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Think Different – but work toward the same goal

Posted by Max Tatton-Brown on 1st June 2012

Last night, I saw Ken Segall, the chief creative who helped Apple introduce its Think Different campaign, introduce his new book and talk about his experiences working with brands like Apple, Dell and IBM. The message was (perhaps appropriately) clear: Keep it simple.

With that in mind, here’s a Storify made up of tweets from the evening, followed by a few further thoughts about how some of this fits into technology and PR.

[View the story “Notes from @KSegall at #CEOtales” on Storify]

One really interesting aspect of the talk was hearing how Steve Jobs embraced the agency relationship. He brought them into meetings no other client in Ken’s experience normally would and it sounds like this affinity made all the difference.

However, the reason they were able to do such great work together stems from another point emphasised during the talk – the need to stay true to your vision and beliefs when giving your advice. If you do that and then find others where there’s chemistry and compatibility, you’re onto something – both when it comes to employees and contracted partners. Jobs seemed to understand that the distinction between these appointments was smaller than most think.

if you want to do work you can be proud of, that really sets the world on fire, you have to get the right people on board and give them the scope and responsibility to make things happen. Simple words but an area where people all too often compromise, as much with appointing their agency as any other decision…

Max Tatton-Brown