Conferencia de Planejamento do GP 2008
Just got back from Sao Paulo, where I spoke at the Brazilian version of the AAAA account planning conference. I was invited along with Gareth as one of the “Gringo Planners” and honestly had no idea what to expect. However, I was absolutely blown away by the generosity, enthusiasm and energy of the planning community down there. IMO this conference put a lot of the other recent conferences I’ve been at to shame, and it was planned within less than one month! Speakers were drawn from the client world, designers, researchers, as well as cultural speakers like a famous blogger/comedian and a couple of very well known podcasters. You can check out the details here on a translated version of the official group blog, and follow along on a translated version of the twitter feed too.
I was especially inspired to be around a planning community that is looking to the future and eager to learn and figure out what’s next instead of bemoaning the past as is all too common here. I think that the future of planning – if there is one – will come from somewhere like Brazil. not from the US or UK.
The other thing that really impressed me was the adoption of social media, especially Twitter, in Brazil. Someone showed a chart from UM that shows Brazil leading the world in social media adoption and it was pretty evident at the conference. There was some fascinating chat happening on the official Twitter feed and I am pretty sure there was even better stuff happening on back channels.
All in all I left really energized and will definitely be following what happens there closely. Many thanks to our hosts: Ken, Daniel, Caio, Paulo and Joao. You guys are awesome!
My contribution was this presentation about my two biggest failures as a planner and the cases that made me realise that I needed to do something different with my life.
