fast isn’t fast enough.(An e-book written in three hours by BU advertising students.)

4
5
9
12
13
21
25
29
33
37
41
45
49
Introduction
Born to Tweet
Unicorns Are a Dime a Dozen
Get Your Head in the Clouds
Creative Cramping Is Not an Option
Too Small to Fail
This Is Your CEO, Come Over for Coffee
Give Me a Roller Coaster, Not a Flyer
Tweets or It Didn’t Happen
Honey, You’re Wearing My Phone
Overcome With Emojion
A Wrinkle in Vine
Acknowledgements
2

Welcome to the second annual “We Wrote a Book in Three
Hours” exercise. To test their creativity, content generating
prowess, collaborative skills and ability to think fast, I asked
students in Strategic Creative Development (a course at Boston
University’s College of Communication) to conceive, write,
sketch and produce this little ebook in three hours. Give or
take a couple of minutes. They had no idea where it would
take them or how they would get there. But here it is. Some
thoughts about who they are as a generation, how they’ve
embraced the age of digital disruption and what it means as
they exit their college years and enter the so-called real world.
It’s a privilege to be their teacher.
Edward Boches
3

@Number1MOM I’m hungry #feedme
#Babysfirsttweet.Wethinkin140characters
or less. When we broadcast information and
share it in real time, we are the news. We grew
up in a generation when anyone with a twitter
account and a blog can call himself a journalist.
Or at least a content creator. With that comes
an overload of information, something we have
learned to combat by making our opinions and
insights meaningful.
5

We don’t waste time on fluff. Instead, we get to
the point and make it strong. We grew up sharing
information concisely and quickly. For us, it’s not
just about using the social media available to us but
using it to make an impact. Our fingers are always
on the pulse of culture, we consume it constantly,
process it quickly, and share it quicker. We aren’t
reacting to the changes; we are the ones creating
the evolution of technology and media.
8

We’ve been force fed a lot about the “big
idea.” Something so mind-blowing and
ubiquitous that it will capture the attention of
everyone all at once. That “Beatles” moment
whentheworldstopsandwatchesinamazement.
But does that make sense in a world of constant
content? Sure, when everything is average,
unexciting, and blase, it’s easy to swoop in and
knock the world’s socks off. But that’s not the
way things are now. Someone skydived from
space. Dogs ride skateboards pretty well. Our
9

phone tells us when to leave for the airport.
Everything is already pretty fucking cool. Not
to mention as the creative depth of the average
person increases, there’s dope content coming
from lots of people.
12
We can have a really great idea--yet millions
of people will never see it. The audience of
a billion has been replaced by billions of
audiences of one. That means our ideas aren’t
going to make everyone look they’d had better
make a few people smile and cry. In a world of
unicorns, we need to create someone’s favorite
horse.

Clouds are an inspiration. On warm, lazy
summer days we lie on the ground and watch
them flow through the air like giant animals.
Animals that fade into fire trucks. Fire trucks that
grow back into animals. Clouds are whatever we
make them out to be; they grow, they shrink,
they fade. With some creativity and imagination
we turn them into whatever we want.
13

Today with a laptop and a smartphone we
can create our own clouds in any shape we
want. Access to Google, Wikipedia, Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram have changed the world,
making us better equipped than any before us
to collaborate, create, imagine and and invent.
We can learn anything, anywhere with the
touch of a button. This isn’t going to change.
The clouds may come and go, change shape
and morph into new things, but they will never
disappear. We won’t let them.
16

Creativity used to be some far off, theoretical
idea. Something we encouraged in children
and praised in adults who “just had it.” These
days, however, creativity is much more. It’s the
only reality that the Millennial generation—our
generation—has known.
17

Like food, water and air, creativity in millennials
isn’t just an option, it’s a necessity. Every aspect
of our lives is guided by it, and our measure of
success depends on it.
So we aren’t going to cramp up. Or let the
imagination atrophy. Instead we’re developing
exercises all the time to keep our creative
muscles limber. Like writing a book in three
hours.
20

