CONFERENCE RECAPS

On September, 22nd of 2019, I was sitting for the very first time in a Social Good Summit in Manhattan. Apart from being very excited to be listening at experts of the industry, I was also very happy because I knew this was the kind of experience I was looking for in a Master Program: not only attending to classes but also having experiences in the real world. I chose to go to the Social Good Summit because is an event that take places only once a year and brings together social entrepreneurs to share strategies and stories about creating social change, and this for me was very important. What it grabbed my attention very much were two main topics: Social Media Community Building and how to create good and meaningful content. Regarding Social Media Community, Brook McCarthy, Director of Hustle & Heart recognized reasons people are on social media: procrastination, socialization, entertainment, trend-watching and crafting public identity. McCarthy explained to the audience how they ...

Adobe MAX came this year much differently than expected due to our new virtual reality. However, they still managed to bring so many creative professionals with 56 hours of planned live content. There were professionals and students, social media mavens, and hobbyists. They offered a variety of points of view so anyone can have the opportunity to take their skills to the next level to inspire, educate, and create. I attended a few workshops and talks but two stood out to me. One was led by Tasha Lutfi, Design Director at Microsoft called "How Diverse Teams can Elevate Creativity".  We all know about the recent events that have sparked many questions about racial injustice and systematic racism. It's only right that we discuss why it's needed to address problems of diversity, equality, and inclusion, especially within the workplace. The main question is how will companies make a meaningful change during a time like this? The data behind diversity shows why it matters a...

 AdWeek was a vast array of different conversations, but it was clear that messaging was steered more towards behaviors that have affected consumers during the pandemic. Consumers are spending more time online, making more careful decisions in activism and social involvement, and as a result are also burning out from maintaining a constant online presence. Each of the sessions below are representative in how brands are reacting to these changes. Reset You: Building your Resilience at Work Presented by Suki Thompson Founder & CEO of Let’s Reset David Beeney Mental Health Expert at Breaking the Silence The way we think of Mental Health vs. Physical Health is illustrated in a simple Google Images search. The image of mental health is of someone with their head in their hands, depression or in images with undertones of blue. When you look up physical health, it’s a heroic image of someone who is fit and happy. The disparity makes it clear that perceptions of mental health are sti...

  The Adobe MAX 2020 Conference started with its keynote speakers informing the audience of the overall theme: collaboration. A word that’s constant in the art world, but never taken advantage of. As creatives in an oversaturated world, where ideas are done by multiple mediums on multiple platforms, it can be hard to create connections between other creatives. It seems we are always fighting for the next big idea that will propel us toward the most memorable project. Even though we use the same tools and think in similar ways, we tend to disregard each other as people. We need to remember that, “creativity is the world’s greatest recycling collaboration.”   We need to look at each other as we do Adobe Suite. We are a large, “creative system that brings all teams together and enables a seamless system.” According to world-renown portrait photographer, Mark Seliger (LinkedIn attached), “Once you figure out what that destination is, once you figure out what that first subject is,...

 2020 has definitely been a challenging year for all of us-- and the marketing and advertising world weren’t the exception. AWLATAM hosted the 4th edition of their conference, online for their first time with a variety of topics that are relevant to the industry’s current situation, such as changes in consumer behaviors, women in the industry, and the use of streaming services to reach new consumers. Although most of the panels were interesting and full of insights, there were three that captivate the essence of the changes in consumer behaviors, data-driven creativity, and digital marketing. In times of challenges and tragedy, many brands probably asked themselves: how do we reach consumers with the right message? Especially brands like beer, where ads tend to be more about festivity and relaxation-- but who was in that mood in 2020? This question suffered a slight transformation and went from that to how do we connect with our audience? How do we tell them we’re here for them dur...

 This year I had the chance to attend Advertising Week 2020, an event curated for marketers, brands, advertisers and creatives with the agenda to bring the marketing, media, technology, and creative industries together to drive change. While COVID-19 has had us all staying at home, Adweek 2020 was a nice reminder of how far technology has come to help us be connected with the world. This was my first year attending the Advertising week and I couldn’t be more excited. This year the event being completely remote, made it even more accessible. I had the opportunity to fully enjoy and learn through numerous seminars at my own convenience. To help attendees get the maximum out of the event, Advertising week has made all the seminars available until the end of October. Along with it, the event curated a list of skill specific badges that attendees could opt for and further their professional and academic growth. During the week long event, I had the opportunity to attend two workshops th...

When the opportunity to attend AdvertisingWeek 2020 arose, I thought it would be a great entry into the new world of virtual conferences—”the new normal” as people like to say. What I appreciated about all this new virtual reality was the structure of it. The talks were livestreamed, but if you missed anything you can hop back on and rewatch a session on the main website. It also allowed for easy planning—I was able to just make a list of favorite, interesting sessions that I jumped into when time allowed during the week. I watched several—some hits, some misses—but below are takeaways from two of my favorite sessions of the event.   One of the first sessions that I watched was the “Great Minds Keynote,” a solo talk from Rory Sutherland, the Vice Chairman at Ogilvy UK. One of my takeaways from this session was how he discussed a new paradigm in work. He says, “When we started working remotely, our preferences changed as a response to experience. We had always assumed that the way w...

My original intent was to write about the Adobe 99U conference entitled, “The Creative Self”. The expectation was that of artistic and technological information and instruction, (after all, it was hosted by Adobe, the genius behind the Holy Trilogy of PhotoShop, InDesign and Illustrator) creative thinking and perhaps a sneak-peek into some fresh, innovative design. What I got instead was a millennial Midwesterner with imposter syndrome who liked to illustrate plants on her iPad, a 35-minute tutorial on making the world’s most complicated paper pinwheel, and how to treat your self-interest brain like a Bento box. (I still don’t completely get what Yancy Strickler was trying to put across with that last one, and I don’t think I ever will.) To put it mildly, after attending Adobe 99U, I was left unimpressed. But more importantly, I was left without decent material to write my essay (that wasn’t an op-ed smear piece). Slightly panicked, I wasn’t sure what my next step was going to be. Stil...