PLANNING VERSUS STRATEGY: WHICH DO YOU DO?

Since, I've been in America, I've discovered a huge confusion and debate about the difference between planning and strategy. I always thought my job title was planner, but what I was doing was called strategy.

The apparent distinction seems to be that planners do creative stuff and strategists do business stuff. In most instances I think the difference is as simple as some agencies chose one title, and others chose the other title. Where there is a real distinction - I agree - it is usually whether they get involved in the creative process or not.

In the UK, where account planning began, the difference only really exists in digital agencies with American roots. UK planners have had to consequently develop broader skillsets. With bigger budgets on this side of the Atlantic, many agencies can afford to have both types of people.

I'm not sure if there is room for both roles in the future, as margins continue to shrink in the digital world. It'll be interesting to watch. It's likely that digital agencies will experience the same thing that happened with account planning in advertising agencies- which had two original inventors and cultures. My view is that the distinction will disappear in digital agencies.

Account planning started in the UK in the 1960s by Stanley Pollitt and Stephen King at JWT. It gained a foothold in the U.S. in the mid 80’s - through Chiat/Day - and has been growing ever since. King would have aligned himself much more closely with what they call Strategists, here in the US, and Pollitt, would have aligned himself with what they call Planners here. The distinction has now disappeared.

I worry for the account planner who knows nothing about business, or the strategist who doesn't understand consumers. Do these people really exist, and how do they survive?

This post was a follow-up to an answer I contributed on Quora to a question entitled: What is the difference between an account planner and a strategist?

It's no surprise there is confusion. If you watch the videos below filmed here in New York you'll notice a few things:
- Most of the planners are British
- The videos aim to show consensus, but they don't really agree on very much
- The Planners all have different answers for what we do in concrete terms. Other professions find it easier to describe what they do. A film director would say 'I direct the actors and crew in the making of a film'. An architect would say 'I plan, design and oversee the construction of buildings'. Planners all have very different answers.

Here's a series of videos from PSFK on Skills of The Rockstar Planning that spotlight the differences in definition.

CLASSIC STEVE JOBS SPEECH ON THINK DIFFERENT CAMPAIGN

At the beginning of my agency career, I did a little work on a peripheral part of the Think Different campaign, i.e. I was barely involved. But I do remember thinking that the campaign was remarkable. This video from around that time shows Steve Jobs at his best, explaining the thinking behind the campaign that remains at the heart of Apple's DNA today. It's also a very smart explanation of what a brand point view is and what it delivers.

UNDERSTANDING CONTAGIOUS DIFFUSION USING NETWORK DIAGRAMS

As the social web moves beyond the hype stage, and the monetisation phase takes a grip, we all need to start understanding how contagious diffusion really works in different types of communities. We'll need to master how to construct network diagrams that show all the nodes in a network, and how the influence flows.

I'm starting to experiment with something called Gephi. It's an interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs. It's open source and therefore free. I'm trying to get data sources, and posted a question on Quora (if you can help).

Gephi demo at JavaOne from gephi on Vimeo.

I see this as a form of digital anthropology. Over the next few years, we will all use data and software like this to dive into the community and really understand what makes it tick. I currently use a series of qualitative techniques fortified with data coming from search analysis and online conversation analysis through Alterian SM2, but getting dynamic data-sets into something like Gephi is the next stage. I've posted on graph theory and network analysis before, and how we will need to master language like clustering coefficients, centrality, and betweeness, and other language that describes networks, but that future is now here.

Introducing Gephi 0.7 from gephi on Vimeo.