I like Tim Brunelle’s enthusiasm for the business.
In a piece prepared for Talent Zoo, Brunelle says he’s teaching a class at Minneapolis College of Art & Design. He also reflects on the changes he’s seen in his career and how monumental shifts are still coming at blinding speed.
Compared to 10 years ago, today’s strategizing, budgeting, staffing, production processes and maintenance of marketing and advertising ideas is both wicked awesome and wicked hard to wrap your head around. Get used to it.
Before I retire, I believe we will see ourselves completely tear apart and rebuild Marketing, perhaps even Business. We are abandoning long established trading and promotion cycles, media, tactics, metrics and compensation methodologies. In their place are “always-in-beta” practices, consumer empowerment and the conversation economy. The key to understanding, implementing and harnessing these forces comes from a willingness and ability to comprehend the new ecosystem.
Speaking of the new ecosystem, in class yesterday, Brunelle tried selling “the kids” on Twitter. I wonder how that went. I tried to demonstrate its merits to some friends on Saturday night, but I failed to convince, much less convert anyone. Maybe I need to be more like Brunelle. More enthusiastic.
David,
Thanks for the kind words.
With regards to Twitter, well, none of my students are following me — yet. Perhaps we’ll make joining Twitter an in-class assignment. The challenge is in figuring out how these new ways of communicating can evolve our tired advertising practices. And the reward is in the experimentation.
Rock on.
Tim
@Tim & David: If it helps, I too am met with puzzled looks when I try explaining Twitter to people, followed by “why wouldn’t I just send an email/text message/IM/FB status update”
It’s not an obvious medium.