003: All systems go

[Before - Session 1] Welcome to the 24 hour countdown to the Future of Advertising

Right now the Keynote presentation is 99.999% baked, rehearsed and edited, and rehearsed, and edited again. I’ll probably rewrite or reorganize part of it shortly. The other files for tomorrow’s class are uploaded. Time to freak out! Class starts tomorrow at 6:30pm CST.

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Have you taught at an accredited institution? That sounds formal, but the truth is, it’s all paperwork. And meetings.

“Accredited” = “Buttoned up”

I agreed to be able to teach The Future of Advertising at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design last fall. Which meant the course became an elective option for Spring semester (January - May, 2023). And then a quota of students decided this course tickled their fancy, signed up, and shit got real. I signed a contract which amounts to agreeing to be buttoned up.

Here’s what I’ve been doing to prepare, aside from spinning up this newsletter:

✅ I attended returning faculty orientation at MCAD. If you’re going to teach someplace, I can’t recommend MCAD highly enough for the simple fact they make teaching easy. They hold a high bar. They’re organized. Their systems work. And they make the process of teaching about as painless as it can be.

✅ MCAD uses the Canvas learning management system to systematize students and materials. So after logging back into the digital bureaucracy… I’ve set my course up, and primed the first assignment. More on that tomorrow during the “During” post (reminder—each of the 15 sessions gets its own Before, During and After post).

✅ I’ve taken the official syllabus and broken it apart. The larger vision becomes 15 unique little adventures, one per week.

A course like The Future of Advertising needs to be a micro/macro smorgasbord. We’re looking specifically and closely… while simultaneously examining broader implications.

I’ve loosely divided the curriculum into three sections: Context, Major Themes and Putting It All Together. The first three classes comprise Context. We need common ground upon which to examine the major themes of the future.

Each of the 15 sessions has their own unique challenges. For example, tomorrow we’ve got to define the realm of Advertising within the broader context of Marketing (as in “all of it” as well as “as a verb”), to help set the stage for everything that follows. I mean, who doesn’t want to condense a two-year Marketing MBA into 60 minutes? More about this in tomorrow’s During recap.

Thank goodness I’m a pack rat. I’ve been saving links, files, quotes, case studies, and writing in book margins for occasions like this. Now I’ve got folders for each of the 15 sessions and I’m dumping material into each relevant hole. I’ve been making slides like this…

Here’s a PDF of the same image that includes clickable links for each cover

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✅ I’ve booked guest speakers! I am so fortunate so many smart people have agreed to come visit us in Room 452 and online. More on them in future posts.

✅ And yes, I’ve continued exploring Midjourney, Dalle-2, Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT, to incorporate generative tech into the entire experience.

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The clock is ticking.

Probably a good time to re-open tomorrow’s presentation and rebuild a bunch of it.

See you tomorrow after class!

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