I'll be brief

How hard can it be to write a creative brief?

Pretty easy I'd have thought.

In fact when I wrote briefs for student projects at RMIT they were no longer than four key points.

Obviously a realworld environment requires a bit more info than that. But not too much.

So let's get back to my question - How hard is it to write a creative brief?

Certainy not hard enough to warrant a 66 page powerpoint presentation to teach you how to do it.

Which may well explain why a 66 page JWT presentation on writing a brief was mysteriously taken down from Slideshare.

Click here to see for yourself.

Breaking news or broken?

Once upon a time, in an Aussie adland far far away, the only way to get industry news was in trade magazines.

These were B&T which came out every Friday. AdNews which came out fortnightly and the creative’s favourite Campaign Brief which arrived by mail on a monthly basis.

All of these mags are still going, however they seem less and less relevant with each passing week.

Why?

Not because they’re printed. But because they have regular e-newsletters. So by the time the print edition arrives the stories are old and most of us have already read them.

Which makes me wonder how much longer before one of either B&T or AdNews stops printing and becomes an online magazine.

Much like new kid on the block – Mumbrella.

What bugs me most about our trade publications though is their reliance on press releases as content.

This probably didn’t matter back in the old days. But when I see the same “story” in all of the trade e-newsletters it really pisses me off.

Surely these guys have writers on staff to tweak the PR material they are supplied into something resembling a story?

If they don’t I recommend they get some. And fast. Because if the content is essentially the same on all of them then one of them surely has to go.

Junior Presentation

These are the visuals that accompanied my talk at Junior last night. Obviously not quite the same without my dulcet tones and yarn spinning but still a pretty good read I think.

We'll be back ... Eventually

I gave a talk last night to a bunch of young creative hopefuls at Junior.

The preso was very well received so I thought I'd share it with you via Slideshare.

Except Slideshare was down for maintenance.

No problem with that.

But I do have a problem with one of the worst down for maintenance messages I've ever seen.

Back after some time!!!

Honestly is that the best they could do?

Shoot to kill Powerpoint

Powerpoint gets a bad rap. There's no denying it. But who'd have thought one of its biggest detractors would be the US military?

"Make no mistake, PowerPoint is not a neutral tool — it is actively hostile to thoughtful decision-making. It has fundamentally changed our culture by altering the expectations of who makes decisions, what decisions they make and how they make them."

That quote comes directly from the Armed Forces Journal. Wow!

The TED Commandments

In our business you get to sleep through a large number of dull, uninspiring and overly wordy powerpoint presentations.

When are people going to learn that a presentation is a performance not a presentation?

When are people going to learn that the best way to engage and educate is to involve and inspire?

When are people going to learn that words are not enough?

When are people going to stop talking about how great TED Talks are and start creating TED style presentations of their own?

Hopefully after they read the TED Commandments, which are engraved on a stone tablet and sent to anyone invited to speak at TED.

The TED Commandments

Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.

Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.

Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.

Thou Shalt Tell a Story.

Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.

Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.

Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.

Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.

Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.

Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

Tablet Via

60 minutes in 60 seconds

Like most of the audience, I sat bewildered during the presentation given by Bob Isherwood here in Melbourne yesterday.

He made a good point. And I've already quoted him 3 times today.

But as a presentation it really didn't work for me. That landmark ad for Apple by TBWA says in 60 seconds what it Bob took 60 minutes to say.

For the younger readers here's a recent remix.