Here's the whole gang. Nice to see so many faces of people I now consider friends...and only a few sworn enemies. Click for full pic...
--Mike Hudson (thanks to Dave S. in TOR for the photo)
LAS VEGAS -- Our intrepid and -- I'll say it -- heroic Organics are putting the finishing touches on their yeoman-like efforts all across the Palms, A Maloof Casino Resort.
Caffeine is flowing freely, if somewhat uselessly, through the veins of many at this very hour. We will post the winning team the moment we come to a decision...sometime in the afternoon PST.
Send your peeps well wishes. Every office is being well represented, so stand tall and proud. Or just send 'em an nice email.
Team 5 talks things through...
LAS VEGAS -- The full moon, glitz and first hours of work from last evening are a distant memory and tomorrow morning remains frightfully close at hand for our Campers. The challenge at hand has pretty much fully sunken in with everyone. And it's inspiring some great thinking...and some great anxiety...for all involved.
In other words, we're right on schedule. Giddyup.
The teams are arriving in planes from across this great continent. Get ready to stare at this pool for a bit, if my experience was any guide...
--Mike Hudson
(Camp 13 Insider Comment of the Day: If we had GloCator, you could all find this huss in a jiffy.)
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Hey Guys
We just finished the workshop here at Cannes, and to say it was a success would be an understatement. Let me try and sum it up in a nice short email.
We had close to 200 people crammed into the room. There wasn't even standing room left. We even had a queue of people outside waiting to get in. We presented for the first half and we had 35 people stay back to participate in the exercise.
The teams rocked. They were from all over the world and completely embraced the approach. (Romania was particularly well represented). We had a peoples choice winner who landed on a nice "connection device" idea and we presented them with Flip cameras as prizes. Everyone got the Camp Organic at Cannes T-shirt and we told them if Sam and I see them wearing it later we have to buy them a drink.
Guys this rocked. People are interested and want to know how to get into the "program" - they want to be part of it. Our minds are racing.....the best was the woman from British Airways who walked past and asked what we were doing. "Reinventing travel" we said (our exercise) - she slipped Sam a card and said "let me know what you find"
Over and out from Cannes.
C.
My Not-So Typical 72 Hours in Vegas
(Not the full story, just the good bits aka what I would have Twittered
given time)
WED MAY 14th
9:00 AM
Meet Team 7. My team looks tired, maybe we're just conserving energy?
Allard is an EM from NY, previously Netherlands. Andrew is a copywriter
from Toronto. Govid is IT from San Fran.
3:00 PM
Trip to the Boneyard under 95 degree sun. Diversion or inspiration?
Whatever the intent, the heat is killer and we are all ancy to get our
sins.
5:00 PM
The twist this season is "Brand Movement". Sounds reasonably
complicated. Brand movements require common values, community support,
growth mechanisms, authenticity, and a solid launch plan. Just think for
a second how easy that truly is to build for your current clients. Piece
of cake!!
5:15 PM
Whatever it is, don't let it be anger. Don't let it be anger! Team 7 =
ANGER. Demo is working moms.
6:00 PM
Talking about planning a plan. My strategist weakness is revealed. Until
I have a diagram or bullet points on paper, my heart is not going to
start beating at a normal rate.
Take 7 Sins, add in Las Vegas, apply Organic in large doses, stir in empathy and kneed through phenomenal people, bake for no more than 30 hours and what do you get? The 8th Camp Organic - slightly similar to those that came before but impossible to recreate again. What an incredibly awesome experience. I won’t lie I came to win, I did what all good athletes do before a competition I began imagining myself winning and I went in with every intention of convincing the judges that my team should. Yes, we lost, but I have never been more satisfied to lose. The depth and breadth of talent at Organic on display was completely inspirational, what everyone did how everyone worked together and had such fun doing it is remarkable. We are part of a larger company with offices throughout, but together we each accomplished something that we will appreciate throughout our careers. I didn’t know many of the other attendees, but by the end of it I learned how strong each office is and how we can continue to seek out exceptional experiences on behalf of our clients by pushing through for insights, empathy and by working together. The game raising experience that is Camp Organic is something that puts things into perspective, it inspires and I believe it helps rejuvenate you even as Las Vegas strips you of everything humane. The investment in us and our investment in each other makes our capability to show what we can do at work that much more exciting.
