STRAT_SCRAPS v189

Input vs Influence vs Impact

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Release cadence for these has been slower than usual. Blame summer being the busiest time of year, despite its successful branding as a time to kick back.

Anyway, Some new thoughts this week. Some hidden resources. Some recycled material. Who knows really – this is why you are supposed to write your introduction last.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of strategy beyond the creative brief. Not just recently, but this is something I think about a lot. Here is something on the subject I wrote a few years ago for a lecture at Miami Ad School..

Below, are some snippets of a conversation between claude and myself, based on the premise of life after the brief and edited to reflect my true thoughts on the matter rather than just the output of an LLM.

Process EvolutionHere's the part that separates good strategy directors from great ones: you're not just managing the current project, you're improving how projects get managed.

Maybe that means suggesting a different review structure. Maybe it's introducing new ways to test ideas early. Maybe it's changing how feedback gets collected and processed. 

Strategy directors who only focus on individual projects miss the bigger opportunity. The real impact comes from making the entire creative development process more effective over time. We need to protect from swirl just as much, if not more, than we need to push for change. 

Most Briefs are wrong about something. 

The truth is, most briefs are wrong about something. Not completely wrong, but wrong enough that good creative work requires course corrections along the way.

If you can’t admit this, and deliver a brief anyway, you are doomed to become the hurdle rather than the bridge. 

The best strategists understand that creative development is collaborative strategy development. The brief sets the direction, but the work itself reveals what the strategy really needs to be. 

This makes a lot of strategists uncomfortable. It requires admitting that you don't have all the answers upfront. It means being okay with strategic evolution instead of strategic certainty.

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Also a visualization of the creative agency environment. I’ll let you assign labels to each side.

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More research about what value strategy delivers, thinks it delivers and where things most go wrong. This time, not by me but from Joe Burns. Full post here, but takeaways screenshot below.

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Whats interesting about this is you could describe either one of the components as creative and the other as strategy.

Strategy can be thought of as the holder of technique (effectiveness), while the Creative is the intention (creative vision) or Strategy is the intention (the strategic choice) while creative is the technique (the actual way it comes to life).

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IRL BRAINROT article in the new yorker

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Creative ideation in a sentence:
“WHAT’S THE SAFEST WAY WE COULD BE RECKLESS?

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This is recycled content, but recently been reminded of this tidbit from a prior newsletter:

Things fall apart for a million reasons. Things fall apart consistently for one of a few reasons;

• People

• Process

• Systems

• Incentives

• Alignment

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saw this ^ on a website. Wonder if this will become more and more of a bade of honor? Or will an official badging entity emerge and somehow monetize this?

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WEEKLY MONSTER

I’ve been looking at a lot of text based art and design recently.