The Adnostic

I went. I saw. I didn't party like a rock star and I still caught a cold. So unfair.

I met so many great people - Jason, Gareth, Mark, Chad, a bunch of folks from TBWA New York, a couple planners from Modernista, and a lot of random people whom I would recognize if I saw them but whose names escape me at the moment. Everyone was super nice. I still felt like a bit of an outsider sometimes, but meeting someone new and interesting usually interrupted those feelings.

I did manage to tell one girl that she absolutely had to leave her job immediately. She was a junior level planner at a small Midwestern agency that only had room for one strategist, her. What else could I tell her? Stay and ruin her career prospects?

Most of the programming was good. I've only read one scathing review so far, otherwise all of the comments and reviews have been positive. Most of the content was just about doing more and being more actionable instead of just tossing about theories. It was very positive outlook overall.

There were a few sales pitches. Google, Time Warner, Facebook had a lot of great things to say by involving a lot of insight and vision of how we can work together in the whole "give us your money" message. Yahoo clearly didn't get it. Their VP of Sales was so old school I would't have been surprised if he had sat down in his easy chair with a martini in hand and told us how the world worked back in the good old days. Then there was an IMAX film maker who had absolutely no business being there at all. Half the room walked out before he even started showing any of his films.

On the upside, most of the other speakers, Eric Ryan of Method, Bruce Mau, Sir Ken Robinson, Mark Earls, Mark Lewis, Gareth Kay, and Adam Morgan were great. They were all very inspiring but well grounded.

Some of the higher level planners were so inspired by what they were hearing that they started a Facebook group for planners with the ambition of helping non-profits solve their communications problems. Less talk, more doing, better karma. We haven't chosen a project yet, but we're looking and if anyone has any idea, we would love to hear them.

We're really good at thinking, now its time to get better at doing.