Size matters. Don’t let anyone tell you it
doesn’t. But the great secret no one’s
saying? Bigger isn’t better.
Advertisers once dreamed of big agency life,
big agency clients and big agency perks. Those
dreams are dead. The game has changed, and
the little guys call the shots. The small shops
take risks, think big and change the game.
With nothing to lose and everything to gain
they’ve got a reason to think different, and no
excuse for being bland.
21

As young creatives and strategists, thinkers
and doers, we need small shops. They’re the
breeding ground for ingenuity and the best
place to learn what’s actually outside-the-box.
Put in your hours, learn all the rules, and throw
them out the window. No one got very far in
this business by following the rules.
Communication isn’t controlled by the biggest
kids on the playground. It’s evolving in the
sweat of tiny shops with big ideas. The digitally
savvy interns, the overly inventive art directors,
and the up-all-night planners are the future of
the business. The bullshit façade of corporate
hierarchy is a relic, and the ability to be fearless
is the new standard of gold.
Anything big can do, small can do better. And
faster. The tools that set big shops apart (the
resources and the technology) are available in
the App store. We don’t need to worry about
specifics when the ideas drive everything.
Size definitely matters. Don’t let anyone tell
you it doesn’t.
24

We don’t care about the trappings. We just
care about the work. We don’t care about
hierarchy. We just care about collaboration.
We don’t care about titles. We just care about
responsibility.
The workplace constructs of the past -- tiered
office sizes, cubicles, organization charts --
may have worked for our parents, but not for
us. We can work anywhere. A kitchen table,
a coffee shop. We can connect with peers and
colleagues across social channels.
25

We can hold meetings over Google Hangouts or
if you prefer, Skype. It doesn’t matter as long as
we’re connected and collaborating.
Cubicle walls? We tore them down. Office
buildings? We’re not opposed. But if they create
barriers to our thoughts, ideas and creativity,
we’re probably better off leaving them.
We simply want a workplace that connects us. So
we can work more closely together. Learn from
each other. Contribute to the overall purpose.
And harness our collective energy to make things
that matter.
You know, the kind of office where the CEO isn’t
sitting on different floor, high above us, isolated
in a corner office. That’s too far to go for coffee.
28

We are not a generation that can be persuaded
by basic poster advertisements and generic
messaging. With so many brands vying for our
attention across many platforms, we’re interested
in campaigns that can either enhance our lives
with utility or enrich them with experiences.
We may notice a brand that has a “big” advertising
idea, but if we’re to remember it then it will need
to do more. Educate us, entertain us, or better
yet brings us something we can actually use.
29

As aspiring strategists and creators, we may
have learned the importance of ads that tell
stories, remnants from the days of Don Draper.
But our belief in ideas does not stop at print,
television, or radio. We want them to extend to
platforms and services.
Offer us rich experiences. And be available in
real time context. The ads we really appreciate
and strive to create ourselves are the ones that
go a step further and actually solve a problem.
Having grown up in the digital age we know
what it takes to create these new, but necessary
ideas. We have seen the creative ways that
brands have started to use technology and
we’ve lamented the times they’ve failed to
embrace it quickly enough. We’re ready to
creative beyond the page and generate ideas
that are more than memorable ads, but
worthwhile journeys. The days of advertising
made only of words and pictures are a thing of
the past. You can read about them in a flyer.
Or you can join us on the roller coaster.
32

“Dude, did you see my tweet?... Then why
didn’t you tweet me back?”
Forget phone calls and text messages. Our
generation shares good news, ideas and events
with the world. The Internet is where we brag,
complain, flirt, fight (trolls anyone?), offend
and comment. It’s where we get our news and
learn about people we’ve never met and things
we’ve never seen.
33

Imagine that you go somewhere, do something
or win something awesome. Well, as far as our
generation is concerned, if you don’t Facebook
It, Tweet It, Instagram It or Vine it, it didn’t
happen. We won’t know about it or care about
it unless it’s plastered all over our Facebook and
Twitter news feeds. If it doesn’t live online, it
doesn’t exist at all. Our generation believes
in sharing and spreading content through the
digital world.
Even though we sometimes embarrass ourselves or
abuse our power online, it’s the place where we’ve
grown up. We’re connected with every corner of the
planet and to people from all every imaginable place
and background. One big melting pot of connected,
digitally-savvy people.
Years from now, when archeologists want to
learn about our generation, they won’t have to
dig through dirt for bones and fossils. They’ll be
able to log on to Twitter and scroll through the
millions of Twitter feeds to read about what we
love and think and care about.
Social Media is a powerful, incredible tool that
has changed the way we see and share the world
around us. And you better believe if the Egyptians
had Twitter back in the day, they’d be tweeting
the shit out of their #Pyramids, selfies and all.
36

