The Brief Of Our Lives.
I believe that our ideas can shape worlds, and the ones that will have the greatest impact will be born out of technology.
To shape worlds means to have a meaningful effect on the life around us. Great ideas have always done this, moveable type, the engine, the internet. Great brands also — Greenpeace, AirBnB, Dove.
Technology is the opportunity to innovate how we do things, to progress. In digital technology we have seemingly limitless opportunities.
Digital technology is a platform for ideas. It enables things to happen. Quickly. Supporting both big and small ideas, it allows growth, and sharing — we can have the same idea at the same time.
Technology is all about ideas. But an idea doesn’t have to be all about technology.
Fantasy
We created this world, for better or worse. We did it with brand centric visions of the good life, not technology. We wrote and shot it full of aspiration and materialism. The perfect fantasy world. The car ad. The manifesto. The man with all the answers.
It’s the world we want. But not one we can sustain.
Science Fiction
Now technology is creating a new world. Where disruptive ideas suddenly surface and rewrite how we do things. A world of tools and services that arrive without permission, carry us forward, compelling us to get involved. YouTube, KickStarter, Bitcoin. Here we are a passenger, no longer creator.
It is not the world we are used to. It unsettles us as we imagine it governed by complex machines and AIs, we only trust it in friendly shapes, lickable mobiles or clown cars. This world is about change, not perfection, and if our world before was fantasy, this next one is science fiction.
It’s the world we’re going to get. Whether we like it or not.
Technology & Creativity.
It’s easy to get carried away, this world isn’t yet run by sentient machines, it’s simply the work of experimental humans. Humans just like us. Just not us.
These ones don’t fear technology. They seek out opportunities to use it, and shape it to their will. They understand that technology is a tool to make ideas happen. Furthermore that technology not only changes what you can do with ideas, it also changes the kind of ideas you can have.
Any idea is simply a product of experience. If you experience more technology then you will have more technically cultured ideas. New kinds of ideas that understand connection, interaction and iteration.
To experiment with technology is to experiment with new ideas. To explore what is possible, and to me that is the essence of creativity — to every day explore what is possible.
Have you noticed that we’re not really talking about technology? We’re talking about creativity. Something we possess it in zettabytes. In our world, we were famed for it, except this is no longer our world. Ideas have changed, and with that we have lost our confidence.
We no longer practice creativity. We codify it. We use technology to justify, democratise and programme ideas. Investing our energies into anything but the actual idea in an attempt to predict what is right or wrong. We crush the idea trying to find lost perfection, and the last thing we do is release it.
Whereas a tech company, the very first thing they do is release it. Just let the idea go, as fast as possible, and see what happens. Often they do not know what the idea really does, until people use it. Maybe it lives, or maybe it dies, but either way the process is celebrated as progress. From this method, ideas are appearing and having a real impact on how we live.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the problems are lining up. This planet cannot sustain us, conflict flares across the globe, our culture has never been more transparent and yet so significantly unjust, and we are rapidly creating technology that renders our way of life obsolete.
Now more than ever, we need ideas that can shape a world.
Release The Idea.
We have to design a new way to live on earth, create new ways to live with each other and work out how we are going to live with technology.
It’s the brief of our lives. We have the opportunity to create a better world and with it a more meaningful future for our industry. But it will not happen if we fail to release the idea.
Release the idea means to use technology to make ideas happen. Release the idea means to stand up for what you believe in. Release the idea means to get your idea live as soon as possible and adapt on the fly.
Release the idea means to every day explore what is possible.
As President of D&AD I urge us all to remove the brakes from the creative process, and as one, make this an industry that releases wave after wave of experimental ideas into the world.
Modern ideas that use the best of old and new creativity to shape aspirations and behaviour whilst creating the tools and services to make change happen for real, for everyone.
Then just watch what happens.
Pencil winning ideas will turn up, new creative heroes will be made, more talent will arrive, our industry’s confidence will return and alongside it our client’s trust. And most of all, a better world will be created.
Breathe In Technology & Breathe Out Creativity.
Breathe in technology and breathe out creativity. Breathe in technology and breathe out creativity. Breathe in technology and breathe out creativity. And let’s get back to what we do best, just have an idea and don’t fuck it up.
Release the idea, create the world we need and don’t fuck it up.
