We have arrived

Half the class traveled on Saturday to Sunday from California to London. The other half traveled from Sunday to Monday. Shuttles were taken, sleep was deprived, long lines were endured. The students have settled into their rooms. The neighborhood has been shown to the students so they have their beginning bearings. The tube has been ridden. London summer rain has been experienced. Shayne has tried chutney. Fish and Chips has been consumed. Tuesday the creative process begins anew with in preparation for Thursday's progress meeting in front of the client.

Friday - present

At 9 AM sharp our presentation began. Karissa was the MC, Gillian presented the updated Campfire idea, followed by Claire presented the updated Show & Tell idea, then Shayne presented the update Moon Rocks, and then Karissa returned to wrap things up and take questions/comments from our clients.
David Iron, John McGuire, and Andrew Comer were very pleased again. The comments included:
Congratulations Again!
Any of these could work!
I find it very difficult to choose...

So difficult did they find choosing between the 3 big ideas and 9 executions that the client is looking for us to choose or to cherry pick the best and use them all. They promise to get a bit more specific feedback back to us by Monday, so that when we get back to work in London, we have a bit clearer idea where we go next.

The weekend is set aside for traveling. The blog will resume early next week.

Thursday - polish

Today was full of practicing and polishing. The student teams work together to create and polish their portion of the presentation deck. The speakers work on word smithing. The deck designers work on creativity and consistency. The others work on sourcing images, helping with words, and 3 students dedicate themselves to illustrating the big idea/concepts. By the end of day the sum was greater than it's parts.

Happy Babies

Today was a good day. The babies were happy in their creators care. New water was prepared for the ideas. The presentation decks MC, and individual group speakers were queued up and work commenced on all aspects of what we have to prepare for Friday. The day ended with the first run through for Friday. Things are looking good. Next week we work from London.

Babies and Bathwater

Today was a day of taking two steps forward and then two steps back. The students had solid big ideas (babies) on Friday. They liked them. The client liked them. On Monday a strategy was formed based on the feedback to guide us this week. Work began in earnest on making changes to tactics, visuals, headlines (bathwater). Somehow things got muddled, the more the professors pushed to change the water, the more the students tried to replace the baby. In the afternoon all the students worked to visualize multiple solutions for all the big ideas. The day closed with all parties frustrated...

Working on the Holiday

Today - July 4 - the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we went back to work at 9am. It was time to integrate client feedback with our ideas and make them better, bringing the concepts to the next level. To celebrate working we had donuts, cookies, sweet rolls, red-white-blue berry French Toast, and little cup cakes. Big concepts were honed and headlines crafted. The class broke at 3:30.

"Brillant"

On Friday we presented to our UK client for the first time. All three teams pitched their big ideas and then took constructive feedback in preparation for what we need to do next week as the project moves forward. The clients were very pleased with the progress so far, one of them telling us that the ideas were "brilliant." The class then left for a field trip to an amazing state-of-the-art printing and manufacturing facility.