Culture Crafters

Conjuring images of distant shores, hula skirts and sacred totems, Tiki is rooted in an enchanting mix of fumy libations and Polynesian-themed escapism. And it’s quite possible that no other cultural trend has risen and fallen so spectacularly over the past 100 years.

While playing in sweaty, nasty houses and bars across the country may not seem related to advertising technology, I’m constantly applying the lessons I learned as a self-taught touring musician to my current career.

As the flock of grey swans (known unknowns) gathering on the horizon brings 2016 to a close, the sense of an ending seems somehow more profound this year.

Building a team can be one of the most daunting, challenging and yet rewarding activities a manager can go through.

Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of talk about the influx of small agencies within our industry. These companies – in 50-or-less team member range – are winning Lions at Cannes, closing million dollar deals, and are giving the likes of McCann, Ogilvy, and Grey a run for their money.

Your typical C-suite includes a COO, CFO, CMO and CIO working closely with the company’s CEO to manage the operations, finance, marketing and information systems to keep the company running and delegate higher up decisions to experts and leaders in each department.

When I am asked what qualities make for an amazing entrepreneur, a lot comes to mind.

Welcome to the realm of today’s advertising, where business models are crumbling, systems are failing advertisers and the fight for attention is slowly lost.

Earlier this year, an ad agency in Japan hired a robot to work as its new creative director. Why not? Virtually every other biped seems to call themselves one.

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re at an agency founded by two women, where the executive leadership team is 50% women, and 60% of 140 employees are women.