Presentation from Boulder Digital Works 'Making Digital Workshop' on April 15th, 2010. Video is here http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6201530

1. Hello #digiwork
Gareth Kay
Director of Digital Strategy
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
@garethk

2. What I learnt on the interweb
about yesterday

3. Lots of smart people talked

4. Knowledge was shared

5. Presenters were funny

6. It’s better than SXSWi

7. I gained 100lbs overnight

8. Don’t be late

9. I’m royally f***ed

11. 1992

17. All very similar
A problem to be solved by advertising
‘Consumers’ to ‘target’
A message to say at them
Reasons to believe
Tone of voice
Maybe, if lucky, what space you’re filling

18. New technology

24. New technology,
different culture

28. “This stuff is as mainstream as it can be.
Google, the iPhone - these move the
culture more than The Beatles did in
the ’60’s. It’s shaping the human race.”
- Andy Hertzfeld

31. “Nobody comes out of a movie saying,
“that was a really good movie. I really
enjoyed it. It was really clear.”
- Russell Davies

34. $77 million
$220 million
$310 million

35. Technology has driven dramatic,
and continuous, cultural change
More participatory
More social and communal (arguably amplifying who human beings are)
More fragmented
More transparent
More playful
‘Always on’
Location increasingly important

36. So, obviously, the brief
remains the same...

40. “I’m just surprised that no-one’s
thought of a better idea yet”
Stephen King on Planning

41. This isn’t about the digital brief.
It’s about a better brief for
the post-digital world.

42. It’s not simply about the brief.
It’s about asking having a better map
of the world to ask better questions.

43. What we do,
not what we say,
matters.

46. We’ve only ever noticed peacocks.

47. Changing our behavior
changes how we think.

48. We need to be like bowerbirds.

49. We now live in age of ideas that do.

52. Stop communicating products and
start making communication products.
Useful entertaining or memorable,
not interruptive, experiences.
Create, don’t fill, media space.

53. Not just what we do
but what people
do to what we do.

54. We tend to design finite,
complete products.
We’re not very good at
designing for gaps.

55. From a downloading culture
to an uploading culture.

65. Customers don’t own brands but
they do want to participate.
- Charles Vallance

68. Slippy > sticky.

71. Generous ideas are
bigger than big ideas.

72. Have a social mission, not just a
commercial proposition.

73. Understand what people are interested
in and work back from there.

75. Be media positive

76. Radiohead went out to
where people are and built
experiences there with
partnerships like:
- iTunes for remixes
- aniBoom for an
animation contest
- Google for 3-D video

77. “Media is less and less often
about crafting a single
message to be consumed by
individuals, and more and
often a way of creating an
environment for convening
and supporting groups.”

80. Small is the new big.

81. “The bigger a brand gets,
the smaller it should act,
because no one likes big.”

83. “Any idea is dangerous if it’s a
person’s only idea”
A culture full of depth and complexity
The rule of 5% requires lots of matches to start a fire
Why not when the economics have changed and the cost of failure is near
zero?

84. Roulette isn’t responsible

85. “The mistake of science is to pretend
everything is a clock when the world
is a cloud.”
-Jonah Lehrer, referencing the work of Karl Popper

86. Coherency, not consistency
specials eg
language, frappucino
eg ‘skinny’
habits
formation
‘my sister’
book range
and options
book
barista Provide an
reading
culture uplifting experience ordering
that enriches system akelah and
used grounds people’s lives the bee
for gardeners in store
starbucks
sofas and performance
company
social ambience and art starbucks
responsibility salon
africa 05
hearmusic
fair trade Xm
coffee
music cd
cause
burn your own
publicity
cd
in store
Source: John Grant, ‘The Brand Innovation Manifesto’

87. It’s about understanding
distributed identity
Google
Books
Blogspot
Youtube
Google
Google Google Scholar
411 Search
Google
Docs
Organize the
world’s information
Google and make it
Shopping universally
accessible and Google
useful.
labs Chrome
Browser
Google
Maps Google.Org
Google
sketch Fossil fuel
Challenge

88. High frequency. Low value.
Semi-predictable rewards.

89. So what does all this mean
for the brief?

90. Pre-digital Post-digital
Interruption Participation
Image manipulation Value creation
Saying things at people Doing things for people
Intangible value Tangible value
Perception Behavior

91. From saying things at people to
doing things with and for people

92. From why and what
to what and how.

93. Better questions
What’s the real problem?
Who is this among?
How might we best approach solving this?
Why might they talk about this idea?
How do they get involved?
What keeps the conversation going?

94. There are no great briefs,
only great ads.
There are no great briefs,
but there are a lot of bad ones.
A good brief is probably about
as good as a brief gets.

95. The piece of paper is less
important than the journey.

98. Communication R&D

100. Thank you.
http://www.garethkay.com
@garethk