CONFERENCE RECAPS

October 7-8, 2015 If you ever wondered what the future of storytelling might be like, The Future of StoryTelling Summit begins to show you through some of the most advanced technology in the world. And, who’s to think that it would ever take place in Staten Island—a borough that appears to be eons away from the epicenter of the world. My day two volunteer schedule was lighter than on the first day, and so I had the opportunity to explore and see why FoST was such a big deal. The day began with a wicked cool opening ceremony, which consisted of William Close , an installation artist who played a harp with strings the width of the theater; and Miwa Matreyek who incorporated shadow performance with moving animation. It was interesting that sound and visual performances were selected and utilized to begin the day’s multi-sensory war on the audience’s senses. Al Gore followed these artistic performances with a discussion of his “ Climate Reality Project ,” a nonprofit organizat...

Brian Mortensen Conference Summary - Advertising Week XII, 2015 The first session I attended at New York’s Advertising Week XII was titled “The Power of Sports: The How and Why of Fan Passion” , hosted by Octagon. First up on stage was John Shaw, Octagon’s President of Marketing, Americas, and Ryan Eckel, Dick’s Sporting Goods VP of Brand Marketing. After showing a video extolling the impressions and publicity gained by Dick’s new non-profit campaign, Sports Matter , Shaw and Eckel opened a discussion on the power of sports at the community and individual level. Eckel explained how schools across the country continue to lose funding for sports programs, giving Sports Matter the opportunity to step in and offer ancillary financial support or donations of sports equipment for all different types of teams. The program raised approximately $4 million dollars for 184 youth teams in 2014. For 2015-16, Dick’s has partnered with donorschoose.org , which Eckel believes will aid in sp...

Tidal, the newest venture for Jay-Z in order to empower artists and limit the power of channels such as Youtube and Spotify. How much power, ownership, and control does an artist have? In this digital world of infinite information it is difficult to maintain control over your produced work. Recording artists depend on their music to maintain a financially stable life. Advertising, sponsoring, and promotions sometimes makes it difficult for an artist to remain the boss of their work.  Channels such as Youtube empowers recording artists, yes, but is it damaging in the long run? This is what rapper, entrepreneur, and entertainer Jay-Z is trying to challenge. His idea that music isn't free. Music is the bread and butter for artists so is it fair that we download their work for free? A student posed a question for Jay-Z where the idea that music should be free was brought up. His reply was, "did you ever buy water before?" It is somewhat controversial that certain a...

During The New York Festivals 2015, I had the privilege of not only attending but personally co-producing a panel for the creative sessions on behalf of the Advertising Women of New York entitled "The Madwomen Who Will Change Our Future" featuring:  Cynthia Carrasco, FCBC Health Lauren Connoly, BBDO Katelyn Johnson, Arnold Worldwide Michele Kunken, KBS+ Rosemarie Ryan, co:collective  As working professionals and students both pursuing our Masters' degrees in creative + communications, my colleague and I understand how extremely competitive the industry can be first hand and how difficult it is to not only break in but remain in the field as well. We felt this this not only rang true for us but would resonate with aspiring professionals and those who are trying to attract and retain talent, alike. It was this universal truth that inspired the vision of the content, therefore we decided the conversation should focus on how the creative field has evolved ...

Social Media Week 2015 was packed with amazing content from using social as professional trumpet for your personal brand + career building to engaging non profit clients via digital storytelling in just one short week. Attending sessions evolution of social media overall provided a fresh perspective and outlook in addition to best social media practices and trends to date. My favorite panel of the entire week entitled "Activism in the Social Age" presented by Black Enterprise provided a revolutionary outlook on how to utilize social media can be used for good to advocate, rally and activate support around social causes and movements. This panel was especially relevant with such racial injustices dramatically surfacing the U.S. from Trayvon Martin to Freddie Gray and provided a very engaging platform to discuss the best methods to use during crucial time of need for financial and emotional support for protestors participating in peaceful rallies thought the country.  ...

