Just a few bits and pieces to spice up your life.

Sharpening the Skills.

Sharpening the Skills

The Planning Dirty Academy (run by Julian Cole) is an online platform with over 500+ members from leading brands and agencies including Google, Netflix, New York Times, Facebook, DDB, Droga5, and W+K.

It is designed for people who have never been formally taught strategy but find themselves in a role where strategy is in their title.

With over 50+ lessons that are updated weekly and a thriving online community the Academy is perfect for strategist who are looking to fast track their career.

Stephen Brooks

Stephen Brooks, a Senior Strategist at Wunderman Thompson Health in New York City watched as many friends and peers lost their jobs during Covid-19. So he created a resource for Strategist that could help them upskill and potentially get another job. The document contains over 50 different courses, including both free and paid options.

Sweathead

A monthly membership created by Mark Pollard that focuses on critical thinking and creativity. Featuring 100 classes on strategy that will help you understand critical concepts, practical techniques, and will help you improve how you work with other people.

It's not for people hungry for shortcuts and who struggle with introspection. It's also not a conventional learning experience and the material doesn't resemble a business or marketing degree.

Shelf

Copywrong to Copywriter

By Tait Ischia

“Copywrong to copywriter is a handbook for anyone who feels like they can’t write to save themselves.

If you think you’ve got the wrong tone of voice, don’t understand the ins-and-outs of grammar or just don’t feel confident writing about yourself without sounding like an idiot, read this book.”

Ogilvy on Advertising

By David Ogilvy

“David Ogilvy is well known and respected as the most successful adman of all time. His bestselling book, Ogilvy on Advertising gives valuable advice to young hopefuls and veterans of the industry wanting to improve their success rate. A candid and indispensable primer on all aspects of advertising from the man Time has called "the most sought after wizard in the business”.”

How Brands Grow

By Byron Sharp

“Voted AdAge's Most-Recommended Marketing Book of the Summer 2013.This book provides evidence-based answers to the key questions asked by marketers every day. Tackling issues such as how brands grow, how advertising really works, what price promotions really do and how loyalty programs really affect loyalty How Brands Grow presents decades of research in a style that is written for marketing professionals to grow their brands. It is the first book to present these laws in context and to explore their meaning and application. The most distinctive element to this book is that the laws presented are tried and tested; they have been found to hold over varied conditions, time and countries. This is contra to most marketing texts and indeed, much information provides evidence that much modern marketing theory is far from soundly based.”

Truth, Lies & Advertising: The Art of Account Planning

By Jon Steel

“Account planning exists for the sole purpose of creating advertising that truly connects with consumers. While many in the industry are still dissecting consumer behavior, extrapolating demographic trends, developing complex behavioral models, and measuring Pavlovian salivary responses, Steel advocates an approach to consumer research that is based on simplicity, common sense, and creativity--an approach that gains access to consumers' hearts and minds, develops ongoing relationships with them, and, most important, embraces them as partners in the process of developing and advertising.”

In the Ears.

Ears

Yeah, That's Probably an Ad

The scrappy, skeptical Adweek news team as we debate the highs and lows of creativity, advertising, marketing, media and technology.

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.

Son of a Pitch Podcast

Three young strategists and a creative unpack the world of advertising alongside the industries best. Expect interesting problems, lots of advice, and a whole lotta fun.

Personal Note: As an aspiring strategist in Melbourne this has to be one of my favourite podcasts due to the wide variety of Australian Strategist interviewed.

Feel Good’s.

Feel Goods

Republic of Everyone

Hot Stuff is Republic of Everyone good news feed of smart, world-changing ideas. Uplifting, thought-provoking five minute read of your week. Coving all things health, wellbeing, sustainability, environment and community.

Arrives in your inbox every second Friday morning to give you conversation starters to last the whole weekend.

Tools

Slack

Slack is a channel-based messaging platform. With Slack, people can work together more effectively, connect all their software tools and services and find the information that they need to do their best work – all within a secure, enterprise-grade environment.

Trello

Trello is a visual project management and collaboration tool that allows individuals and groups to work with any team. They are able to organize work through a system of boards, lists, and cards, and use the platform for work, a side project, or the family's vacation

Asana

Asana is a project and work management platform for teams. Project teams are able to manage tasks and hit deadlines using a single platform that promotes visibility. It is a flexible platform that can manage a variety of workflows with innovative features to increase efficiency and productivity.

Canva

Canva is a graphic design platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. The app already includes templates for users to use. The platform is free to use but offers paid subscriptions like Canva Pro and Canva for Enterprise for additional functionality.

Magisto

Magisto is a video editing platform that aims to make it simple and easy to transform your videos.

Sprout Social

Understand and reach your audience, engage your community and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection.

Whatagraph

Whatagraph is a marketing performance reporting solution that can help simplify your analytics and reporting tasks using an automatic data visualisation functionality. It automatically generates the reports and then sends them to your recipients (partners, clients, stakeholders, etc.)

Mixpannel

Mixpanel gives you detailed, real-time insight into how people interact with products. With data at your fingertips, you can iterate continuously, focus on the most impactful features, and innovate faster.

Facebook Pixel

The Facebook pixel is code that you place on your website. It collects data that helps you track conversions from Facebook ads, optimise ads, build targeted audiences for future ads, and remarket to people who have already taken some kind of action on your website.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tracking and statistics software that gives you vital insights on how visitors find your site, what they do when they get there, and other important information on the health of your business: such as eCommerce and lead conversions

Just a few bits and pieces to spice up your life.

Sharpening the Skills.

On the Shelf.

In the Ears.

Feel Good’s.

Tools of the Trade.