Contact with Miami

Ron Seichrist is judging work in Hamburg over the videoscreen

If you've read the earliest posts of my blog, you know that in the first quarter every student at the Miami Ad School has to make soccer posters. The assignment is simple: make a poster that motivates people to play soccer at Moorweide on Sunday. It's a Miami Ad School tradition that originally comes from the first school in Miami.

When I came back to the Hamburg school, I saw a videoscreen upstairs. This screen is connected to the Miami school and people can talk live with students there. It's like an ongoing webcam that connects the students from Hamburg with the students at the other side of the ocean. So when we walk upstairs we often wave at the people in America.

On Thursday the first soccerposters had to be judged and for the very first time, the judging had been done by none other than Ron Seichrist, the founder of the Miami Ad School and headmaster of the original Miami school. So the students presented their posters one by one to Ron Seichrist in Miami.

I've never seen a presentation like this before. The technique was there before, but the fact that this is now accessible to schools means that it's possible for agencies as well. Soon every agency will be able to communicate directly with clients on the other side of the world. Can you imagine what opportunites this brings? Creative minds all over the world can directly brainstorm with each other or look at each others work, agencies can open anywhere. Yes, you could always send work by e-mail, but the direct contact was still missing.

This video session probably had a great effect on the students. There wasn't one bad soccer poster. All of the posters had one simple message in it. If technique is used in the right way, it can give an awesome boost to creativity.