I'm joining Porter Novelli as Dir. Integrated Planning

I'm happy to write that 2009 has been a really wonderful year, even amidst the chaos of the recession. I've been blessed! I got engaged, watched my family grow, and now, making an important career move to join PRweek's 2009 agency to watch, Porter Novelli, as SVP Director of Integrated Planning. In my new role I will be acting as a digital evangelist--articulating the digital value proposition of the agency, collaborating with the CMO and Account Leads to grow business, and making digital customer engagement part of the planning process.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Sapient Nitro--there are some very bright stars there that I hope will continue to shine--including Laura McFarlane, Jane Barrat, Freddie Laker, David Richeson, Gregor Barry and Mark Emerson. The folks at Nitro (Steve Zaroff, Kathy Delaney, Lance Porigow) were very welcoming too when Sapient acquired them this past summer and I moved over to Nitro to kick-start the integration. I wish all those folks well.

I had a number of colleagues and longtime planner recruiters ask me why PR? Interesting question--lots of responses. PR is fascinating because its really on the bleeding-edge of Social Media, which means its on the bleeding edge of digital. For all the size and strength of the top digital agencies--they are fundamentally web design shops and less concerned with the art of persuasion than traditional agencies and PR shops. I'm also just a bit tired of production being the endgame (whether its a :30 spot or a microsite). I'm more interested in producing influence--most of my choice in agencies has been focused on influence, either in youth and urban marketing or some other form. I've even been teaching Advertising Campaigns at NYU as a way to stay connected to the most influential generation in a longtime. Also, its not so much PR, as it is Porter Novelli--their roots in cause marketing and their continued committment to working with important causes of our time--speaks volumes about the culture and vision of this company (something missing in my previous role). Porter Novelli recently partnered with the COP 15 Copehagen Climate Council Summit to promote COP 15 with the ispeakearth campaign, for example. The agency is also doing a campaign for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in DC. Meaningful stuff.

Porter Novelli is on fire, they brought in Stephanie Agresta and John Havens in the last year to evolve a already very strong Social Media offering--the agency recently won business from Monster and Yahoo--and they've committed to digital through real investment thanks to new CFO Anthony Viceroy. Finally, and most importantly, Michael Ramah, Partner, Strategy and his team have really put in the work year after year to make strategic planning an indispensable discipline. I'm excited to be a part of this team and to have the challenge of integrating digital strategy into the overall planning approach.

African American Account Planners 1st Meetup

On Wed, a small group of African American Account Planners (AAAP) gathered together at the Soho Grand Hotel bar to celebrate the holidays and get to know each other. We've been gathering virtually at our LinkedIn Group, started by planner Joyce Forbes Simmons (Berlin Cameron United) more than a year ago. Djuana Stoakely and I are managers of the group. We had a good turn-out of members and even some guests--representing planners from Shelter Brand Consulting, GlobalHue, BridgeSpan, and PHD Media among others.

We discussed the role of user experience on planning thanks to our guest Nadia El-Imam (Syrup)--while most agreed UE is a growing discipline planners need to have in their toolkit--UE would not be the future of planning just yet. We also discussed the idea of pulling together a one-day AAAP conference in 2010 to enable members to present and share their work, and get some additional time together to debate and network.

Oddly, we really didn't need to go into our mission--the need for an AAAP group in the first place--most of us realized that our group is quite small--that we represent a very very small % of planners in an already small group of advertising professionals. A few of us noted we followed very similar paths in to the profession. Interestingly--we did realize that the veterans (those with about 8 or more years of experience) had come through a small group of agencies that had large planning depts in the late 90s, like DDB, JWT, etc.

Its hard to know how far the AAAP group could go--but the LinkedIn group now has more than 45 members from around the world (mostly US but members in the Europe, S. America and even continental Africa). I think one thing we all walked away with as a strong feeling of communion and momentum and everyone stating they were looking forward to connecting with each other again soon.

If you know an African American Planner you think would benefit from joining our group--send them here.