Fast Strategy (PfG and IPA)

The IPA (the UK's AAAA's) are conducting a conference on Fast Strategy this Monday 28 April.

Mark Earls, one of the brains behind Planning for Good is taking part in a live contest against some of the sharpest minds in the London Planning scene and needs to build an army to tackle a brief from the Central Office of Information (the UK Government's communications 'client').

Mark has assembled a crack group of planners - Jon Leach (of HHCL fame), Chris Forrest (ex DFGW and now of the research company The Nursery) and Ian Tait (of Poke to work on the brief as the P4G Allstars. BUT THEY WANT YOUR HELP.

Mark wants to demonstrate the power of P4G by involving any of us with internet access (and favorable time zones) to contribute to the the thinking. Here's the deal.

Monday, April 28, 10amBST brief posted on wiki site; responses by 12pm (noon) at the latest. Mark and the team will present at 2pm BST.

Please try and contribute - it will be fun and a great demonstration of the power of P4G at work.
If you're interested please email faststrategy@planningforgood.org and/or keep an eye on Planning for Good.



Details about the IPA event below..

How can you come up with the right strategy fast? A selection of Adland’s finest will be giving practical advice on how to achieve this at the IPA and Times Media Strategy Conference on Monday 28th April.
Speakers will include:

- Tim Lindsay, President, TBWA Group: 'How taking the disruption approach can help you get to the right answer fast.'

- Tim Hames, Assistant Editor & Chief Leader Writer, The Times: 'What planners can learn from those that write the news and the pressures of doing it fast and accurately.'

- Gurdeep Puri, Head of Effectiveness, and Janey Bullivant, Board Planning Director, Leo Burnett: 'How, counter to popular belief, data can help you to get to the answers fast'.

- Jon Wilkins, Founder, Naked: 'Fast strategy in a media environment'.

- Stuart Smith, Head of Planning, Wieden & Kennedy London: 'Strategic and creative dovetailing - Fast'.

- Rob Forshaw, Founding Partner, Grand Union: 'How to develop thinking quickly from a digital perspective'.

These short, sharp and fast presentations will be presented throughout the morning, whilst leading communications consultant Mark Earls; Phil Georgiadis, Chairman of Walker Media; Johnny Hornby, Founding Partner of CHI & Partners, and their respective teams, will be putting into practice what they do best and responding to a highly realistic but fictitious COI brief, set and delivered by Peter Buchanan, Deputy Chief Executive, COI.

You, the audience, will then get the opportunity to vote for who you think is the fastest strategist in town, when these three teams return to the stage in the afternoon to pitch live in front of the audience.

Says Guy Murphy, Chairman IPA Strategy Group and Worldwide Planning Director, JWT, “The most important skill that strategists need to learn in this era is speed. The quality of a strategic answer is now partly determined by the time taken to create it. Slow-baked strategy, no matter how good, can never be great.”

The conference will take place between 9am-5pm on Monday 28th April at the Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 0AE.