APG BATTLE OF BIG THINKING '09

Gordon Macmillan wrote a post last week on Brand Republic in which he talked about the Battle of Big Thinking.In it he said:

In what is likely to be one of the hottest sessions of the day Head of Strategy and Innovation at VCCP Amelia Torode will share what she has learnt from campaigns including comparethemarket/meerkat.com, in Big Thinking in Social Media.

Having just finished working out what my big thought that I want to share on Thursday is, I just wanted to tell Gordon that I am afraid that I am not talking about meerkats or markets. It has been a great campaign to be a part of, but I wanted to use the opportunity to talk about something totally different. I didn't want my session to be simply an agency creds, so have taken another approach and am not actually talking about any Social campaigns that I have been a part of. It's about stuff that excites me and I'm grappling with at the moment, I hope that it's useful, entertaining and above all I just hope that it's big thinking not medium sized thinking.

So meerkats will be missing (although I do reserve the right to reference other animals) The other thing that seems to be missing from the Battle of Big Thinking are women. I don't believe in positive descrimination for women, preferring that everyone is up there on stage on their own merits but there have to be more than 2 "big thinking" women in the UK? I asked the organizers when they invited me why there weren't more women taking part. What about people like Lady Geek,  or TechnoKitten? Most of the senior clients at o2  are women and more than capable of some serious big thinking! It would be great to see a wider range at next years event. I worry that at most conferences the panels look a bit like like the one in the cartoon below, albeit with more hair...

Anyway, saying that at least the girls will stand out stand out. There'll myself and Sandrine Plasseraud from We Are Social. You should be able to tell us apart. She's French and lovely. I'm British and a bit pregnant.

Come say hi if you're going on Thursday

Details here: APG BoBT Some tickets still available.

Comments

[Sandrine]

Hi Amelia,

Thanks for the nice mention - very much looking forward to Thursday (although I still haven't finalised my deck...)

sandrine

[Noël Theodosiou]

Amelia,
It is pretty ridiculous that there aren't more women at the APG event... Since the economic crisis started, there has been so much written about the need to have a more balanced (and some say explicitly feminine, although that is to be debated) way of thinking and making decisions... check out McKinsey's piece: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com:443/ghost.aspx?ID=/Leadership_through_the_crisis_and_after_McKinsey_Global_Survey_results_2457?pagenum=4
Perhaps an event called "the BATTLE of BIG thinking" is not exactly geared toward balanced male/female input?! (anyone can decode the testosterone in that title...) To be fair, for those of us who are the slightest bit competitive, conceptual and reflective, the idea of a "thinking battle" sounds fun.
I am working with my friend and colleague, Sarah Farrugia on this subject, because we are similarly frustrated. We have started an initiative called "Candied Thinking - sweet talk about serious issues" to give more opportunities to smart women to get involved in "big thinking" discussions. We'll send you an invite to our next session in the new year - hope you can join us! Noël

[Katy]

I'm going to be talking at the event, although I'm there in the open mic section as one of the under-30 'young big thinkers', not sure how many other women are represented in this section...

[Katie Streten]

I think you make a good point and we just have to keep making this point at every conference we go to or are speaking at. Yes it might be boring but I have plenty of articulate, interesting female clients and co-workers who have valuable contributions to make and who just don't get asked or invited to put themselves forward.

But you, Sandrine and Katy is better odds than some of the talks I've attended recently so maybe someone is listening!

[David]

Thanks for this post.