PSFK conference, part 2

All day conferences can be long, and much like this post, needed to be split into two parts. The lunch break still had some panels. The only one I caught in full was entitled “Brand New Rules”, which had Emily Steel (Wall Street Journal), Doug Jaegar (ADC and The Happy Corp), Paul Taylor (Diageo), Maria Virachnos (Peep Insights) and Paul Worthington (Wolf Olins). It got pretty interesting as they delved into the dynamics of client and agency relationships, with Taylor speaking to the client perspective and Jaegar retorting from the agency one.

The afternoon officially kicked off with the New Idea Agencies panel, which brought together Danielle Sacks (Fast Company), Bart Haney (Fuse), Carl Johnson (Anomaly), and Ben Malbon (BBH Labs)). They got into the pursuit of intellectual property by forward-thinking agencies and the motivations behind this movement to do so. Anomaly was basically founded on this principle of making their own products and services to launch directly to market rather than through their clients. All of the companies in the panel still continue to have traditional client relationships, while pursuing their own creative IP. Carl Johnson really hit a lot of great points. He discussed how they are creating joint ventures to be able to work on everything from licensing, strategy, design and communications. Some of the reasons for this being, “You can’t be fired from a client if you are the client” and “I was sick of the years of sitting in the same meetings that after ten minutes I knew the outcome, but would have to sit in for two hours.”

The New Idea Agencies panel really struck a chord with me, as I’m a huge proponent of traditional agency models evolving their business model this way. It makes sense. We work long hours and make huge personal sacrifices for clients who typically move onto another agency after a campaign or two. Why not replicate the same succes that we make for clients, for ourselves?

This of course comes with challenges. BBH discussed how they had to learn the hard way about the legalities involved in product development, testing and research to put a product to market. All the companies stressed they have lost a ton of money. All though equally expressed how much they enjoyed the ownership to be able to execute or sell the idea, how much better agencies this made them for their traditional client relationships, and maybe put it best by saying “We don’t want to own many things. We’d rather have 40% of a success than 100% of the failure.”

The last couple panels were interesting. I really commend PSFK for putting together such a diverse group of speakers that touch on an array of industries. Edward Felsenthal discussed his work at The Daily Beast, which is actually one of my favorite news aggregators. He was in print journalism for over 20 years and has recently shifted to digital media. Another panel had Scott Heiferman who started Meetup and Avner Ronen from Boxee, discussing open source and open communities.

The conference concluded with Marc and Sara Schiller from the Wooster Collective. If you have never checked out their site before, you must, because the exploration they are doing of art in public space is pretty great. They have archived hundreds of thousands of street art images for pure viewing pleasure.

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PSFK conference, part 1

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to attend the PSFK conference. Held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park, the event consisted of panel discussions on topics ranging from technology, design and innovation. In attendance were a lot of creative and agency types, mostly from the NYC area. Overall I thought the day was fun and pretty inspiring. Most of the speakers had either founded a start-up or were leaders in agencies that are creating some of the best work I can think of to date. I also had a chance to meet a lot of like-minded young people who are budding entrepreneurs, designers and developers.

The first speaker of the day was Graham Hill, who heads the start-up Treehugger. He spoke a lot about green products and how the idea of sustainability is big in the media, but not so much in reality. I really responded to his comment that, “Anything that’s going to last has got to be loved by multiple generations. Beautiful and well designed things are inately sustainable.” He spoke with a mix of humor “If you haven’t heard, our oceans are f*cked,” and potential “we need to start growing food in our cities.”

The next panel was Colin Nagy (Attention), Richard Find (Help Remedies) and Sean Kozin & Jay Parkinson of Hello Health. They did an overview of their respective brands, as well as provided insight on the healthcare industry as a whole. Hello Health’s business model is particularly interesting, in that it cuts out the middle man and provides an arena for practitioners and patients to communicate directly. Every visit to HH reads and functions like a blog post, and your profile page is populated by the doctor. They eventually are going to expand the social networking platform and build API. The idea of virtual healthcare is interesting, as the American public seemingly grows more frustrated with the lack of affordable options. HH takes 7% of each transaction, like Etsy, and patients are free to “visit” with any doctor, regardless of insurance restrictions. I’ve actually worked on web applications in healthcare before, and a big issue that comes up is privacy. It really didn’t come up as a barrier to their business model, but I was curious as to how that works. When we were prototyping a mobile device for Johnson and Johnson, a huge issue for potential users was the idea that they were transmitting really personal data over the internet. I love the idea of patients forming healthcare communities that share their personal research, but when it comes to actually visiting with a doctor, I know I would much prefer a physical meet-up in a confined room.

The third speaker, Kevin Slavin was one of my favorites of the day. He co-founded Area/Code, and spoke of his findings in mobile technology, and it’s influence in our cultural landscape. He touched on trends in architecture, and how adaptability and changing environments are becoming crucial when constructing built environments. Slavin also focused a lot on how entities are having both a physical and digital presences, and how the lines between the two are becoming blurred. Mobile phones are amplifying our daily experience and affecting the spaces around us. Objects are becoming communication drivers and often having predefined brand personalities.

The last panel of the morning was moderated by friend Dave Pinter, who is a NY based design consultant working in retail design. He led a discussion with Sarah Beatty (Green Depot), Simon Collions (Dean of Fashion at Parsons), Ryan Jacoby (IDEO) and Matthew Lusk (Hecho). Their discussion was a bit all over, but mostly focused on the nature of the fashion industry and it’s inherent nature of mass consumption. Basically the tenor was that if we create and deliver high quality goods, then fashion can be somewhat sustainable. Simon Collins said he encourages his students to constantly think of blue jeans, and designing something that is meant to be worn and lasting. It seemed a bit off for me, since fashion is really about evolving and reinventing itself. Someone on the panel also discussed taking away the luxury packaging in retail, but I always consider that to be an essential part of the high end brand experience.

More to come.

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Spring Tea Party

Celebrate the warmer weather and new spring fashion at Vintage Connection tomorrow.
My good friend Alexis is throwing a tea party there from 5 to 8pm with her signature haiku teacups. Sabrina and I will be on hand taking photos, eating cupcakes and helping out.

Vintage Connection
Friday, March 20th
9th and Bainbridge Streets, Philadelphia

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