Engage!

Hi there!

It's not a line from Star Trek (although, i must admit I was a Trekkie in my youth). I think it's the most important step a young and/ or aspiring planner can make towards joining the industry by researching and gathering knowledge from the planning community.

This is how I see things.

You are a brand. You've got it all: core values, history, visual identity, a communication strategy, communication channels and targets you want to reach. Planning is the completely new consumer target you want to reach and, pardon my expression, sell yourself to. You start researching the market, its history, context, insights and values and come to the conclusion that indeed this is your target and the next step in your development. But which strategy will you use to convince an agency that you are the best choice / investment in your over-crowded cathegory?

Start simple.

Engage the online planning community, become a part of it, find out how it feels and how it thinks, learn from it (be it case studies or just opinionated rants), bring all your experimental thinking to it and... don't be afraid to join in the conversation because, as Richard Huntington puts it, "blogging isn’t killing planning it’s the best thing that has happened since the death of the overhead projector"

Thanks!

See you soon.
~ def