Day 1 at CreateTech: The Conference for the Seriously Curious

Screen Shot 2015-11-12 at 1.59.43 PMI am so excited to represent SWEENEY at the CreateTech 2015 conference in New York City. Hosted by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the conference is a gathering of professionals from creative industries who work with, design or build digital tools. CreateTech was also named one of 10 Conferences Every Agency Pro Should Attend by HubSpot.com.

The theme at CreateTech 2015 is creativity and the adjacent possible. What does this mean exactly? Stuart Kaufman coined this term to define untapped potential of what could be. My goal with CreateTech is to explore this seriously curious concept by adhering to some advice from a colleague on attending conferences: be a sponge.

Here’s what I soaked up from Day 1 at CreateTech:

We’ve already heard that the attention span of our audience is shrinking. With mobile ads you have to make your brand impact in 10 seconds for best optimization. Yes, we have 10 seconds to grab our audience’s attention, or consider that ad ineffective.

Empower your employees to be entrepreneurs and innovators. Never stifle creativity – encourage, support and nurture every idea.

If we want to create the next generation of creative problem-solvers, start with teaching empathy first and the art of asking questions.

If it’s too comfortable, it’s probably not very innovative. Enough said.

As day 1 wraps up and the sun sets on the Big Apple, I can report that I have met many new faces in the industry, discovered many new tools and gained knowledge of new and unique case studies. And I fully plan to incorporate all this new “stuff” I’ve absorbed for the benefit of the agency, our clients and our clients’ customers.

I’m also excited to see what CreateTech has to offer on Day 2. Check out @4As on Twitter for more tidbits from CreateTech 2015.