Mythopoeia proponent Jonah Sachs argues that “inadequacy marketing” is just not gonna cut it in our post-broadcast era. He uses archetypal narratives such as The Hero’s Journey to showcase how, from Nike to Apple, the very best marketers are modern-day myth-makers.
Visualization expert Julie Steele takes us on a compelling jaunt across space and time as she connects stories, storytellers, and data in all its guises to show how important narratives are. Just for fun, she includes a little perspective on the history of the earth and our interpretations of time. It should make 2014 fly by rather quickly.
Steadfast Googler Steve Yegge looks cat pictures dead in the eye then takes himself, and all of us, to task to tackle title-case Important Problems like capital-C Cancer. This call to Big Data arms was infamously billed as him quitting Google onstage, but apparently that was all in our heads. See also Yegge’s masterclass on delivering your presentation despite your slides disappearing down the rabbit hole of technical problems.
Journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon speaks passionately about how supporting female entrepreneurship around the world will unlock a better economic future for all of us. Her overview of the resilience of women starting and running businesses in developing, war-torn and post-conflict areas will inspire you, regardless of which chromosomes you’re packing. It’s humbling to remember that getting your Silicon Valley startup off the ground may be hard, but it’s probably not as hard as launching in Genocide-era Rwanda or post-Communist Russia.
So what awesome talks are you revisiting as you gear up for 2014? Here’s to a brilliant year for marketers and marketing!