I don’t often post about webinar content.  With a half dozen or more webinars per month, plus existing client work, it simply becomes too much.  That being said….Damn!  Luke Sullivan is amazing!

If you haven’t heard Luke in a webinar or in person, you are missing one of the industries most insightful and entertaining speaker.  His years at Fallon, The Martin Agency and GSDM give him incredible perspective on what makes for great work, how to make and how to manage the staff that make it.

Part of the genius of Luke’s webinars is that he is no longer directly tied to the industry.  He is now the dean of the ad school at Savannah College of Art and Design.  Because he is no longer in the industry, he is not concerned about his next job.  As a result, he gives you his honest, unfiltered point of view about advertising.  Suffice it to say, that Luke unfiltered is both educations and very entertaining.

Filament is happy to announce our 20^th Anniversary.  What started with a commitment to bring personalized training to a few clients has grown into only communcations consulting firm exclusively for the advertising and communications industry.

A few trusting, faithful clients in the early years like the Martin Agency, Grey, Siddall and GSW got in at the ground floor.  Fast forward 20 years and Filament has clients in the North and South American, Europe, Australia and Asia.  We are a client in Africa away from  covering the world (no offence to Antarctica, but without an agency, you are not a continent to us).

Thank you to all our clients over the years that have helped us to embrace that ad industry.

MM and M magazine, the industry leading trade publication for the pharma advertising community engaged Filament President Mark Schnurman to be the keynote speaker at their conference on The Evolution of the Advertising industry.  The conference took place in Manhattan on October 4, 2018.  Mark shared the stage with Ed Mitzen, founder of Fingerpaint as well as other industry leaders participating in various panel discussions.

Mark was asked to speak about the changes in the advertising pitch landscape and offer insight as to how to better compete in a crowded pitch market.  Agency execs, new business staff as well as clients peppered Mark with questions and stories about pitches gone bad.    Nearly 100 advertising and marketing folks were in attendance discussing how the industry is changing and what agencies need to do in order to not just survive but thrive in this new advertising universe.

As Filament webinars draw a wider audience of agency staff, we attract a more exciting and celebrated roster of presenters.  This fall, Stephen M.R. Covey, whose best selling book The Speed of Trust, will be hosting a webinar on .

This is just the first in series of topics from Stephen.  We look forward to hearing more from Stephen.

What started as a small offering at Filament, has continued to grow as Bob Linden develops a terrific collection of webinars.  Bob’s focus from the start has been to find webinar leaders and topics that focus on practical skills that webinar viewers can implement immediately.  Bob’s philosophy that learning needs to be usable immediately has served Filament and its clients very well.

Filament’s clients will always benefit from in person training which offers a more personal experience but webinars are a great way of offering up training to a larger group.  Great job Bob!

Laurie Coots, former CEO of TBWA, has signed on to deliver webinars on a variety of topics for FIlamnet Inc starting in the fall of 2018.  Laurie led through TBWA’s most exciting years and was instrumental in developing the Disruption stategy for the agency.

As Filament’s webinar offerings become more and more robust, industry icons are now turning to Filament to find new audiences to share their skills with.  Welcome Laurie!

As Filament’s business grows with new clients and new offerings, so does web traffic.  While web traffic alone is not a perfect predictor of activity, it is safe to say that where there is smoke there is fire and Filament has been on fire lately. 100k website hits is a huge milestone and one that everyone at Filament should be proud of.  Updates to the website have included an ecommerce system for webinars as well as building in more flexiblity for making website changes on the fly.  Everyone at Filament looks forward to all of the new opportunities that 2017 brings.

Another year, another Manny Awards has come and gone.  Filament is happy to have had clients nominated in 12 different award categories.  Some categories had multiple Filament clients being recognized for their efforts.  Some clients won…some were just happy to be nominated but everyone had a wonderful time catching up with old industry friends and laughing with colleagues.  Two things at the event struck a chord with me.

Dana Maiman’s acceptance speech for Person of the Year was flawless.  She did a wonderful job of celebrating her teams hard work but she also challenged the industry to make strides in areas like diversity where her agency and the entire industry need to make improvements.  It was a terrific way of celebrating but also pointing out that their is much work to be done and that everyone in the room needs to work just a little harder.

Faruk Capan’s acceptance of the Heart Award on behalf of Sunayana Dumala and Intouch Solutions. In February, Sunayana’s husband was tragically killed in an act of terrorism in a restaurant in Kansas.  His beautiful acceptance was a poignant moment that helped us to all remember that some things are more important than advertising.  It was a sobering moment.

Luke Sullivan, formerly of Fallon, The Martin Agency and GSDM conducted his first WebClinic for Filament. How to manage creative has been a challenges for agencies since the discipline was created, mostly because according to Luke “creatives don’t like to be managed.” In just 60 minutes, Luke put it all out there….how to and how not to manage creatives in a no-holds-barred webinar. I am not one to laugh out loud during a webclinic but Luke was amazing.

As with all of Luke’s work, he provides a “No Suck” guarantee. Luke lived up to his promise!