Planners, strategic thinkers, and a sprinkling of creatives made for a pretty awesome two-day mind-stretch fest with Santa Monica beach as our gorgeous backdrop.

All in all Planning-ness was amazing. My favorite sessions were both on the first day: Sharon Lee on understanding and analyzing cultural trends and Rob Perkins on how to scratch an itch. 

I love when speakers come with tangible goodies and not lofty ideas that sound/look good in powerpoint. 

Sharon Lee brought the goodies and a whole lot more as the opening number to my Planning-ness experience. Two treats in particular stand out:

1. Her trend Analysis “How To” list 
2. Her chart explaining how Millennials approach life and work and why companies looking to hire younger people need to be at the forefront of the current life culture shift.

Hopefully her deck will be up on the Planningness site soon so you can check out her Trend Analysis how-to but I’d like to highlight the Millennial work/life chart because I feel it’s so indicative of my life right now (see photo above this post).

Rob Perkins came with poignant insight having been a planner and a creative. I think the biggest thing I took from his session was how decks die but storytelling through images and sound has so much more stickiness. The concept of “telling your idea to a stranger” -or your computer in this case- transcribing your words; matching it with images; and then making a V.O video sounds like more work but if you think about it, it’s really just about the same as putting together a deck. Of course putting this concept into practice depends on the type of agency you’re at and the openness of the client. 

Oh…crap. Can’t forget Bud Caddell.

This guy made us play the game Go at like 8 or 9am…I don’t know what time it was all I know is that the coffee I was drinking wasn’t cutting it. But, I really want to get the game even though I sucked at it and the planner I was playing with mercilessly killed off most of my pieces. 

1. I think the game is a great way to get your brain working and getting your brain to recognize patterns and connections where you might not initially have.
2. It was a great opening activity to introduce us to the idea of complexity and how it’s not about running away or simplifying complexities but embracing complexities but embracing it and even going at it head-on through collaboration.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quote’s from Planning-ness and a great article to go with it…

Governments [brands, companies] should not be afraid of informed individuals [but of] synchronized groups - Clay Shirkey, SXSW 2011

This #Riot article from the December 2011 issue of Wired Magazine not only dissects the synchronized nature of riots and protests but applies that same synched philosophy to music trends. 

For a quick round-up of this year’s Planning-ness check out Thas Naseemuddeen’s post. (I thought I had a one-up in the “cool name” dept but she has me beat).