May 26th, 2009 by David Poteet

12 Things I Learned at the Creative Unconference

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David's review of our experience at The One Club Creative Unconference.

Filed under Experience Design, Social, Speaking

The agenda wall

Brian, Dave and I drove to New York May 7-8 for the Creative Unconference. I'm now permanently ruined for traditional conference formats. I filled several pages of notes and I thought I'd share some tidbits I took away from the event.

What is an unconference? The idea's actually been around for a while, although I think they've been done more in technical communities. A day at an unconference looks something like this:

Conferees gather and introduce themselves
We start with a wall-sized blank agenda, with 1 hour time slots down the side and 6-8 session slots across the top (see the photo).
Anyone who wants to convene a session on a topic writes that topic on a sheet of paper.
Conveners take turns announcing their sessions to the group and taking any questions.
Conveners place their session in an open spot on the agenda wall, or merge it with another session if appropriate.
The conference starts – people pick sessions to attend, and things change or adapt as appropriate.

The best sessions were not a formal presentation, but more of a discussion with perhaps a brief presentation from the convener. In my view the unconference worked well for 3 reasons:

Most attendees were senior level with years of experience to share
It was a fairly small group so the level of interaction was high
The atmosphere was that of peers learning from each other, not acolytes going to learn from gurus.

What did I learn from my peers?

These are the things I wrote down and remember, I can't promise they're coherent.

Sales strategies

Several companies spoke of successful proactive sales efforts, researching and developing prospect lists and pursuing them. We've stayed so busy over the years just responding to referrals and incoming requests that we've never had to get our act together on proactive sales. But it has limited our growth in many respects. I was encouraged to see that it really works for many agencies.

#1. Importance of careful research into prospective clients. Not just the company but the people you'll be dealing with. If they've changed jobs a lot, watch out – you don't want to build a relationship only to have to start over in a year. Also, if they don't have a track record of doing great work, they never, ever will.

Session at the Creative Unconference

#2. We heard examples of some great door openers:

- Zemoga's zPhone, a green VOIP phone they give to clients and partners, that dials directly into their offices in Bogata, Columbia. Has been a huge driver for new and repeat business, and makes them one of the first companies that people will call when they need a consultation.

- Walrus' 20″ x 30″ aluminum coupon for 5 free days of thinking from them. Followed up by several other clever mailings – they always get to talk to someone after this.

- Boone Oakley's Mad Libs letter. Total genius, too bad we can't copy the idea. They sent 50 letters and got 45 faxes back.

#3. A new campaign for an existing client is really a new business pitch. Corollary – treat every conversation with a client like a pitch.

#4. Don't take a pitch for which the prospective client will not allow collaborative sessions.

#5. Copyright your ideas during the pitch process. Don't sell them cheap.

#6. You have to be clear in your own brand concept. That concept leads to a filter, that helps determine what you will and won't take on. You have to be about that concept 100% (thanks David Angelo of David&Goliath for this and much other kick-in-the-pants advice).

#7. Zemoga develops ideas for Nickelodeon sales reps to take to advertisers. If the idea sells, they negotiate a fee for it and then they do the development work. This is also smart because they're looking at how to help their customer (Nick) open new revenue opportunities.

The business side of creativity

#8. As an agency owner you can and should be creative in your operations, not just in the work you do for clients. Examples – allowing a new and complementary businesses to grow within your own business, incentivizing your vendors, cross training roles.

#9. Demonstrate your efficiencies to your clients so they see the value they are getting from you.

Partnerships

We saw many opportunities for partnership, and got some great ideas for how to make them successful.

#10. Creating shared methodologies, toolsets that we and our partners use, can be powerful not only in creating efficiencies, but in selling the partnership. Prove to clients that there is a cohesive methodology that delivers results.

I don't get the sense that anyone wants to be treated like a commodity though – great partnerships happen when firms treat each other like peers, not just "production."

Perspectives of Digital and Traditional Agencies

There was a lot of discussion around the tension between digital and traditional agencies, how such agencies can partner better, why agencies are having trouble bringing the two perspectives together internally.

Robert Rasmussen from BBH talking about digital and traditional agencies

#11. Robert Rasmussen from BBH New York talked about how a traditional agency tends to shape a pitch and campaign starting with the big-ticket, high profile things like TV, then working down in order of priority and budget through print, outdoor, radio, and finally online and maybe mobile.

The problem he pointed out is that these priorities don't map to engagement. If you want to think about a campaign in terms of the highest engagement for your budget, it should probably be prioritized with mobile and online first, then outdoor, events, TV and maybe print.

#12. Someone from Agency.com recommended spending in measurable media first (interactive), seeing what works and then using that insight to drive what you do in other media. Makes a lot of sense to me!

If you were at the Creative Unconference, what was your biggest takeaway?

Speak up.

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12 Things I Learned at the Creative Unconference

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