017: Lots of freaking out

[After - Session 5] My power went out earlier today

If you’re reading this outside of Minnesota, you might not realize we are trying very hard to set new snowfall records over the next 24 hours. The psychological impact might be more potent than the actual snow. But it’s a solid primer in mass human behavior.

Just like my LinkedIn news feed these days.

The volume of hand-wringing, excitement, and commentary around AI-generative technology has become the dominant theme. At least within marketing and advertising circles. (Can’t wait to address this major theme of the future of advertising in class in two weeks!)

Regardless of how it evolves, you can absolutely sense very strong human emotions bubbling around what is essentially infrastructure. I don’t recall as much enthusiasm for underlying technology since “interactive” first appeared on the scene.

The landscape upon which ideas are conceived, built and distributed is changing…again. And within ~30 years of the most recent upheaval. Of course we’re reacting.

But we might take calm assurance from Minnesota’s legendary female agency founder Nancy Rice who notes,

“What we do hasn’t changed, how we do it changes every day.”

Those of us in the ideas business still need to:

• Assess if marketing, never mind advertising, are appropriate business solutions to the issue at hand

• Define actionable insight based on the humans who’s behavior we aspire to affect

Yes, AI-generative tech can augment these initial tasks, and hopefully improve them. But will the newfangled infrastructure instigate on its own, or will humans still drive decision-making?

Idea people will still need to:

• Determine if a brief informs and inflames enough to elicit ideas which will change human behavior

• Then generate, evaluate, approve, produce and distribute those ideas

Sure feels like plenty of work left for humans to do, even on top of (and/or assisted by) a newly re-energized infrastructure.