Strategists, what are your “must-read” books, articles, or sites? Things that blew your mind and change how you do the job

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Don't do it. Don't become an expert in strategy. Or worse, ads. The best strategists aren't. Read about the place you visited last weekend. Talk to your mom. Look at porn trends and wonder why people like it. You'll be a better planner.

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Read weird shit. Watch weird shit. Talk to normal people. (Americans who aren't as coastal, educated or liberal as you are)

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@wk1 is very on point but there’s some literature that will help you understand business and build mental models for the information you have. Really you need to understand how this world works. I read 36 books last year and was Pockets top 1% of readers. I recommend you pay for Stratechery (so worth it) Ben Thompson is brilliant at explaining things. To start read: The hard thing about hard things, Creativity Inc., High Output Management, Zero to One, Shoe Dog.

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Everything and anything that has nothing to do with advertising.

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Thinking Fast and Slow

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Read aldaily.com regularly, and follow where it leads you. Use Nuzzel. Strike up conversations everywhere, and go beyond the superficial. Go to concerts and movies and shopping malls that are outside your wheelhouse; afterwards, write a simple topline of what you saw and what you think it means. Watch TV you would never watch, from time to time. Take public transit, even if you don’t have to. Keep your head phones off. Anytime you’re near a college campus, go there and hang out at the happening coffee shop. Ask baristas and retail salespeople and realtors and cops what’s new.

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Read the trending topics on twitter that’s where your brand wants to be anyway

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On Jonah Lehrer I bought both his books right before he was proved a fraud. Kinda bummed as they seem great. And have some actually good info but I don’t know what’s real or not.

When the info came out I wrote a contact that worked at his publishing house asking if I could throw him $200 to underline all the false crap in the books so I can read it. I thought it was generous since he was out of work. She just laughed and told me I owe her a beer

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Claude Levi Strauss and This is Service Design Thinking

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Oh! And read Originals!

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You can read a follow up to his story CD1 in actually a fucking great book to read - So you’ve been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson. I can’t recommend it enough to everyone regardless of familiarity with Lehrer story. Which is still pretty crazy. He stole so much!

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I’m also geeking out on really old planning craft books / articles. I totally agree you need to be interesting and understand “the world” but for me it was really helpful to dig into the basics of planning (business & psychology of how advertising works - Stephen king, etc) to understand the big picture of what we actually do. I think you can be inspiring, insightful and interesting but if you don’t understand the business basics you won’t get beyond a senior role

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I use the Pocket app to save articles and it offers up a lot of recommendations to read on other cool articles. Just checking up on what other people are reading is just cool in general

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Ugh. Why does any discussion have to turn into a fight. I actually have a business degree. It’s easier to get one than to understand life or help simplify things. A strategist who has zero exposure to life but a degree and a long list of the books they’ve read is somewhat useless. But that’s just my personal opinion.

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Just a heads up, Jonah Lehrer is a fraud. Just google the story of his demise :)

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Thinking fast & slow completely changed the way I view human behavior & our “job”. I really think it’s a must-read for anyone in advertising

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I try to alternate between fiction and non. Biz books have their place, but if that’s all you read, you’re limiting your growth.

All that said, I think every planner should read Truth, Lies, and Advertising, Thinking Fast and Slow, A Technique for Producing Ideas, and On Writing (by the fun Stephen King) when they’re starting out.

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Amen 🙏🏻 @WK1

Creative confidence is another good one to add to SS3 s suggestions

+1000 to W+K. Out job is to understand people and their actions, which is far more complex and somewhat intuitive; business is the easy part

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