015: Our infrastructure is evolving

[Before - Session 5] Digging up the ground beneath our feet inside the airplane we're building in the air 😳

Midjourney continues to amuse with its responses to my prompt: “the future of advertising.” I have so many questions—why is Midjourney’s result almost always a giant TV in a public square, or a 3D bottle on display in a subway? And I’m just guessing here, but the smaller clear container is delicious protein-rich bugs suspended in nectar. The future looks yummy.

Did you know I am available for hire?

And if you’re new here, welcome! This is a “Before” post, previewing tomorrow evening’s session (the 5th of 15) at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The course is called The Future of Advertising. I’ll have a “During” post tomorrow evening, and an “After” post on class 5 sometime this Wednesday.

This week’s session is focused on Infrastructure: Sites, Tools, Web3.

Another way to frame this is WHERE and HOW. Marketers and agencies knit together programs and networks of applications and platforms (i.e. Instagram ad to website landing page to CRM data capture to e-comm processing to supply chain fulfillment to email marketing flow to measurement dashboard). Literally everything is off the shelf now; knit away as needed. What’s fascinating is how seamless and invisible the infrastructure has become.

But the times they are a changin’, as Bob Dylan put it.

I’m curious how this bedrock of modern marketing is shifting and evolving, and how (you and) my students can be preparing to evaluate, refine and adjust technologies, strategies, process, staffing, and creative approaches as the future arrives.

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Last week I had the good fortune to moderate a panel discussion on AI-generative tech and its impact on creativity (we’ll have the recap post up soon, I’m told). From my perspective, our key theme turned out to be: “Everything is moving surprisingly fast!” Faster than previous business cycles like Web1 and websites, or Web2 and social media. Just yesterday Wharton Prof

Ethan Mollick

told us how he used Microsoft’s Bing AI to generate a SWOT analysis of “AI use in precision agriculture.” Would AI-generative consulting save your firm $500k in fees for a Powerpoint SWOT deck? Perhaps. At the very least, you’d be wise to ask an internal team to give it a go, right?

Also yesterday my friend

David Armano

wrote about The AI Creative Department and Prompt-Based Creativity. For the purposes of today’s theme, and some dot connecting, the money quote is: “This space is moving fast regarding apps and the soon-to-be integration of AI-powered features in existing software that helps creatives make things.”

In other words, the infrastructure upon which marketing departments, marketing campaigns and marketing/advertising/design agencies are built and operate have begun to destabilize. I find it all exciting.

See you tomorrow evening for the class recap.