Right, so this is it.

If put off posting about “the day” on purpose. Mainly so my enthusiasm would wear off and I wouldn’t sound like the Chris Crocker of W+K. Because really, W+K is an amazing place/company/bunch of people.
Really.
When it was all over I had a hard time resisting the urge to invite everyone to a karaoke bar and bring my teary-eyed version of Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’ “I had the time of my life”.
Really, I did.

So the day started of with everyone doing a short Pecha Kucha-style presentation of their work. Unsurprisingly they where all great. Some blew my mind. There where people from Awstraylia, Sweden, London, France, Malaysia, Japan, NY, LA, Portland, Brooklyn, Holland et tutti quanti. I don’t think I can get into detail about them, as I’m not sure how comfortable everyone is with their work or names being thrown on the interwebs. The variety of entries was amazing too, graphic designers that sent portfolios, writers who, well, wrote stuff, photographers… One page entries, entries with one idea done differently 20 times. It was mindboggling: great stuff presented by different people from different walks of life and from all over the world. To have all these people in the room at the same time was electric. I’ve never been to a Ted conference, but I think this came pretty close. In fact I would love to see some of the entries that didn’t make the “top 40″ as I’m sure there’s a lot more great stuff out there. And I would give my right arm to be able to see the presentations of next year’s bunch too.
When that was over we went to the W+K offices for lunch and to spend the rest of the day talking and hanging out.

After lunch we had a presentation by John Jay and one by Jelly.

John Jay is the global executive creative director. I had no idea what that meant, and I still kinda don’t, but I can tell you that he is a very intense and inspiring person. He showed some of their work from their various offices, mostly the long versions of TV commercials we’ve all seen. Then he gave some info on his job which pretty much consists of making sure W+K will remain the best advertising agency in the world. No mean feat. Some visions of the future, the rise of Asia, trends. He’s ahead of the curve on everything. When that was over I felt about this -> <- big. John Jay is an amazing person, after giving such an intense and inspiring presentation I would have to lie down for a few hours, he just went on with the next thing. Jelly, who is the Portland Creative Director, did a fun presentation, about how they worked, why the work comes first, WK12 which is an advertising school within WK, great stuff. After John Jay’s presentation it felt as he was reassuring us: Advertising super heroes are human too.

Then we all got to meet some of the people working there. Like a speed date type thing which was fun. I got to meet the interactive strategy guy, the most charming account supervisor, a wonderful planning lady and an art director. Yes I remember all their names. It was in these conversations that we were sometimes reminded the whole thing was a recruitment thing. “So you think you could come live here with your wife and kids?”. To most of us the fact that we got to go to Portland and meet the W+K people was it, that was the prize. I, and most of us I’m sure, already got everything out of if we ever dreamt of getting out of it. Another thing that hit me was the egos. The advertising world has a bad rep when it comes to that, and from the little I’ve seen it ain’t undeserved either. But I guess when you reach the level that W+K has reached, having an ego becomes pointless. Very comforting.
We hung out on the deck, they have Heineken on tap on every floor, the building is amazing, the offices have couches, they know their greatest assets are the people working there, there’s art everywhere, people are very nice. It’s hardly imaginable it’s a company, that it’s work, that people *get* payed to be there. I went by there on Saturday too, which should be a day off, instead of abandoned offices there where quite a few people there, some not even to work but to hang out it seemed. It didn’t surprise me, but it should sounds surprising.

Before that though there was a dinner party Friday night. I sat across Biz Stone who was one of the forty. From what I gather he participated in the Seeking thing for for a different reason: he is considering using the same recruitment method for Twitter and his other ventures. Next to me was the creative director of Starbucks, who’s some English git with whom I went cycling the next day.

We ate and drank and there was much rejoicing.

And that was it! It was a get-together, it was hanging out, it was meeting people, it wasn’t a competition or a job interview, it was the time of my life. No I never felt like this before. Yes I swear it’s the truth and I owe it all to you Oops, sorry, stronger than me.

I hung around Portland for 2 more days, On which I’ll write an entry soon.
Then I went to LA, on which I’ll write another entry.
And then I’ll write an entry with a few tips for people considering participating next year.

Here’s Nelson’s report on the event, which is better written and has better pictures and his better is better than my better.

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