On stage this time we have Wendy Gordon, Kirsty Fuller and John Griffiths  giving their perceptions from the other side of the fence…..

If you’ve ever found yourself sighing about research and researchers – bemoaning a lack of insight, rigour, or quality of findings, perhaps it’s time to take a peek in the mirror. If research ‘goes wrong’ maybe you should question your own input – the hypotheses you’re going in with, the way you’ve briefed the project or the prejudices you unwittingly bring to the table.

As clients become increasingly dependent on research to make even the most basic of decisions about strategy and investment it’s incumbent upon Planners to make sure that those decisions are enabled by the highest quality findings and recommendations.

So how do we do it better?  Where are we going wrong – if indeed it is Planners who are going wrong?  Maybe it is the fault of researchers bending to the will of the clients and compromising their integrity in the process?  Maybe there is simply not enough genuine, thoughtful collaboration to ensure we all get the research we want and need?

Clearly it’s time for some Noisy Thinking on the subject.  So come along to Google on the 25^th June at 6pm for 6.30pm sharp start.  You can hear from the best research brains on the subject.  Wendy Gordon of Acacia Avenue, Kirsty Fuller of Flamingo and John Griffiths of Spring Research and Planning Above and Beyond will be examining the issues, dishing admonishments and acknowledgements where they are due and between them provoking us all to re-examine how and why we use research and how to do it better.

Noisy Thinking if free for APG members and £25 if you are not a member.  Go to eventbrite to organise your ticket. If you wish to take out membership of the APG and go for free, please contact Alison@apg.org.uk

Noisy Thinking is in association with Flamingo

Big thanks to everyone who attended and got so much out of Worlds Collide. Feedback was  exceptionally positive and we’re already thinking about how to move the concept on for next year – and do something even more stimulating.

Next on the events calendar is Noisy Thinking on the 25th June – in association with Flamingo.  We’re holding it at Google, starting 6.30pm sharp.  On stage will be research legends Wendy Gordon, John Griffiths and Brett Templeton.  They’ll be giving all they’ve got to the rather contentious theme:  ‘Planners get the research they deserve’

If you have a point of view or a tale to tell or a hard question  put to them, come along and have your say too.  Members free, non-members £25.  Go to eventbrite to book your ticket.

We’re taking bookings for Training Network in the Autumn.  It starts on 4th November.  Details on the training pages of this site. This is incredibly popular with young Planners so it’s as well to get your place sorted early. Contact alison@apg.org.uk to book your place.

We also have a couple of places left on the data and quant skills course: Getting to grips with data in evidence-based world on 10th and 11th July. Again book your place with Alison.

Last night saw the first of series of Networking events for young planners.  Much credit to PHD for lending their cool basement to 40 smart and sociable planners who were launched unwittingly into a series of demanding and only slightly silly planning games leavened by more than one or two beers and poorly disguised levels of competitiveness.  More of these to follow – follow APG on twitter for details @APGLondon.

(There’s another Planning Ramble on the cards – watch this space)

And finally the APG is moving offices next week to a new home in Greenwich, Linear House.  We’ll be sharing the space with photographers, artists, and musicians.   We’ll let you know the details as soon as we’re set up

We thought you’d enjoy two perspectives on the day.  So, with a nod to Campaign, we have an account penned by our Chair, Craig, and an excellent summary courtesy of Charlotte Cramer, a more recently minted Planner at JWT

Charlotte’s summary is appended at the bottom this post.  I think you’ll find them both enjoyable and useful

Sarah

From Craig….

Bullets flew past our heads in a Gaza playground, we were attacked with a machete in a Glasgow street, lost our money running a vineyard and had a ‘Portillo moment’.  It was strategy, but not as we had ever known it before.

On the afternoon of May 13^th, Canon Giles Fraser, Karyn McCluskey, Sir John Hegarty and the Rt Hon Michael Portillo collided in the Purcell Room at the South Bank, debating ‘how to win against all the odds’.  Malcolm White helped to prod, provoke and move the debate along.

Canon Giles began, defying expectations by taking us to the Middle East, rather than the Occupy protests outside St Paul’s Cathedral.  When you are under a hail of bullets, how do you make decisions quickly?  How do you know what to do?  His study of ethics illustrated some of the answers:  Should this be consequentialist ethics (where the focus is on the best outcome, no matter how you get there) or de-ontological ethics (where the focus is on following rules, rather than a focus on the outcome).  As it turns out, neither works, as in the heat of battle, it’s almost impossible to predict the outcome of your actions, and it’s impossible to keep consulting the rule book when you’re trying to avoid being shot.  Instead, virtue ethics prevail – the US Army make decisions on the battlefield with the maxim “Marines don’t do that”.  ‘Marines’ defines a set of values that become a shortcut for decision making.  You win against the odds by rehearsing to be the person you want to be.

Karyn McCluskey warned us that she was going to play some disturbing CCTV footage of violence.  We needed to see it to understand what she was dealing with, but even those of us who thought we could take it were shocked and stunned by the casual murder that unfolded in a busy street on a Saturday night.  It was a compelling example of the need, as she said, to change the norms in society around violence.  We are all born violent, we need to be taught not to be violent.  Her crusade against Glasgow gangs and the success she achieved was simply humbling, thankfully leavened with humour to sweeten the pill (“Alex Ferguson resigned – that’s just what we need, another unemployed angry Scotsman out on the streets”).  Her approach was to borrow thinking from another discipline, acting on violence as you would stop a disease epidemic – interrupt transmission, change behaviour and change norms.  It reminded us all to look beyond our worlds for the answers.

After a much needed break, John Hegarty had the tough gig of following Karyn, returning us to the world of advertising, and most specifically pitching.  He advised us not to acquire a vineyard, to be a brand, to serve the best coffee, to create a difference, that opinion is cheap and truth is expensive, that you’re solving the clients’ problems, not yours, to change the rules, to learn from your successes, not your failures, to be unreasonable, to be wary of collaboration and consensus, to think about ‘reputation’ not ‘brand’ and to be absolutely completely obsessed with quality.

And then we all had our Portillo moment.  Michael Portillo was, he said, the member of a very exclusive club – the former future Prime Ministers.  He reflected on how we are all brands, and to an extent trapped in the stories that others create for us, as people build you up, knock you down and then cover your redemption and comeback.  He wondered whether polarisation of views and extreme ideas can actually be good for society as it forces the right debates, as in the 80s’ “a period of history when ideas mattered”.  Winning when the odds are against you is about having a clear direction, showing clear and consistent leadership, knowing what you think about things.  Thatcher of course was the ultimate example of this – a government that knew where it was going and what it was doing, but balanced with vigorous debate about how to achieve those ends.

Four exhilarating points of view, from entirely different worlds, that then took flight in a Q&A that would be impossible to capture here (watch the video, it’s worth it), but ending with Canon Glies questioning the moral premise of advertising overall, and Karyn McCluskey leaping to John Hegarty’s defence of the role of advertising as an engine for aspiration.  When Sir John takes up policing the mean streets of Glasgow, the circle will be complete.

What an afternoon.

Craig Mawdsley:  APG Chair

Here’s what Charlotte had to say about it….

Presentation deck can be found here.

APG Worlds Collide was proudly sponsored by ITV and the Guardian