I wrote this blog post seven years ago, and it felt like the right time to revisit it. While it references programmatic media buying, it still applies to all of us working in various areas of digital, data strategy, advertising and MarTech.
In the mid-1800s, the Semmering Railway experiment asked engineers to submit plans to lay tracks across the Austrian Alps for a train that did not yet exist, a train that hadn't been designed yet to allow it to transverse such a difficult terrain. But still the experiment proceeded, and they built the tracks anyway, knowing that one day, the train would come. And this thinking forced a creative process that did eventually design a train that could make the trip.
What I called "Anticipation-Driven Creativity" was, in fact, an incubation mentality. This mentality allows us degree of freedom to experiment, to fail, and to ultimately learn. DCOEs and #innovation Hubs within brands are evidence that this incubation mentality has taken a stronghold within the industry. And they are indeed doing some of the most exciting work out there. They force us to stretch, to see the previously unseen, to work toward building what has never been built before.
What tracks will you lay down, even though there isn't a train yet that can travel on them?
#innovationhub #firstpartydata #digital #martech