Change is pretty much a constant in the entertainment industry, and the ability to navigate it successfully can come down to three Ps: people, process and predictions.

“It’s a formula that can simplify all that change and fear you feel, and put it into play,” said Joshua Braunstein, SVP, Nickelodeon Movie Advertising and Corporate Promotion, during the session “Change Chasers - Embracing the Storm” at PromaxBDA: The Conference.

People

Adrian Hilton remembers watching just three networks before there was cable, and recalls the moment Michael Jackson moonwalked for the first time on television.

“Everyone discussed this and talked about how amazing it was for a week,” he said.

He considers himself a member of Generation X, and his communication style is shaped by the cultural reference points he grew up with.

About five years ago, he was working closely with “a hardcore millennial producer”—someone who grew up in a generation where TV is not everything, movies are OK, and most people are glued to their phones. Technology is the driver of experience and inspiration.

“It’s very different from when I was growing up, when mass media drove everything, and everybody shared those moments.”

During their interactions he would bring up cultural references, and was surprised when her eyes started to glaze over.

Finally, she spoke up, telling him every time he spoke to her he would bring up a reference she didn’t know. It made her feel like he was testing her, giving her a pop quiz.

It was an ‘aha’ moment for Hilton.

“Up until she said that, I thought she spoke the same language as me,” he said.

This story, Hilton said, demonstrates the different ways that people of different ages communicate. He stressed the importance of being open to the concept of generational diversity, and finding ways to build strong relationships with those who may not share your own views and attributes based on the time period when each person was born.

“I had to take a moment to figure out what’s a common point where we could connect,” Hilton said.

Eventually, they bonded over “the crazy awesome genius” of Kanye West.

Process

Deaton Bell, senior coordinating producer, Turner Sports, NBA Digital, is inspired by the story of a quilt.

It features a rainbow of hands reaching up, and changing into butterflies. The quilt, called ‘Life is Change,’ is more tapestry than bedspread. The artist of this colorful masterpiece is his mom.

“What you don’t see are the tremors,” he said of its creation.

His mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but instead of getting discourage she embraced the process of creating something, cutting out by hand half of the butterflies.

“Then she asked the question, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ But she kept going; she persevered. She cut and beaded and sewed until finally she had a quilt,” he said.

Then she asked herself one of the most important questions that comes up so often in creative fields: Is it done?

She decided to sleep on it.

But she woke up in the middle of the night, and cut out one last butterfly. She sewed it into the upper lefthand corner of the quilt, facing the opposite direction of the rest of the butterflies. It was a change chaser.

And then the quilt was done.

“When you do that; when you chase change and create experiences, you will be a strong, creative leader,” Bell said. “And you will make your mom proud too.”

Predictions

When gaming consultant Jordana Drell had a flip phone and someone told her they were going to create a way for it to play videos for kids, she laughed.

“I thought, nobody is going to hand their brand new phone to preschoolers to watch videos,” Drell said.

Clearly, she was wrong.

It opened her senses to the industry. She began spending more attention watching and listening to what was being said in her field, and learning from her observations.

Then, when the iPhone came out while she was at Nickelodeon, she suggested the company create an iPhone game for kids.

“And I definitely heard, ‘nobody is going to hand that brand new phone over to their preschooler,’” she said. But she made a case for it, and got a budget to create a game.

Her advice is to dedicate some time each day to listen and learn, and to really spend some time questioning those observations, like digging into why two companies are merging, or why something is being filmed.

“If you carve out that moment everyday, you won’t need the crystal ball,” Drell said. “You will be the crystal ball.”

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