What opportunities do you see for the planning discipline in 2019? Exploring power dynamics and the flow of resources, especially financial resources, is an important part of business success. Put another way, planning is about powerful art. Second, we need to embrace "new power." New power is about networked governance, transparency, inclusion, and shared resources. It might sound counter-intuitive for me to recommend that you focus on art after I've just talked about power dynamics, but being able to understand radically different perspectives is one of the things that makes planner's valuable. How do other artists and critics talk about and think about the ideas in their art? We also need to become "architects of creativity." According to the World Economic Forum, creativity will be the third most important skill required in 2040 (behind complex problem solving and critical thinking). However, there is a science of creativity and the imagination.
Eliza Esquivel, a marketing consultant, shares her insights on the future of account planning with Jessica Abo.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In this video, consultant Eliza Esquivel shared her insight on future of account planning with me. Here are two important questions for Esquivel about business planning in 2019.
What opportunities do you see for the planning discipline in 2019?
Esquivel: The account planning practice has remained largely hidden from anyone outside of advertising, so I see a huge opportunity in 2019 to explain what we do and apply it more broadly. If the planning mindset were applied to the bigger forces shaping our society today like technology, entertainment, media and even organizational design we could have wide-reaching impact in creating a world we all want to live in.
This is the year planners can unlock new growth and revenue streams in ways that have wide benefit for people and society.
Professionals trained in account planning can rally together to find new ways to bridge the way creativity has been generated in advertising with the way creativity is generated beyond advertising and marketing.
Account planning is a disciplined process of connecting the dots from radically diverse perspectives:
- We generate insight and foresight,
- We conduct audience analysis through a incisive cultural lens,
- We distill information for maximum stimulation of the imagination, and
- We lead fearless ideation that gets results.
What are the five things planners should keep in mind to create change?
First we need to distinguish strategy from planning.
Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies at King’s College defines strategy as a focus on power and the use of resources. Exploring power dynamics and the flow of resources, especially financial resources, is an important part of business success. And is a critical element of what we do. But strategy is not planning. Planning is the application of multiple ways of knowing and seeing to essentialize a problem so that can be acted on by the imagination. Put another way, planning is about powerful art. In order to be successful in building a bridge outside of advertising, we need to be adept at both strategy and planning. But planning is the bit the larger world has yet to understand and utilize to its greatest…
COMMENTS