I often think a planning career is a bit like that Jerry Seinfeld movie - Comedian. This is the tale of Jerry trying to construct a new act after vowing never to do any of his old material. He goes out night after night doing five minutes here and there, finding stuff that works, discarding stuff that doesn’t, until he’s got enough to constitute an act. It takes a long time. And that’s what a planning career is like. Do it for long enough and you get an act. You get some examples, some anecdotes and some theories, which you regurgitate again and again, tailored to fit the situation you find yourself in.

Via Russel Davies. 

This applies to the young strategist just as much as it applies to the young planner. Wise words to remember as you grapple with the frustration of not having developed your act fully, just yet.

We don’t just live in a VUCA world - a volatile, uncertain, ambiguous and complex world - we live in a super VUCA world. We live in a vibrant world where our kids are connecting to each other and to brands across the world with no money involved. To us this is a world that’s gone crazy.

Strategy is dead. Who really knows that is going to happen anymore in this super VUCA world? The more time and money you spend devising strategies the more time you are giving you rivals to start eating your lunch.

(Source: “Marketing is dead” says Saatchi & Saatchi CEO)

This is a strange capitulation.

The world hasn’t gone crazy, it’s just different from what it was 5, 10, 20,50 years ago. And that’s a natural process. 100 years ago we didn’t have TV. 45 years ago we didn’t have the Internet (and it didn’t become publicly available until the late 1980s). 6 years ago there was no iPhone. It’s just that the rate of change is speeding up and simultaneously touching on more aspects of life, business and culture than ever before.

What’s different about this round of change is that everyone’s affected by it, at the same time. And this throws a lot of things (and people) out of balance.

Marketing and strategy are not dead. They’re just changing, too.