Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Becky Wang is CEO and Founder of Crossbeat, a company she set up after running data and analytics at Saatchi & Saatchi New York then at Droga5. She's worked in Hollywood, she's published a book ("Creativity and Data Marketing: A Practical Guide to Data Innovation"), and she gets things done. We discuss: - What data and analytics people ask her about their careers - Robotic reporting and software j...

Shann Biglione recently moved to New York as the Head of Strategy at Zenith after five years in China, including a stint as CSO of Publicis Media. And he's French. With an Italian last name. So what are all these places like to work in? And what's happening with strategy in media agencies right now? We discuss: - How to deal with someone saying, "We don't need strategy" - What it's like to work in...

Ky Chow is a journalist. He's appeared on or in Sky News, The Financial Review, ABC, and SBS in Australia. But he didn't start his journalist career until his late 20s. He spent his early twenties in accounting and marketing at companies like KPMG, CommSec, and Macquarie Bank. I wanted to talk to Ky to explore the similarities between journalism and strategy, as well as to understand how he approa...

Natalie Tran has spent her entire adulthood on YouTube. Not literally. But she first published videos to YouTube in 2006 when she was 20 and she kept going.  Well, until recently. In public, Natalie appears confident and articulate, and as the owner of a savage wit and powerful brain.  She's at ease in her honesty and with what makes her feel vulnerable but she also deals with a noisy head and has...

Sam Hammington is an extreme freelancer. When he's working, he's really working. And when he's not, he's really not. That's because Sam is an actor. He's an Australian actor in Seoul, South Korea. If you turn on a television in South Korea and change the channel a few times, chances are you'll see Sam's face. He has starred in several massive TV shows (Gag Concert, Real Men, The Return Of Superman...

Seb Chan is Chief Experience Officer at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, a museum that over 1.5M people visit every year. Seb has also led digital efforts at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York and is one of the world's most renowned experts on getting museums to open up - to get their collections online, to get...

Fredrik Öst is Founder and Creative Director of Stockholm agency Snask. Snask makes bold, frank, outspoken work. This is why I've had a crush on them for two years, which was nine years into their existence. We discuss: - Fredrik's philosophy on what makes good work - The importance of extremes - How frankness doesn't work in all cultures - The importance of side projects - The beauty of making m...

Ryan Wallman is an Associate Creative Director at Wellmark in Melbourne, Australia. He's also a prolific Internet satirist. It's not that he satires the Internet but he does satire marketing and advertising on the Internet. Formerly a psychiatrist, and having experienced an assault while working with a patient, Ryan switched into a copywriting career later than many. We discuss: - What's distracti...

An update about all things Sweathead as well as the talk from Google Firestarters in London mid-November. It's not the actual talk. It's a reading of an 11-page script of the talk. If you like it, let me know. Otherwise, maybe I'll delete it in a few days. Instagram http://www.instagram.com/markpollard Strategy class http://www.skl.sh/markpollard Articles http://www.markpollard.net

Where are your morals? Do they exist on one side of a line and prevent you from working on projects and clients on the other side of the line? Where is the line? How did it get there? Has it ever moved? Jen Bonhomme is VP of Planning at Huge in Brooklyn. We chat about working on projects that others object because they are evil or taboo and we discuss how to enjoy the taboo on all projects. We dis...

LA's Jack Appleby is a Director of Creative Strategy. He has touched projects for Beats by Dre, Microsoft, Rockband, and more. Almost a decade into a career that has focused largely on whatever social is and with a title that now suggests a broader remit, we chat about the challenges facing social strategists at a time when few get training. We discuss: - Best Practice Machines - What's up with "e...

Camilla Grey Petty is an independent strategy director who's walked the halls of London's Wolff Olins, Brand Union, and Moving Brands, and is now three years into a freelance lifestyle. We discuss: - How people make the freelance decision - What people don't think about before going freelance - What's good and not so good about freelance - How to charge and get paid - Camilla's strategy email news...

Lani Wyche is a product strategist at Dame Products. She holds a BA from Stanford and she has spent some time in agencies, but now she spends her days trying to understand people's sex lives. We discuss: - Design thinking in agencies - The shift from agency to product - Researching what is intimate to people - Sex positivity, sexual wellness, and other important concepts You can find Lani at https...

