What Do You Do Exactly?

There's an article in the current Boards magazine which looks at people with weird job titles in the industry, which very kindly includes me.

{I quite fancy both Alchemist and Resident Theorist as jobs - then maybe people wouldn't confuse me with the CTO and try to sell me enterprise software. Or ask me to help when they can't plug their laptops into the projectors.}

As I said in this Fast Company piece, all these new job titles are indications that the system is trying to assimilate the rapid change in cultural context, driven by technology's increasingly pervasive role in all communication.

Perhaps the divisions of the past, the departments and roles, the linear production processes, aren't the only, or the best way, to create communications products, to help companies use creativity to solve the business challenges [and take advantage of the opportunities] that this changing context create.

When I was judging the London International Awards last week, I was being interviewed and was asked why there were no 'creative people' on my jury.

I said that I strongly disagreed with that - there just weren't any traditional 'creatives'.

But Ben, Frank, Kevin and Noah are some of the most creative people in the business - they also happen to be incredibly smart, which I guess makes them 'strategists'.

One is even one of the most creative people in business, according to FastCompany.

Like entries into the NEW category itself, they just don't fit conveniently into the industry's old boxes.

UPDATE: The lovely Fitz just sent me this article that asks will planners be the creative directors of the future? I see 'planners' as the architects of the system of engagement myself.