the raw & the cooked

1935 photos of painted Caduveo women from Claude Lévi-Strauss Structural Anthropology

many of you will know structural anthropology (Claude Levi Strauss) - if not I'd recommend it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_anthropology

the key idea is that society is characterised not so much by its overt content but by its dividing lines, often physical lines within the floor plans of villages separating RAW/COOKED, MARRIED/UNMARRIED, SACRED/PROFANE etc.

a modern example would be WORK/LEISURE which we have delineated in only the past few hundred years

PLANNER/CREATIVE is such a distinction

it separates the strategic intent from the artistic interpretation

some outcomes:
- advertising (and similar) is manipulative, it always has a hidden agenda
- there are separate awards schemes for effectiveness and creativity
(it's only apparent that's ridiculous when you think about applying it eg to awards for new product inventions)
- planners are over intellectual, post-rationalising everything but missing out on feeling 'it's the right thing to do'
- creatives are over artistic, cutting off their problem solving ingenuity in favour of impressive flourishes
- it is resistant to change, because it creates a set way of working (the old way) that may not fit new contexts

most interesting people and agencies of course to some extent heal this divide
John Webster was by far the most advanced person I've worked with in knowing how advertising 'ticks' (ie works)

of course without such divisions there is no organisation
and there were huge gains - groundbreaking ideas - that came from this when it was new
(although its particular effectiveness as a spreading meme might also have something to do with the fact that it is a system designed to win client pitches?)
it's just that any such structure becomes decadent and ossified over time

the thing might be to wonder how it might have been carved up differently

eg INTUITIVE/STRUCTURALIST
BUSINESS/PLEASURE
PAST/FUTURE

total lateral thinking week (or so)

there has been some really interesting input already

I also quite like the slow pace, it's so luxurious still having 5 months to think about this

but I also really like David H's suggestion of working out something totally surprising to say & didnt want to lose that as things necessarily get more narrowly focused

it's still got to have something with the future of planning I guess

planners have often gone on to apply the same skills in new areas
eg kay scorah went off to work on hollywood movies
mt rainey just started a big internet social venture

but planning I suppose only strictly makes sense as a term within marketing communications agencies or similar

so what would be a really lateral way of tackling this?

(forget the speech. I mean a lateral way of thinking about the issue)

here's one starting point;

in the communist state army post 1917 there were two officers per position - one military & one political...

(I suppose one question is whether the division of labour in our industry is similarlty daft?)

time to think

It seems crowd sourcing is catching on (a good thing) this in today from Guy/the IPA:

"Dear John, I am writing to invite you to participate in a significant effort by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA ) Strategy Group to champion strategic thinking. Strategists across our industry feel that the biggest barrier to creating great strategy these days is a lack of time. The critical new deliverable is Fast Strategy. Without it, strategy is being reduced to tactics, and strategists become overheads. We are inviting experienced strategists, such as yourself, to share their one tip - expressed in just 50 words - for how to generate quality strategic thinking quickly. All the tips will be collected together online and in hard copy and will help set up a unique conference in April. The authors of the best tips will be invited to speak at the conference. If you would be happy to contribute you 50 words of fast, planning wisdom then please let me know and I can send you details. To find out more about the IPA Strategy Group please follow this link http://www.ipa.co.uk/strategy.
Best regards and thanks in advance. Guy Murphy Chair, IPA Strategy Group"

Time is a very slippery thing in relation strategy, it can take you seconds to crack something or months
Admittedly it sometimes takes months to validate your first hunch
I was actually a big fan of fast strategy at St Lukes. Although what we really meant was fast scene setting, then doing strategy alongside creative development in a twisted helix sort of way

It's great that in the case of this project we have 6 months to write a speech

Will we overcook it though?

Is it really anything to do with writing a speech anyway (destination, vs the journey)

:J

First question

What has changed planning the most so far?

Becoming international (vs UK based)?

New media?

Or what?

Here's what it's all about (revised list - now 27)

Do comment to say you have arrived and also to say in a couple of sentences what you think the speech should be about (or as my old boss what say 'what is it for?')...

THE ORIGINAL CALLUP

In July i am going to speak at an event hosted at JWT in London (along with Jeremy Bullmore, Jon Steel and others) celebrating 40 years of planning and looking ahead too.

I'm not sure I have anything new to say on the matter that I have been banging on about for some years. So... My idea is that instead of presenting my views I get 40 fellow planners from diverse backgrounds to help me put it together. I would open a blog and for the next 3 months we'd just talk about the brief (ie taking this as an opportunity just like any other for a piece of communication to have some sort of effect). We'd then write the presentation together, pick interesing visuals or creative ways to bring it to life, and finally write a speech which I would simply ead out on behalf of the team.

All of which depends on if this grabs 40 of you. I'm going to crosspost this on .ning plus the facebook planning groups and give it 1 week. If 40 people say they are interested then we have a project. (If not I'll have to think of something else!) Do say if you'd like to take part (first come first served) & add comments & ideas

THOSE UP FOR IT SO FAR
GEMMA
PAUL ISAACSON
ADAM CROWE
EMILY REED
OZIOMA
AMELIA TORODE
FARIS YAKOB
JASON OKE
SHWETA KHOSLA
DANIEL BERKAL
CHARLES FRITH
DINO DEMOPOULOS
KIRSTY ANGUS
THANIT CHIRASKAMIN
HUGH M WEBER
CLAUDIU FLOREA
GARETH KAY
ANTOINE MAUSUY
KARIM MELAOUAH
DARIA RADOTA RASMUSSEN
NEIL PERKIN
KIM PORTRATE
VERITY JOHNSTON
JANE HOVEY
JITENDER JABAS
JOHN LEACH
JANINE RAMLOCHAN

that's 27 which I think is plenty enough and I love that fact that it's so international but there is room for more too (and getting to 40 would be nice just for the symmetry, although it arguably doesnt mean anything; 40 people/40 years)