CSO Justine Bloome runs strategy at Vayner in NYC and is about to run a planner into the world. Not a strategy planner - a book planner. A journal planner. It's called The Mindful Strategist. It's part of a series called The Mindful Series. We discuss: - The importance of unstructured time - How noticing and writing help your head - Strategy as a creative discipline - Why people don't value strate...

Germaine Fagan recently hosted an event to honor the life of a planner, Grace McDermott, in Dublin. Grace was a planner from New York who passed away in Ireland last year after what sounds like years of passion for planning and passionate teaching of planning. We discuss: - Grace McDermott's outlook on planning and her research - Griffin Farley's Beautiful Minds event (BBH) - How courageous acts m...

Dublin's Rachel O'Donovan and Thomas Geoghegan are strategists who want other strategists to talk about strategy. They recently set up a Dublin branch of London's Group Think, a community of hundreds of strategists that is trying to provide emotional and intellectual support that doesn't seem to be something agencies or industry organizations are interested in, capable at, or resourced to do. We d...

Neil Perkin is a digital consultant and author who helps businesses move faster. One could call him a jockey. Workshops are his gentle whip. Live from across the road of Web Summit which Neil was not in Lisbon to attend, we discuss Neil's consulting life, his writing, and his blog Only Dead Fish which has gathered a decade of the Internet's favorite strategy posts in one place. Only Dead Fish is a...

Fanny RK makes jokes. She also does stand-up comedy. That's not to say her strategy at companies like Shopify and Johns St has ever made anybody laugh. But what if it did? What if a strategist used techniques that make people laugh to make strategy? We discuss: - A need for attention and immediacy - Strategy as The Thing Before The Thing - The role of uncontrollable laughter in ideas - Writing and...

Edwin Rager is a Bolivian in Argentina who is about to move to Colombia. He's taught strategy at Brother and worked at Mother, Google, and MediaMonks having made Buenos Aires his strategy home for several years. We discuss: - How travel helps the strategist - Planning in Argentina - How teaching teaches a teacher - Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile You can find Edwin at http://www.twitter...

Alex Morris has just published a strategy scrapbook that will stir the soul of even the most rusted strategist. And it will set alight the rainbow of the strategist who's simply trying to get steady footing in his or her young career. The book spans 146 pages and includes quotes, techniques, philosophy, frameworks, and absurdist art. We discuss: - How and why Alex made the book - Some of our favor...

BBH LA Head of Strategy Agathe Guerrier has run a strategy department or two, and, right now, when it seems strategy doesn't always know where it's running, it also seems useful to speak with someone who's put a saddle on a strategy horse in her time. We discuss: - What Agathe did when she took over strategy at BBH London - The most important things new heads of strategy can do - The logistics of...

Rapper-turned-search specialist Michael King knows a thing or six about search - what the search engines pay attention to, missteps advertising agencies make when showing search data, and whether and how machine learning and blockchain will help marketing. We discuss: - The key concepts of search - What to look for when you think about buying a website - Rap - Rap - Rap - How strategists can use s...

Girl Geek Academy Co-Founder and CEO Sarah Moran is on a mission. With her team, she's aiming to teach technology to 1,000,000 women by 2025. The greater goal is to ensure that the Internet of the future reflects more of the people who use it, rather than it reflecting one gender based in Silicon Valley. We discuss: - The career choices of technical people - Starting something and founder fears -...

In 2010, I wrote an article about how to do account planning. For the 25th episode of Sweathead, I thought I'd read it to you and add a little extra context (but not too much). Over 90,000 people have read this article. The accompanying drawing has appeared in all sorts of places - CVs, presentations about strategy, business plans. And while I promise to re-write it and make it, you know, decent w...

Tony Clement has worked data in agencies in Sydney, London, and New York. We've worked together in two of these places - Leo Burnett in Sydney about a decade ago and then at Brooklyn's Big Spaceship. Tony has the rare background of having worked with a lot of different types of data - CRM and direct marketing, advertising effectiveness measurement, web analytics, and social, and, in his time in Ne...