Admap, a publication of WARC, an international publisher of advertising best practices, evidence and insights, holds an essay competition each year. This year, the question posed is: "Does big data inspire or hinder creative thinking?"
Judge Marc Matthieu, SVP Marketing at Unilever and judge of the essays, complimented Admap for facing the elephant in the room:
"Kudos to Admap for picking the theme of the moment for its annual essay prize," he said. "Data or Creativity? Art or Science? Logic or Magic? This year's Admap Prize essays provided fascinating reading, comforting me further that we stand at the spring of a revolution in how we will look back at what we once held true in marketing, and smile at how innocent we were." http://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/Admap_Prize_shortlist_announced.news?ID=34537
COMRADITY co-founder Katherine Warman Kern's essay, which imagines three ways data can support a "Creativity Renaissance", made the shortlist. One of few, if not the only non-global ad agency to do so. That's pretty rewarding since it isn't as though she has a ton of spare time "/ But the most rewarding part was taking the time to imagine.
How much time each week do you look up from your desk and explore the horizon for opportunity?
Complexity. The reason we have no time to explore, or change, or understand each other.
In yacht racing, as in business, complexity is directly related to high performance design.
A risk of high performance yachts is all those lines getting tangled up. Pull on just one of those lines and the whole mess turns into a tight knot. A knot that doesn't just slow performance. It threatens the very survival of the crew and ship.
Some may think the solution is to cut the knot. But, then the lines are too short to perform their purpose. Leaving no choice but to withdraw from the race.
An experienced racer remains calm.
Loosens the knot instead of pulling it tight.
Then gets her head out of the boat.
Where she can see the opportunity competitors missed.
And come from behind to win a sailboat race.