“OMG! Are you engaged?”
“Oh, no, this ring can read out my emails”
Let’sbehonest:tothemillennialgeneration, digital
is the new diamond. The more dependant we
become on technology, the higher our separation
anxiety. We break a sweat just by leaving our
phone to charge in the next room. That’s because
we’re in a society where receiving a notification a
minute late puts us behind the pack.
37

We lose out on limited deals. We anger our friends
for responding a minute after they text us. Our boss
assumes we’re slacking when we haven’t responded
to an email he hasn’t even sent yet. One day
humans will evolve into having a skin pocket for our
smart phones. But in the meantime, more and more
wearable technology will be produced that allows us
to never lose contact with the digital world.
“You’ll have to excuse me--my necklace is buzzing.”
40

Once upon a time we were all sitting in our caves and
drawing our emotions on the walls. Simple, effective
and long lasting. Now we regard it as a primitive form of
human communication. But in reality they were the first
emojis in human history.
Those original graphics have become artifacts. Today we
use letters to form messages. But our generation has
taken this simplicity yet another big step forward – or
backwards. Just a few years ago we noticed the rightmost
keys of our keyboards and figured out that we could use
colons and parentheses to express meanings. LOL. :)
41

Now we’re moving forward by returning to an
idea that dates to 8000 years ago: using symbols
that resemble human emotions and objects. The
Japanese called them Emojis. Essentially they are
nothing else but computerized cave drawings. Boom.
Emoji seamlessly blurs into our day-to-day
conversations.The language constantly expands into
new combinations of symbols. Meanwhile there are
more than 1200 Emojis expressing plethora different
emotions. But perhaps they say even more about the
generation that uses them. We like fast, simple and
visual. Even if we have to go back in time to find it.
44

Today we are inundated with newly
developed applications, games, platforms,
and technology each and every day. It’s
virtually impossible to keep up. I remember
the days of MySpace, coding my page to look
as aesthetically appealing as possible to keep
up with my technologically adept peers. My
last days using Myspace became a blur as my
generation slowly transitioned to something
newer and better...Facebook.
45

Vine, Twitter, and Facebook are among the
most prominent social media platforms used
by our generation today. But are they here
to stay? Will one of us come up with a more
engaging, user-friendly platform in his garage
tomorrow? We might.
But even if we’re not the one who does, we’ll
will stay conditioned and adaptable to the
inevitable that do come. We know all too well
that one day it’s AIM and MySpace, the next
it’s FourSquare and Tumblr. So our eyes remain
wide open to the spaces and platforms we’ll
have to master as both users and creators.
A lizard adapts to its environment by changing
color to survive its predators. In a sense, we
must act like lizards, continuously morphing
ourselves with the changes being thrown
at us at lightning speed. Yesterday is gone.
Tomorrow is too late. Change is inevitable. We
must learn to adapt or be left behind. You’ll
find no wrinkles on us.
48

49
Art Directors
Andrea Chiu
Laura Falotico
Victor Hanas
Benjamin Knobl
Jessie Li
Rich Peters
Penny Shiu
Cheryl Sinclair
Serena Tang
Daisy Yi Wang
Sammy Xi
Contributors
Writers
Ally Brillaud
Briana Brochu
Drew DiSabatino
Casey Donahue
Lauren Haslett
Chris Hurlbert
Lara Kessides
Michelle Lawrence
Stephanie Lin
Laura Rose
Catherine Salvaggio

52
Michelle Lawrence, Design Director
Rich Peters, Associate Design Director
Lauren Haslett, Editor
Andrea Chiu, Selfie Art Direction
Jordan Pories,
Video Production
Ryan Whitten,
Video Production

end.