PSFK: Skills of the Rockstar Planner: Intuitive Problem Solving

Back in June 2010, PSFK posted a video series entitled Skills of the Rockstar Planner. The video came at a perfect time while I was just finishing up my Miami Ad School Account Planning Boot Camp application. It was exciting to learn that all their commentary about planning matched my responses. I find this series especially interesting after having completed the boot camp. There are so many skills and components to planning that it's exciting having this series available as a mini review. Even within each video, you can see how each planner thinks and approaches situations differently. Some core ideas from the Intuitive Problem Solving that I picked up are:- Creativity is at the core of planning.

- Planners need intuitive problem solving skills and emotional intelligence.

- The ability to put disparate information together and connect the dots.

- Innate ability to imagine things that other people couldn't do; i.e. imagination and creativity. I find this particularly interesting because it really touches on how many planning departments look for planners from all different types of backgrounds. Writers, journalists, actors, singers, editors, photographers - all people you wouldn't imagine in advertising but they all have jobs that put them in other people's shoes.

- Take thinking from one discipline to another. There are human truths and patterns that can be applied from one area to another.

- Break logic and find a new space. This goes along the lines of influencing and changing human behavior.

- And one of my favorite lines of thought - it's okay to evolve thinking constantly. The journey of learning is messy but as Domenico Vitale implies, it's exciting and an evolution.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75NepafwxD8&w=640&h=390]