PSFK Conference San Francisco Speaker Frank Striefler

Frank Striefler, Director of Media Art Planning at TBWA\Chiat Day, will be joining our “Making Inspiration Matter” panel at the PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008. Along with Eric Corey Freed of organicARCHITECT, Josh Morenstein of fuseproject and moderator Gareth Kay (Modernista), the panel will discuss how inspiration can be used to create change.

First, who are you and what do you do?

I am Director of Media Art Planning at TBWA\Chiat Day. In my network role, I help TBWA to evolve Account Planning to help crack the code on how to build brands in the 21st century. At TBWA\Chiat, I help in orchestrating Total Brand Behavior for the clients in the LA office.

With Media Arts being best described as ‘Art of Brand Behavior’, my role is to inform & inspire the strategic & creative development to move the agency from creating messages –> content & brand behavior. Identifying how the brand should behave in culture and treating ‘media’ as “any space between an idea and an audience”.

You’ll be speaking on our “Making Inspiration Matter” panel. Can you sum up how you’ve taken inspiration and made change within your industry and on a larger scale as well?

I believe a curious mind is like a sponge that can take inspiration from anywhere: from learning from success stories & pioneering brands to actually stepping away from anything work related. This said, I think it’s a common misconception when people think that inspiration arrives as a sort of thunderbolt moment of creativity. The truth is, almost nothing is created out of thin air. If you start with nothing, you have to invent everything from scratch.

Since we’re in the creative business, inspiration is not an occasional luxury – it’s a job skill we need to apply daily. And I see knowledge as key in making connections nobody has made before. And the biggest change and contribution is the move from understanding all the things a brand could do in this ever-changing media arts landscape – to what brands actually should do.

Five sites that provide you with inspiration:

Contagious Magazine
IF! (seriously – not just since you guys put on the conference)
Influx Insights
Trend Watching
plus 129 more links from my bookmarks on del.icio.us

Thanks, Frank!

TBWA\Chiat Day

Want to hear more from Frank? Hurry up and get your tickets to PSFK Conference San Francisco 2008!