MAS
Hello. This page is for my Miami Ad School students — Account Planner Boot Camp Fall 2005. And for others reading, here are a few books about improvisation, and a demo of how improv games can be used for team coaching.
Students, lovely to meet you all & welcome to San Francisco. The group felt warm & together at 9:30pm versus at 6:30pm when we hardly knew each other. I’m looking forward to watching you grow over the next 3 months…
Books to check out: Impro, by Keith Johnstone (my favorite teacher); Truth in Comedy, by Halpern & Close (excellent for our purposes), Taming Your Gremlin, by Richard Carson (focused on the fear-based stories we tell ourselves that limit our creativity & joy).
Week 1: Intro to class & The Games We Played.
Intro — I talked about my belief that STORY is the way we communicate & make meaning as humans. Those cave painings in France, a creative brief — its more important for a story to be interesting & to engage the listener, than for the story to be "right" or "true". Too many creative briefs are factually accurate but BORING. Look at the brief or new business presentation as an opportunity to help your listeners make some decisions or move forward in their work.
I also said that I believe groups are primary in life, and individuals secondary. Almost everything we make or do, we do in relationship with others. Try to think of a part of your life that you do completely alone. You can make a painting, but you need people to make the paint and canvas, to build your studio, to feed you while you paint, and to look at your work when its finished. We’re deeply related, and advertising is perhaps an ultimate team sport. Think about how your clients or creative teams want to use the work you’re doing. Look for ways to stimulate, inspire, and connect with them. Help them have better experiences of their customers (as real people) and of their own brand. This is the job of the Account Planner; being clever isn’t enough. You have to also be human, which means understanding relationships — people to people, people to product categories, people to brands.
Lastly, we discussed the structure of the class: first few weeks on creative process & spontaniety — working on your creative capacity, and noticing when you limit yourself, or hold back, or block. And part of the point of playing improv games is to work on your collaborative & building skills. Ideas & creativity are not objects — they’re process. Games help us practice saying Yes, And to others’ ideas. When is the work good? When your partners enjoy playing with you. The second half of the class will be putting together your books — ads for you to get a job. Making the book will help you understand how to position yourself as a planner, & will help you prepare for talking about what you find interesting about the business. Think of it as a springboard, something to get you an interview because its cool. Don’t expect a prospective employer to read it. She’ll more likely ask you to tell her a story from the book.
Improv "rules: Say Yes, And…; No = a block, a way to control others. Be Obvious, not Clever (Say the first thing that comes to mind). Make your partner look good (Be Generous). Allow yourself to be Changed by your partners (Adapt). Look for ways to build the group and advance the group work. Look for things to agree with, or tell what you like about an idea, or find a reason how an idea Might work rather than saying why it won’t work.
We played the Name & Gesture game: stand in a circle, step forward & say name & make a gesture. The group repeats. When everyone has done their name & gesture, a player looks at someone else & repeats the name & gesture. That person is now "it", and should repeat the name & gesture of anyone else s/he remembers. This game helps us get to know each other’s names (the gesture is a 2nd mode of learning in addition to speech), bond together by having fun, build trust by together doing something silly & vulnerable.
We played Woosh Pow Boing: stand in a circle, and have a choice of 3 words & movements — Woosh is a swish in either direction, but it must be passed on in the same direction it was passed to you; Boing is a block, which bounces whatever was passed to you right back to the passer; with Pow you point to anyone except who’s next to you & make them "it". The purpose of this game is to have fun together, do some silly stuff together (again to build trust). Playing both these games, you should notice when you edit or censor your spontaneous response, or plan ahead, or fear being open…
Giving Gifts is a powerful game to practice spontaniety. Two players stand back to back, and when they turn, one mimes giving a gift to the other. The receiver says Thank You, and upon opening the "box", discovers at that moment what’s inside. Its best to not plan ahead but to let your spontaneous mind provide the answser. Its this spontaneous mind that is the creative engine. This exercise shows us right where it resides in our consciousness, and its easy to notice your pre-planning, or blocking the first thing that comes to mind because we’re afraid of revealing something (e.g. I got a sex toy, or I got a gun, or its my kids’s finger in a box from a kidnapper…). The Taming Your Gremlin book speaks directly to this game’s dynamics.
The Gripe Orchestra: 6 players, the audience gives each a gripe. Then the conductor turns complainers on & off, adjusting the volume. This game again helps us feel trusting to get emotional, creative, spontaneous. How doesit feel, not knowing what you’ll say next? Notice in any game when you feel freaked out, nervous, or start planning ahead. These are all forms of self-judgement & self-censorship.
Telling stories of your peak creative experience: Person A tells a story to B about a peak creative experience (I led you in a short guided meditation/memory of a past event when you felt most proud & strong about your creativity). Then B tells A his story. Then, B tells the group A’s story as if it happened to him. A tells B’s story as if it happened to her. If you forget or don’t know details, make them up. This story exercise serves to create trust & bonding in the group, focuses us on our peak creative experiences so we can remember them when we’re feeling insecure & nervous, shows us that the emotion in telling a story is more important than the details, shows us how much in common we have around our aspirations, fears, proud moments. I’ve used this (as noted) in focus groups, and with corporate clients like the Wall Street Journal. The story content should be relevant to the group & the discussion planned.
Homework — spend a couple of hours in any public places & record & bring in for next class (Weds Oct 12 at 7p) 50 consumer or human truths — real things you notice about people: values, behaviors, preferences. Angela and I believe that your creative spontaniety will be best put to use when its paired with a solid appreciation of your target audience. Most ad people & clients have a poor quality connection with their customers — don’t look at your target as demographics, related to them as people. That’s the first step in connecting authentically with them.