This past September I had the pleasure of attending REMIX NYC  – a 3 day conference on culture, technology and entrepreneurship held at the offices of Google, Bloomberg, and the MOMA. The three days were filled with incredible speakers across all three categories; there were inspiring speeches from the founders and digital leads of major cultural such as the Brooklyn Arts Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, roundtable discussions featuring the founders of small startup incubators to massive companies such as Youtube, and critical advice from entrepreneurs and entrepreneurially focused companies, such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. In hindsight, the conference felt like half sales pitch, half inspiring lecture. But what really stuck with me was the sense of urgency needed to bring our cultural institutions (especially our museums) into the digital age, and the growing importance of digital technology to encourage and foster a culture of entrepreneurialism in our society. ...

May 2015 will be a total of 18 months that I’ve spent at the City College of New York taking part in the BIC Masters program as a Creative. During my time in the program I’ve had the opportunity to interact with a number of full service advertising agencies and I’ve observed something extremely disturbing in the communications industry; a lack of African American males with global senior leadership positions. This being the case, it was only right that I attend the long awaited round table conversation regarding the state of African American males in the communication industry. The Chairman & CEO of the LAGRANT Foundation, Kim Hunter along with Burson Marsteller’s Worldwide Vice Chair, Patrick Ford, hosted the round table. In attendance were a number of other industry execs along with a long list of African American males presently working in the industry at various Ad/PR agencies. The disturbing part was, of all of the execs in attendance none looked like me.   Clearl...

As part of the Social Media Week 2015, the NYU Kimmel Center hosted a panel discussion on the topic “The Seismic Shift in African Storytelling in 140 Characters or less”. An opportunity to discuss issues, benefits and challenges pertaining to the explosion of social media on the African continent.   In a friendly atmosphere, a panel of five African social media activists was invited to discuss the matter with a dozen of media and communications professionals with a solid knowledge of communication issues on the continent. It is for this reason that I was invited. Significant disparities in the sub-Saharan region In less than a decade, Africa -especially the sub-Saharan region- has gone from being largely unconnected to the internet to having millions of people using it. The entire panel agreed on the conclusion that this key change has created two kinds of Sub-Saharan Africans in terms of media and communications: the haves and the have-nots . Until...

Every year, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) holds its Re:Think Conference, sharing the latest industry-related groundbreaking studies, tools and technology. But the 2015 conference was special: fellow classmate Edmund Balogun and I submitted a proposal and were selected to present at the conference! What was the topic, you ask? Storytelling (one of my personal favourites!). While I loved the experience of actually being a speaker at the conference (and after attending a few of the sessions, I learned that storytelling was something many of the speakers could work on), what was interesting to observe was the difference between this conference and other marketing conferences like Advertising Week. Re:Think 2015 was intense and heavily research based - so if data and research is your thing, this conference is definitely the one to attend! Some of my favourite moments/takeaways included: Learning about the ABC's of marketing. A = Audience. You have to really understand your...

The 3% Conference is a two day conference founded in San Francisco to support more female creative leadership in the advertising world. Rapidly growing since its launch date in 2012, the conference has boomed into an anticipated event in the industry, especially among female marketers. It now also hosts various conferences throughout USA and Europe and the initiative lives within multiple social platforms, an annual student scholarship fund, awards, and blog. I had the pleasure of attending this event not only as a woman in the industry, but also as one of the top ten student scholarship winning teams with my fellow BIC classmate, Nehal Mahmoud. The 2014 Student Scholarship Fund encouraged students to participate in a creative challenge, granting the top 10 winners to win: a pair of tickets to The 3% Conference in San Francisco a $250 travel stipend per participant a private lunch on Day 1 of the Conference where leaders from scholarship sponsor, Adobe, provided student po...

My background is in advertising account management. I started as a junior account executive working on accounts such as LG mobile, SanDisk, Foodsaver, New York Organ Donor Network, and Goldman Sachs. Within a year, I was promoted to account executive. In account management, half my job involved executing my own initiatives. The other half involved managing team projects. Even as a junior, I had a heavy hand in managing projects and managing people, not just myself. In my current role as a copywriter, I get very few opportunities to manage others. It's understandble, though, because my current job is more about generating and executing ideas. For most junior- to mid-level creatives, management is not a requirement (unless it's personal management). But here's the interesting thing, once a creative gets to the creative director level, they are required to lead teams. Thus, there's a conflict. How does a new creative director learn how to effectively manage others ...