It is hard to express what a top tier company means, it is hard to define where we work, it is even difficult to express how much passion and craft goes into what we do, but our experience was exceptional and I can’t imagine a better group of people to share that with. I am already looking forward to hearing the stories from the next lucky sinners; you as Organic’s are in for a truly outstanding opportunity - revel in it.
Jeremy Adirim
A lot of my expectations about my experience at "Camp Organic" were met. I stayed up late, ran around Vegas like a crazy person, and worked very hard while I was here. I got in on Wednesday. Starting at 5 pm that day, I was essentially "off to the races." There were approximately 30 fellow Organics and a handful of "Camp Counselors" meeting here at the Palms Hotel & Casino. We were divided into groups of four or five people that were both cross-office (New York, Toronto, San Francisco, Detroit) and cross-discipline (Business Development, Creative, Finance, Engagement Management, and Engineering made up my group). Everyone was given a fake product (a multi-fuel green vehicle), a target demographic, and a "sin" used as a lens to focus our findings.
Of the seven deadly sins, ours was Pride and our target demographic was late-20s/early-30s well-to-do white males. More than the "proud" aspect of the sin, we concentrated on the "vanity" piece. While we fought like crazy (our perceptions, not each other) to not put our demographic into the stereotype we all had, he ended up being very much that person. Quite a bit of him ended up being "Jack" in Fight Club.
I won't go into all the gory details of strip clubs, Rolex stores, Craig's List, bachelor parties, table service, exotic vehicles, and sushi bars. Let's just say that our group covered a lot of ground and used a lot of innovative techniques to gather data on our persona and began to draw up a marketing plan. We started working on our conclusions around 7 pm on Thursday and most of us went to bed at 4:30 am Friday morning. (One of our members stayed up until 5:30 am putting the finishing touches on our presentation.)
The experience was amazing. While it felt at times like an episode of "The Apprentice" as I anticipated (sometimes we would use that to telegraph our intentions and "the game" we were playing to our subjects), there was no in-fighting or back-stabbing in our group. We got along remarkably well, even with a lot of strong personalities and differing points-of-view. If anything, it was one of those situations where being from our various cities and backgrounds just enhanced everything and made the bonding even stronger. After watching the other six presentations and doing ours, we continued to hang out with each other; drinking, celebrating, and commiserating like war buddies.
I’m a sucker for compliments and I got more than my fair share when we were putting everything together. I was zinging out taglines like nobody’s business. I can’t claim the central theme to the campaign, “Everything else is just traffic.” It, like all of our other taglines, had a dual meaning. I’m all about dichotomy, especially when one meaning would appeal to our target’s vanity while the other could be viewed as a much happier/fuzzier sentiment.
The other good news is that we came in second place. The guys that beat us—Sloth—completely deserved it. They kicked even more butt than we did and learned a lot while doing it. It turned out that all of my fears and grousing about Camp O were for naught.
All right, I'm off to the casino floor before heading over to the airport. My flight's been delayed for two hours and I just got more and more impressed with the ineptitude of Northwest Airlines each trip I take.
Mike White
As everyone is gearing up for the next Camp Organic, it reminded me of how cool my experience was at Camp. I had a blast. I had the chance to experience a little bit of what we do first hand (as I'm in the corporate group), meet people from all of our offices, and have two fun nights in Vegas.
In a nut shell, Camp Organic is an empathy excersize around personas focusing on the Seven Sins in Sin City. We were given an idea and 18 hours to create a persona and presentation. We did this by observing, talking, and finding the unexpected--and we did just that.
My group (me, Scott, Mauro, Joe and Trevor) met an interesting character named Father Tyme (pictured above with me in the reflection of his glasses). He was surprisingly charming and warm and he let us in on the sordid side of Vegas. It was great watching people watch us, watching him. It’s interesting because we realized that greed, attention, and excess is contagious. People want what they (whoever that is) have. What tickles me most is that Father Tyme has kept in contact with Scott either by phone, or drops a letter in the mail, and tells Scott to tell me hello.
It was also a bonding experience. I really got to know and like the people in my group. I hope everyone has as much fun as I did. I did say I was going to knit everyone skullies and I still need to do that.
Kari Girarde