Hally Lara’s Spikes Asia Diary: Day 2
Hally Lara, general manager, WiTH Collective shares the highlights from Day 2 of Spikes
By day two I had my bearings and another full day of ‘starred’ speakers on my Spikes app.
1. Patrick Rona, chief digital officer McCann Singapore – the form and function of beautiful digital experiences.
In this talk, Patrick defined digital beauty as the quality in an experience that gives pleasure, satisfaction or a rich exchange of value. The focus in the first half was on crafting digital experiences through customer obsession and overlaying mindsets and datasets to map a customer’s journey. While it started strong with some interesting theory, it then became a showreel for McCann’s recent work, which didn’t necessarily live up to the definition of digital beauty set out at the beginning. Instead, I would have looked at a few of the customer experience lead businesses that have completely transformed the industries they entered (eg. Uber, Airbnb, Alibaba and even Facebook).
2. Andrew Benett, global CEO Havas Creative Group & Havas Worldwide – the role of agencies in a post-digital world.
As digital is no longer a channel that stands alone, rather a thread that runs through every form of communication, Andrew focused on the need to collaborate across disciplines to solve clients’ business problems. He spoke about the re-convergence of media, creative and tech and the 
importance of the integrated team. His advice is to make people your absolute obsession and hire thinkers because skills can be taught.
3. Gordon Bowen, founder, global chairman and chief creative officer of mcgarrybowen – icons in action: intimate conversations with creative innovators, an interview with Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway on Mad Men).
While there wasn’t a great deal to take away from this interview as it focused on Christina talking about her experience and what she learned by acting in a series about advertising, seeing her in person was certainly a highlight. And there were a few stories and lessons that did stand out. These include: trust your gut; always be 100 per cent prepared, as discipline brings freedom; and what sets an icon apart (whether people or brands) is they make you feel something.
4. Senta Slingerland, director of brand strategy, Lions Festivals – data x tech x ideas – innovation matter:
This talk used a variety of case studies (eg. what3words, the Lifesaving dot and Run that Town) from across the world to demonstrate that data and technology have become a catalyst for creativity. While data and creativity used to be treated like polar opposites, they are now seen to complement 
each other. In fact, data is the biggest enabler of creativity. This talk was music to my ears, and I connected with the idea of data fuelling creativity.
5. Abraham Abbi Asefaw, founder of The Pop Up Agency – you only need 48 hours to solve a brief – a working session:
On day one I wrote about The Pop up Agency’s process, from research through to an idea in 48 hours. Today, I joined Abraham’s workshop to get hands-on with exactly how this works. It was nice to ideate with a group of strangers in what appeared to be the only interactive session over the two days. The process itself is relatively straightforward and seemed easily adaptable to the client brief. It includes:
1. Empty your brain 
for three minutes – everyone individually writes all their thoughts on post-it notes.
2. Speed dating – on reams of butchers’ paper each person draws an idea then moves to their left to build and improve on the person’s idea next to them.
3. Decision-making matrix – working in groups, plot the ideas on a two-by-two matrix based on their impact (from low to high) and their implementation (from hard to easy).
4. Concept in a Tweet – write down the best three ideas in 140 characters (four emojis allowed). Present this back to the group.
5. Reflection – turn to the person next to you and reflect on the experience. Discuss what worked well and what could have been improved.