather and compile a list of the most interesting things happening in and around NYC for the week ahead. This is our Do Interesting Things weekly series and is released every Friday to inspire people to get outside their comfort zone. The initiative started to give people a reason to get out and experience new and interesting things with the view to broaden the mind and foster creativity. We encourage our staff to experience the best that NY has to offer, and share their experience at our bi-weekly staff meeting, exemplifying our mantra “Lean into Change”.

(Angela Jones, Head of Communications Planning for West Coast, Maxus USA)

No, it’s not Robin Thicke’s follow-up to ‘Blurred Lines’.

Inevitably, when you finally return to the office from CES each year, the question beckons, “What did you think of CES?”  It’s difficult to sift through this multisensory overload to land on one perspective that sums it up. However, I left this year feeling a deep sense of excitement, both as a consumer and a media professional. Click to read more. 

The tree is lit in Rockefeller Center, great gifts have been on sale for months… and the "season of sharing” seems to be upon us.  

Sharing you say? Yes, while the holiday season seems to create a frenzy among our families and friends, it has a similar affect on our industry’s beloved pundits. Unlike saving a few dollars on a new Playstation4, these annual predictions are the gifts that keep on giving… at least through next December.

I don’t know about you, but I relish the many varied views of the coming year in both business and digital. It’s a chance to reflect on which technologies have caught fire, and which have failed; which consumer trends have peaked, and which are just getting started. Of course, it’s also a chance to evaluate last year’s predictions and their predictors.

Last week at the Content Council conference I was thrilled to hear keynote speaker Sarah DaVanzo talk about the future. Here are some highlights of what she said:

- We live in a VUCA world — volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous.

- 3D Printing and Drones have gone mainstream - they’re in Sky Mall magazines on airlines now. 4D Printing, using living matter and time as the fourth dimension, is just around the corner.

- Drones - fraternities are hiring drone companies to shoot their parties from above and travel destinations are buying the airspace above them to allow guests to shoot special events there.

Interest in wearable technology has grown considerably in the past few years with the announcement of Google Glass in 2012 and Pebble smart watches exceeding its funding goal, raising more than US$10 million in its Kickstarter campaign in the same year.

Since then, we’ve seen many more smart watches being announced by consumer electronic brands like Samsung and Sony. Possible rivals of Google Glass have also been spotted such as Israeli startup, eyeSight Mobile Technologies.

In our business we meet a lot of people. Most meetings begin with an awkward dance through trivial small talk to pass the time waiting for elevators and walking to conference rooms. One of the most common questions I get asked is, “so how long have you been with Maxus?”  Well, recently I passed my 13th anniversary with GroupM and I am approaching 6 years with Maxus – I joined shortly after the birth of the company.  When I inform people of my tenure, the first response is shock. This is an industry where people change agencies with the seasons. The typical follow up is, “wow, what’s kept you here so long?”  It’s just small talk so my inevitable response is a very simple “I love it here”.  No one ever probes deeper to find out why I love it here. I don’t know that anyone cares to know why.

As I’ve been digging around for inspirational and game-changing marketing ideas, I’ve noticed recently that there is a common thread throughout. That common thread is technology. This isn’t your run of the mill technology solution like developing websites, mobile applications or games. This is about creating an experience, with technology at the heart, and answers marketing and business problems through a meaningful interaction to a human truth. I call this ‘Soul Tech’, because the technology solutions have a heart and a soul, and can truly add value to people’s lives.  

How do you define success? Is it an advertising campaign that went particularly well? Is it helping a client reach their goal? Is it gathering much needed data to hone future messages? Or is it something way more personal?

This year’s 4A’s Transformations Conference in Los Angeles was full of informative kernels that created a mental collage for me of where the advertising and media industry is currently and where it’s headed in the near term. Many of the sessions were thought provoking, and I guess that was the point – to expose me to information that would make me want to change my way of thinking, start an interesting conversation, or alter the way I go about my daily life – if even in just a small way. Three key nuggets did just that.

(photo Credit: 4AsTransformation.com)

It’s a common request and expectation that attending SXSW means you return with a plethora of hot trends and new technologies identified. Which you then creatively bundle up and roll out to clients, colleagues and the trade with the intention of looking super smart.  The reality is, the 'SXSW wrap up' is commonplace and often lacks context. Worst of all two weeks post SXSW, once the Texan bbq smell has finally washed out of your clothes, the vast majority of trends get relegated to powerpoint graveyard, and we retract back to our daily grind.