Swot’s Up?

Thanks to Jacob Lake, 2nd year Communication Strategist, for joining us to share his summer internship experience at Croc’s and for leading us in the development of a SWOT for Croc’s.

Jacob Lake

Hopefully, this showed you how a strength can be a weakness and how a threat can turn into an opportunity. That is probably the essence of 6 Hat Thinking in a nutshell. The idea that taking for granted a Strength, without a little Black Hat “warning” perspective, can cause a business or brand to slip up. Or, a little Green Hat (creative) or Yellow Hat (positive) or Red Hat (emotional/gut) can find the prospects in a weakness or threat.

Croc Swot

Your Two New Assignments
In case you didn’t get it, here is the sheet with the two new assignments for next week.

Wild Card Assignment

We’ll talk more about this assignment in class on the 25th. Thank you for your efforts on this.

Work Plans
Thank you for trying this again. And it looks like we’re now all on the same page. Remember, the work plan itself is not the key. The key is to know what you need to do, discussions and debates that need to be had, and all within the time allocated for the project, pitch, etc. These will become even more critical when you have projects that have to move from strategic development, to “big idea” to creative execution. Workplans get revised all the time as the overall method of work in our business can be very fluid.
Hypotheses
If your team still needs to get with me on your hypotheses, please do. But don’t stop working until you do. For those teams that got a full “green light”, onward and upward.

A Little Fun
Thank you for your enthusiasm on the Dirty Virgin name brainstorm.

Dirty Virgin

I sent several names off to the client and I’ll let you know what he decides.

Finally, I’d like to offer up a final thought. Have you ever heard the saying “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” I think the Adcenter is a lot like that. Unless you’ve done all this before, it’s all new. If you’ve never done something before, you’ve got a real chance of doing it wrong. Worry less about nailing the format and focus on nailing a big idea, a clear argument, a grip on the ideas and concepts, an enthusiasm for the debate. Do the assignment and then look at what you’ve done with a critical eye and ask yourself “Did I leave a stone unturned? Did I push myself to think differently? To stand back and squint at all angles and look for something I missed?”

Just a thought.