[…] those of you that attended the conference last week to hear Paul Woolmington speak, here’s a link to the House of Naked website where you can add your thoughts on Naked’s POV. By liberating […]

I think that Lisa Seward made a good point when she said that everyone should strive to be the “new creative”. Connection Planning is about 10 years old when it started in Fallon. Naked Communications is almost 10 years old. Is there a new model? Ed Cotton said that the 4th wave of planning was “planning for good”. Is there a new model for Naked to evolve into? The polygamous marriage wasn’t to unite the silos together but more so for people to start thinking across all the silos.

Firstly, bravo to Paul for the simplistically brilliant point made on ‘objectivity’. If my conversations over the past couple of days are any indication, this will stir a healthy debate for some time.
Secondly, maybe ‘waves’ are not the best model for, errr… planning models. Waves come and go, which is probably true for Pollitt’s brand of planning. But Connection Planning and Communications Planning are experiments that are just starting to get traction and distinguish themselves. And Ed’s initiative certainly has merit too. If there are waves to planning models, maybe the third wave is about multiple approaches, which begs the question of how do they co-exist?

The conference presented a prism of viewpoints and deeply explored these questions: What is the new model for connecting people with products and services? What is the name for it? How do we help companies and organizations innovate? As graduates of the ad/brand/communications/interactive industry, what roles do we play in this transforming landscape? What is the role of marketing in this era and at what point do we, as the outsourced consultants and service companies, get involved with products? At the ideation stage? The design stage? The packaging stage? The evangelizing stage? All? Depends on the client? Do we measure our effectiveness or reject this second Age of Enlightenment trap? Finally, how are we compensated for our efforts?

Many of the companies at the conference, and a few brave others, are answering these questions by evolving the way they do business in the forge of the experiments. Praise them. The lesson: we need to be as adaptive as culture and as current as this moment.

Now, a question about naming this beast. From this redneck outpost of Mississippi, the name Connection Planning sounds too much like the advertising world striving to renew and repackage itself. While some may think a pseudoscientific name that implies the roles of strategic planning, consumer insights, anthropology, and media experience may work best, I would argue that such a name would be self-serving, not translated for the end user. Let’s call the Fiddler off the roof: how about Matchmaker? Isn’t that the end product, a match between buyer or user and product or service?

Look forward to other suggestions, mean spirited criticisms, and other posts on this thread.

Thanks to Naked.

I wanted to expand on the point Paul made in his speech about the growing number of silos resulting from the ever-expanding media landscape. The old model lends itself toward acquisition - as new media arises, you acquire people capable of executing within said media. What I like about working at Naked is the relative lack of structure that allows for a unique hiring process. Here I feel it is more about perspective than any specific role or skill set. As Paul mentioned, the family is made up of misfits from a wide variety of backgrounds, but all of us are “strategists.” The name is not that important, except that its singularity, and perhaps even its vagueness, translate into a single shared purpose. It is not about disciplines, but perspectives. The more variety we can bring to the development of that purpose, the better. And I use use the vague term “purpose” because each client creates a new definition of what it is Naked does. That being said, this works for Naked, but was never meant to define the industry. I really enjoyed the notion that Adrian Ho introduced, comparing traditional marketing to the modernist movement - the idea that we are constantly searching for the single “best” way to do things, label things, approach things, etc., instead of embracing multiple models.
I enjoy the comments and hope the debate continues.

Speaking of Adrian, he just wrote a post that says that we’re not in the communications industry anymore. Mark Earls just wrote a similar one. What does that entail for a company like Naked that bases it’s model on communications? If Naked believes that advertising is dead and it’s all about communications, is the new model on what Mark writes about here?

“No, it’s much more about doing things, baking in the interest otherwise faked and then suggesting and encouraging consumers and employees to do stuff together around this.”

http://zeusjones.blogspot.com/2007/10/were-not-in-communications-industry.html

http://herd.typepad.com/herd_the_hidden_truth_abo/2007/10/were-not-in-the.html

communications covers everything .. because everything communicates.. yes even services , experiences , communities born of real behaviors interests and social conscious which i wholely agree will grow and be ever more important.

Bravo for the debate , bravo for being restless and being prepared and having the courage to listen , learn and evolve which is what we have constantly done at naked.. its hardwired into our culture.

Agreed. I have a strong belief that everything communicates. Whether it’s the product, what someone says, etc. Thanks for sharing your POV Paul and Andrew!