Tuesdays with Toni

Tuesdays with Toni is a little project we’ve been working on at MRY strategy, lead by Toni and inspired by Portia. The idea of thought leadership at consulting entities tend to be relatively one dimensional focused on the quantitative seismic shifts happening in an industry. As an example; the impact of mobile adoption on app usage, the rise of social media.

We decided to look at the task of thought leadership a little differently. Instead of being focused on the quantitative trend, lets focus on the impact this trend has on behavior and attitudes. What new ways can we explore information and ideas and how is culture reacting to all of this.

We were lucky enough to have Rishad (@Rishad, https://rishadt.wordpress.com/), Chief Strategist of Publicis join us for the discussion.

Have a listen:

 

Momentum

There are a lot of things that motivate us in work. Some people are motivated by power, some by money, some by pride. One of the things that makes me happiest of all is making things that make a difference, that actually add value in peoples lives and gets our clients and teams noticed for their hard work. It’s fulfilling to make things I can show my friends, my family, that make them laugh, think or that they find useful. That motivates me. Within 3.5 hours this evening a few of the things that me and my team have been working on for the past few months all of a sudden got noticed, and it felt nice. But it was nicer the fact that it all happened within a few hours of one another.

5:50 PM – My sister texts me this image – a project we did for Pizza Hut made the “Love It” list for the Time magazine print edition. Even in a world of pixels, for some reason when they print it on paper it feels a bit more substantive.

At 6:30 PM a creative director I worked with and respect, posted on Facebook about a financial product that MRY recently helped incubate in house. He offered his critique. Then I noticed that it hit the top of product list. Here is a snap shot of the product ranking on producthunt.com where it reached top ranking yesterday.

At around 9:00 PM after a few drinks with my friend Tal, I noticed a NY times article on FB from a friend who works there talking about a session and a brand idea that MRY Health had come up with and a strategy the team created.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/technology/how-facebook-sold-you-krill-oil.html

In a creative world, it’s nice that the work is gaining momentum. Onward and upward.

Positive Reviews

I’ve hit somewhat of a small milestone. Writing and publishing online though a paradigm that I understand professionally is not a dynamic I pursue personally. Since starting on this journey, I have not promoted this blog and have made this more of a personal and counterintuitively subtle experiment in online publishing.

Today I got a nice surprise. I just got my first positive review for the writing on ClickZ.com as well as hitting the top of the list for most read. It’s a small milestone but motivates me to continue on this journey. To the 3 people who read this blog who probably include my wife and sister. Thanks.

 

Thanks for Humoring Me

I know one thing: the web doesn’t need another blog. But I’ve recently been doing a lot of writing and decided I needed a place to house all of this work. I will aim to not add to the clutter and deliver a new perspective built on the unique convergence of ideas.

Personally, I have often found myself at the intersection of unique vantage points; always having one foot in the door of two or more point of views. It all started with where I was born, in Hong Kong, a cross between Chinese history and British opportunity while attending an International school that taught me American creativity (whilst for some odd reason holding a Belgian passport). My parents were one of the few Asian parents who actually encouraged their young son to pursue the arts. I spent a summer at R.I.S.D. oil painting, but then decided that was too impractical and leaped to the counter-point, a Columbia education where I, at first, aimed to major in economics, but landed instead with a major in Philosophy.

My career has spanned cities from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, to New York. I was first taught branding and story telling first hand by some of the masters of the craft. Always looking to mix it up, a little less than a decade ago I made a conscious decision to see its application not in 30 second video or print but through the lens of technology. I’m really lucky because my day job as the Chief Strategy Officer at MRY and previous jobs at AKQA, McCann, allows me to take all of these disparate points and connect them in new ways.

My simple hope is to share this perspective, not to develop more clutter but a unique vantage point on the intersection of humanity x creativity x technology.

Thanks for reading, I hope I can in some small way help.