The next Google Firestarters is upon us and is happening at Google London, next Monday 2nd September, at 6pm (I'm announcing this slightly later than usual due to holiday). We run two strands of Firestarters events – one for the planning and strategy community and one for performance marketers – and over the past couple of years we've brought these together twice to tackle subjects that are sufficiently broad to span right across the industry. For this next one we're bringing both communities together to focus on an area of increasingly critical debate – the optimal combination of human and machine capability. With so much focus on the potential of machine learning and automation the industry is facing some big questions about how to make smart decisions about the balance between empathy and data, creativity and automation. Questions around what these technologies will really mean not only for targeting and creative optimisation but for idea generation, workflow, marketing innovation.
To help us unpick these complex questions we are coming at the theme with a variety of perspectives, and have four short provocations from four execeptional speakers:
Dr Tom Chatfield (above) is a British author, TED speaker, broadcaster and technology philosopher. The author of six books exploring digital culture, he specialises in critical thinking around our experiences of technology.
Ann Wixley is Executive Creative Director at Wavemaker UK, and a pioneer of the role of Creative Director in media
Roberto Estreitinho is Senior Strategist at VCCP Partnership, partner at Group Think, a community for the next generation of strategists, and publishes the excellent weekly philosophy newsletter Salmon Theory
Jon Fisher is Paid Search Associate Director at iProspect, specialising in helping clients capitalise on the opportunity that new technologies can bring to optimise business and marketing performance.
It's one of most critical dynamics facing the industry right now so this should be an excellent debate. As usual I have a few guest passes to giveaway to ODF readers so if you're agency side and would like one just leave a comment below or contact me direct (first come, first served).
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