Day 5- Train Delays, Will.I.AM and an Egyptian Super-Star

Day 5- Thursday!

After a long night at the awards ceremony and then the Microsoft party (which was awesome, by the way), I jumped on the 10:10 train to make the 10:30 Kraft master class. Of course, the trains were having a little bit of difficulty this morning. After arriving 10 minutes late and stopping randomly in the middle of the tracks for a few minutes at a time, we finally arrived at the master class fashionably late. Unfortunately, I cannot say I got much out of it. I was difficult to hear and hard to see. Hopefully tomorrow mornings master class will be more of a success!

I then decided I would watch the much talked about Saatchi & Saatchi New Director’s Showcase. Though I loved the Dirt Devil Vacuum cleaner ad, I felt like the showcase was dragged on (and it went way over time). Some of the films were interesting and innovative, like the “Don’t Drink and Drive” film. But, there were many that looked cool but its message was unclear. I thought I would enjoy this seminar more.

After the New Director’s Showcase, the McCann Worldgroup & MRM Worldwide seminar with Will.I.Am finally began. The platform of the discussion was that technology is creativity. I never thought of technology as creativity, but rather as promoting it. I now understand this perspective. There is tons of creative thought that goes into technology. For example, Tod Machover explained how he and his team created Guitar Hero. I was amazed! I 100% believed that Guitar Hero was created based on the idea that someone wanted an interactive guitar experience. I never imagined that the idea for Guitar Hero was created from a scientific error.

During the seminar, Will.I.Am. talked about the importance of collective consciousness. I had not heard this term used when referring to advertising and the promotion of a product. He argued that twitter is collective consciousness. For example, at concerts, the Black Eyed Peas use twitter to see what people are thinking about the concert. Before twitter was invented, they struggled to find out what people thought about their concerts. I found this idea to be obvious, but yet still brilliant.

The last event of the day was a session with Amr Salama. This session was one of my favorites the entire week! Of course we have all heard about the revolution in Egypt. Yet, listening to someone talk about the revolution that was part of the uprising was amazing. His courage, creativeness and dedication to the cause came through with everything he said. As part of the revolution, the Egyptians utilized all facets of social media. This event shows the power that social media can have now and in the future. During the discussion, Salama stated that everyone was the leader during the revolution. I found this concept to be interesting. Normally, I would have guessed there was one leader who encouraged everyone to participate in the revolt. Yet, it amazes me that everyone was part of the uprising. I plan on learning more about this man! He was truly inspirational.

Tomorrow is the last full day at the festival…weird. I look forward to making the most of it and staying there all day!