Shannaine Franklin
Professor Trofimova
Topics in Graphic Design
April 7, 2018
Assignment V: Networking Event
I attended the Creative Boot Camp for Inclusion and Diversity, hosted by The One Club at R/GA. The One Club for Creativity is about showing current and graduate college students, who have never been exposed to the business. That advertising can be viable career path for anyone with creativity and passion. They gather a group of local and talent mentors who will give us advice and support us throughout the week. In hopes of igniting creativity and inspiration in each participant. The Boot Camp was also supported by R/GA as our host site and Verizon as our group client.
The first day is the most important, because the other days are filled with work and speaking with mentors about the teamwork going on. Day one, We had an introduction to what One Club, some mentors presented and we got broken up into teams. The introduction to One Club was giving as a presentation of the award they recently handed out at their award show and The ADC Annual Awards, “the oldest continuously running industry award show in the world. Now in its 97th year, these Awards celebrate the very best in advertising, design, illustration, photography, packaging, motion and digital media, all with a focus on craftsmanship and innovation.” The advertisement that stood out to me the most, was the “Care Counts by Whirlpool” case study ad. It won gold in “Community Building” , silver in “Events and Experiential” , and merit in online/short form and Integrated Digital & Physical Product.
The advertisement shows a case study about asking teachers and students, why don’t kids come to school more and what is the most prominent obstacle stopping them. With the information from the survey and the interviews, they found a connection between children’s attendance at school and how clean their clothes were. Children with clean clothes felt confident to leave their houses and interact with others, while children with dirty clothes had low self-esteem and were uncomfortable letting people at school from their friends to the teachers seem them in ragged clothes. Once they found that connection, Whirlpool installed washers and dryers with a touchpad able to put student identification numbers in, to be able to use them. After a while of the applicances being installed, school attendance went up in to 95 percentile everyday.
I think this advertisement was important because, I felt a emotional sadness and pain watching it. You don’t have to a parent to care about a child, education or a child’s education. The video was also about giving back. And I think giving back was the most important aspect, because companies that give back. Reach more people and get more attention, than does who advertise whatever the latest fad or trend is going on. Reach is forever, trends don’t last.  Â
Our first formal mentor lecture was by Marysharon E. Owen, Business Transformation Consulting at R/GA. To sum up the lecture here are a few points. She said when your on a team. Make sure that team is passionate and obsessed with meeting the end goal. You need to find the real value in what your doing and deliver that in any and all assignments. Consider thinking about who the work will impact, what the impact will be, how does that affect others. Not to worry about tools and skills because, those can always be developed. Make a goal in life to take a breath of experience anywhere you go and don’t worry about finding a focus early in life. Make sure your goals harmonize with yourself versus trying to sell yourself to everyone. When people are talking, listen first, acknowledge them, build their trust and intimacy, build toward a mutually beneficial goals and network. When neworking ask for their LinkedIn, a fifteen minute meeting, extend a hand of appreciation for their work and ask for guidance. Take opportunities and keep track of your progress. And she end it with four words to always think about. Impact, Impression, Reach and Speak.
We had lunch and came back to have brief with Verizon, that I can’t talk into details about because I signed a non-disclosure agreement. The rest of the three days where about working in a team. Working in a team, in such a high pressure environment made me realize a few things. People are always going to teach their ideas are right and are the best. People who have more education than you, are prone to think they know more than you. But if their not trained in that particular field, you shouldn’t take it to heart. You should not get attached to any ideas or executions because there is always a better way to express it, than what your original thought was. And be very, very careful about staying on-brief. Any change can lead you right where the client doesn’t want you. The best part of these days, were the mentors coming around and listening to us, giving us feedback and swapping emails and linkedin’s.
The final day was about presentations. Presentations always make me nervous. Our presentation was okay in my eyes, I saw other presentations that I could learn from. When making a presentation to a client it’s good to let them know your target, insights, research, concept, phases of executions and make sure all those pieces link back to your insight or concept in very, very compact ways. I thought my team was off-target and off-goal. I said that multiple times, but the butting heads was drastic. This experience helped me understand, that I need to be better at explaining to others, why this one idea, concept or execution is not working. Â
All in all, it was a great experience. I meet new people that are in college or fresh-out of college trying to figure out their way like me. I meet industry professionals that are more than willing to talk and give me advice. It was the most time I spent outside the house, that wasn’t work or school related. And it was a learning experience to get myself out and become uncomfortable in the name of personal and professional growth. Â
