Planning with a Capital P

I'm probably not the first to notice that, in "the industry" the words "strategic" and "planning" are practically every other word used to describe marketing and communications. It certainly is something I think about a fair amount, because I share a derivation of both of those words in my title currently, and often times really wonder what the eff it means? Seriously, when those two words are thrown around it makes you question your credibility, ability and reason for being.

Like recently, I was having a conversation with a fellow planning colleague: as of late, we've been wondering what value we add, because often times we're not finding ourselves doing "real planning" - but rather, we are being logical and bringing a thoughtfulness to the work that, for some reason, is missing.

Being paid to be logical? I guess that's a good thing, but it really does make me wonder why I am then using two words like "strategic" and "planner" to describe the role that I play. When there is none of those ingredients in my recipe.

So what's a young planner to do? I want to stop with "planning" and bring on the Planning to experience how it's really done; how we see it at the 4A's Planning conference every year.

BRING ON THE BIG P!!!