Imagine speaking to some of the most Lion-awarded creative directors, chief marketing officers, agency leaders, copywriters and all-round creative legends from across the globe as part of your regular Friday diary for nearly three months.
What would you ask them? How would you try to extract all their creative genius, wisdom and insights in the call?
I had the privilege of figuring that out as the course leader of the first Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity cMBA cohort. Always happy to be the nosiest person in the room, I was lucky enough to host these conversations over 10 weeks and speak to creative folk I have admired for many years. In a strangely intimate setting for an online call, we heard refreshingly honest, heartfelt insights and learnings from their incredible creative careers, which at times felt like confessions rather than a Q&A with industry legends.
Now the first cohort has graduated 👏 I’ve been revisiting the live calls. In doing so I’m stunned to discover that the transcripts run to over 200,000 words. Having written a book (80,000 words that took most of a year) and with the average novel running at around 90,000 words, it dawned on me that this cohort, and our speakers, have effectively contributed to two novels and probably a cheeky novella 📓
That’s a LOT of conversations about all things creative.
There are so many valuable takeaways and an embarrassment of quotes from our incredible speakers which I can't begin to do justice to, but I wanted to share a taste. One of the skills often referenced by our Lion-winning creatives and marketers, was something perhaps surprising and under-rated - the power of listening:
👂 Really listen to each other: The inimitable Josy Paul, CCO and Chairman BBDO India: "You're always listening. You're always processing. You're always cross-synthesising. You're feeding off each other. I am not an influencer. I don't want to be an influencer. I'm an influencee. I'm an antenna. It's like, just throw things at me. I try to receive all the time so that I can be influenced.”
👂 Listen to your inner wisdom: Retrospect founder and Design Jury President Quinnton Harris told us to trust our gut and said "Keep listening to your heart."
👂 Listen to the hard things: Wieden + Kennedy's Susan Hoffman urges us to "have the courage to really handle the truth," even when it's hard.
👂 Listen to the world: Havas London CCO Vicki Maguire reminded us, "You can find inspiration anywhere, and if you can't, you're not looking hard enough."
Thank you to every one of our panellists, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity team for the opportunity, and of course congrats to the grads of 2024! If you want to find out more https://lnkd.in/eDZHSi57 🦁
More extracts from the course on the blog https://shorturl.at/9LEJP
Jenni Middleton Steve Latham Eunie Jang Kat Kononenko Josh Thompson-Persaud
#CannesLIONS #LionsLearning #Elearning #LIONScMBA