Blog Line

Last Friday was the annual GCI staff offsite under the theme “SHRED - Share, Rethink, Disrupt. It is no secret that the public relations industry and the marketing communications function are in disruption - traditional media is shrinking and becoming less relevant to certain audiences, the growth of the “five second media cycle” due to blogs, youtube and myspace among others, the subsequent war for talent. So the offsite day was meant to challenge staff and introduce them to voices, other than my own, that have a view of what is happening out there, how public relations consulting may be impacted and the bald-eyed view of the client world.
Stuart McDonald, the dynamic founder of Expedia.ca, had “disrupted” himself when he founded the online travel company. His new passion is the social media and he gave a great start to our sessions. Alison Gordon and MJ deCoteau of Rethink Breast Cancer chatted to the team about how they had “disrupted” traditional attitudes regarding fundraising and breast cancer education particularly targeting young women. Their “if men had breasts” PSAs are very funny but to the point.

We had breakout sessions brainstorming about how we were going to “Shred, Disrupt, Rethink” GCI over the coming months. And, there were some great ideas. More about those in future postings….

The final session of the day was a three-person client panel. The kick was that these generous with their time executives were not GCI clients but other agencies’ clients. This was purposeful on my part. GCI Canada has wonderful clients but I wanted the GCI team to hear from clients that could give them a different perspective and be very straight about what turns them on or drives them crazy about agencies and not being concerned about hurting anyone’s feelings. And, these executives gave straight talk answers that were more powerful than any Monday morning staff meeting I could have had.

It was a great day.

Last night I went to hear contrarian writer, Christopher Hitchens at the University of Toronto. For those of you unfamiliar with Hitchens he wrote a rather infamous criticism of Mother Teresa. He is the same man who wrote a sarcastic essay for Vanity Fair on Princess Diana’s demise. Whatever you may think of his views he is a very good writer. Biting, highly intelligent, highly literate and with a “take no prisoners” wit. What’s not to love?

So last night I trudged out to see him speak, in the flesh, at UofT. A groupie. With envy (I write) he is also an amazing speaker. First, of all is the incredibly plummy British accent. Second, is the literary and historical analogies and anecdotes that sprinkle his comments. I felt like I needed to enroll in kindergarten, start over, because I had obviously missed alot. His intelligence in crafting and dissecting an argument is a blood sport. I could have listened to him for hours. Obviously others felt the same because disciples followed him into the rain and gathered round while he lit the ever present cigarette.

Today I had the opportunity to meet with a photographer, Janet Kimber, and study her portfolio. Her work can be found on www.Janetkimber.com. The images are beautiful but what was even more compelling were Janet’s comments as to the thinking and strategy behind each photograph and even her emotions at the time she was shooting. The photographs I was looking at were for commercial purposes. While they were fine art photographs they were meant for brochures, advertising, postcards etc.. That said, the creative process reflected in each image was intriguing. As I looked at the images it made me consider the process we use in developing communications programs.

It also reminded me how important it is not to get stale which is of course an occupational hazard. It is good to be reminded of how important creativity is to my business and how important it is that I ensure the creative process is strengthened in my team - as important as ensuring they have working phones and computers. To that end, I have invited Janet to come to GCI and take our team through her images and describe the creative process that went into making each one.