Great planners play many roles and require balancing different skills and perspectives. They are impartial wingmen who provide outside perspective to clients and teams. Planners must be able to work collaboratively with others while also taking time for lone creative work. They need to understand both data and stories. Balancing a broad knowledge with focusing on key insights is important. Both big picture thinking and attention to details are valued. Most of all, planners should be brave, positive and bring an outside perspective to their work.

1. GREAT PLANNERS ARE SCHIZO

2. THE WINGMAN

3. THE TRUTH SEEKERS
The “conscience”
Open to anything (vs. clients)
Impartial on work (vs. creatives)
Liberated from agendas (vs. account people)

4. THE LINCHPIN
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5. GREAT PLANNERS ARE SCHIZO

7. INSIDEOUTSIDE

8. INSIDE
our job is to know our clients’
businesses, our teams, the process
& the rules through and through

9. our job is to bring the oxygen.
divergent thinking. perspective. OUTSIDE

11. CITY COUNTRY

12. CITY
you’ll probably live in a city. cities
are awesome. soon over 50% of the
world’s population will live in them.
cities have cultures and norms and
rituals that are awesome. go cities.

13. a lot of people don’t live in cities.
yet, they have valid cultures, rituals,
perspectives and norms (protip: it’s
really hard to find those in one-way-
glass focus groups). being smug
about “flyover states” is a stupid
thing for a planner to do.
COUNTRY

15. BEING
SOMEONE’S
BITCH
BEING
A
BITCH

16. BEING
SOMEONE’S
BITCH
you are in a service industry.
client says jump, you say “how
high?”
you are on a team.
if the creatives are in a crisis, you
buy them cake and work with them
until they have it worked out (even if
you explained it to them ten times
already).
your account person needs unusual
help with a meeting (ie making you
read a script about cleaning
testicles)? you do it.

17. the client isn’t being objective
about their brand? you need to try
to fix that.
the creative is off-brief? you need
to speak up.
your account man isn’t giving you
enough time to write a brief? raise
the flag.
BEING
A
BITCH

19. COLLABORATORLONE WOLF

20. COLLABORATOR
you are a creator. planning requires
a creative process. but to get to a
smart solution, you’ll need
perspectives, opinions and
pressure tests against other
thinkers. drop the ego and let that
happen.

21. you are a creator. planning requires
a creative process. a creative
process requires alone time,
mulling, sitting with a blank page in
front of you and ultimately taking on
the responsibility the brief. don’t be
afraid of that.
LONE WOLF

23. NERDPOET

24. NERD
ahhh data. it’s everywhere and no
modern planning process is
complete without diving into the
spreadsheets and studies and
databases and nerding out.

25. ahhh stories. the stuff of magic, the
pathway to connecting with people.
no modern planning process is
complete without a bit of dreaming
and what if’ing.
POET

27. KNOW
EVERYTHING
KNOW
ONE THING

28. KNOW
EVERYTHING
planning requires thoroughness.
you have to bring it all in - the
books, the studies, the
conversations, the visits into other
worlds, the reports, the data.

29. you must, must, must be able to
crystallize your thinking into simple,
clear, logical flows and statements.
a great planning deliverable doesn’t
lay out everything you know; it only
reveals the things that everyone
else must know.
KNOW
ONE THING

31. LOVE
BIG STORIES
LOVE
THE DETAILS

32. LOVE
BIG STORIES
find the big story of the brand. know
it through and through. be
audacious with it.

33. pull that story all the way through to
the tweets and the words on the
back of the package.
LOVE
THE DETAILS

34. a few things no matter what...

35. BE BRAVE

36. BE POSITIVE

37. thank you