Monthly Archives: May 2021

A still from the Humans of CIA recruitment video released in March. (CIA / YouTube screengrab)

My homie Ofelia Cuevas sat spellbound before the CIA recruitment video that folks are still fussing about a week later. The video featured a black suited, code-switching, Latina with plenty of attitudethe kind of attitude Ofelia likes to inspire in her Ethnic Studies students at the University of California, Davis. The confident, thirtysomething woman in the video also wore pumps and big golden hoop earrings. Many a working-class homegirl wears the earrings as a way of embracing their inner Aztec warrior goddess in the parts of the Southwestern United States, like California, that used to be called Mexico. Ofelia and I grew up around fierce, young women who sported hoop earrings back in the 1980s, just before I decided to join war against a US-backed fascist military dictatorship in El Salvador.

She listened intently as the videos violin music crescendoed to the moment when the intense, unnamed Latina delivered the fury of her message in incantatory tones:

I am a woman of color. I am a mom. I am a cisgender millennial whos been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional.

At first, Ofelia, a scholar of race and media, told me, I couldnt believe it. I thought it was a joke. But as I kept watching, I thought, Oh my Godits real. She added: The fucking CIA is trying to be woke.

Ofelias response to what some are calling the CIAs woke video reflects not just her disbelief but also the acknowledgment of something else, something far more consequential and dangerous: that the Age of Intersectional Empire is upon us.

The CIA videoone of over a dozen Humans of the CIA recruitment videos featuring Black, Asian Pacific Islanders, queer, Indigenous, and other identity groupsreflects a new moment in the long history of identity politics. This isnt the first time the US state is deploying racial and other identity groups to further imperial domination and control. But the scale and speed with which the Biden administration is abandoning the nakedly visible white supremacist mode of governance and dominationsee Trump presidencyfits our times. This hipper, more intersectional look almost makes one forget that the US government is still in the business of empire.

Some, for example, celebrate the fact that more than 30 percent of ICE agents and about 50 percent of Border Patrol agents in the United States are Latinx. Others seem to forget that the appointment of Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban American, as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security does nothing to dismantle or abolish the same department that helped militarize the police that killed George Floyd in Minneapolis and attacked Black Lives Matter protesters in Ferguson. In the vast world that lives outside of progressive circles, there are millions of people who have emotional reactions to Army and Marine recruitment ads featuring proud Black and Latinx soldiers.

The theory of intersectional empire seems to be premised on this idea: The more the government looks and feels like the rest of us, the more difficult it is to criticize and attack it. Nowhere is this clearer than in the diversity that has reached the very top levels of government in Bidens cabinet. Such a situation might make it difficult to criticize the Biden administration, but weve already learned about the contradictions posed by the rise of intersectional empire thanks to Barack Obama.

Those of us who criticized Obamas immigration policiesrecord-breaking deportations, raids, mass child separation and caging, border militarizationwere subjected to attacks by Democrats and their supporters. Five months into Obamas presidency, my reporting about his expansion of Secure Communities and 287(g)deportation programs he promised to endearned me accusations of being anti-Black. Over time, I watched as Obama got some criticism for his deportations, but nary a word was said about truths that have proven inconvenient to many liberals: that Obama initiated the practices of mass caging and mass separation of thousands of Central American children and parents, whose treatment many liberals loudly condemned as state terrorism when those policies were continued and expanded by Trump.

Overcoming the national and geopolitical dumpster fire left by the Trump presidency makes Bidens intersectional approach to governance all the more sensible, according to Stanford professor Vaughn Rasberry. Bidens approach, he says, is updated for the moment were living in. After 4-5 years of unrestrained white supremacy, xenophobia and oppression, its not difficult to see how this has enormous appeal. It enables [the] administration to both communicate alternative values while also continuing the hegemonic trajectory the U.S. has had in the world since World War Twoor even earlier.

Rasberrys most recent book, Race and the Totalitarian Century, examines how W.E.B. Du Bois, Shirley Graham, and other writers chose to align with the communist bloc and the global decolonization movement as a way to counter United States government efforts to recruit African Americans in the fight against Nazism and Stalinism. These writers understood that a new mode of empire was ascendant, and that it understood the complex working of race and identity enough to use them for imperial ends.

One major consequence of the Cold War politics of race and empire, says Rasberry, is the marginalization of more radical voices like those of Richard Wright, Paul Robeson, and others. A more recent example of this marginalization is that of Cornel West, an open critic of neoliberalism and the American empire who formerly enjoyed countless invitations to appear on major news shows. However, once he started criticizing Obama and other examples of what he called Black faces in high places, he has not enjoyed the same media attention.

Were at the front end of a very challenging moment in the history of hegemony and domination, a moment that requires more questions than answers.

Its easy to see the historical continuities, says Rasberry. The key question is what is new about this moment? Is it really just a matter of style and part of the zeitgeist or is it something genuinely new? Im not sure.

Neither am I. But the debates about intersectional empire are just beginning. I recently noticed this through a picture making the rounds on Twitter. It shows four Navy servicemen standing, in battle gear, before a helicopter with a rainbow flag draped on it. The tweet says, History was made on Friday with the first ever all gay @USNavy helicopter crew. I see the grey banality of the helicopters and cant imagine it wouldve made any difference to the peasants bombed in El Salvador whether there were rainbow flags on them.

More:

The Age of Intersectional Empire Is Upon Us - The Nation

Sydneys Anglicans have just elected a new Archbishop the current Dean of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel. You may not have noticed. Only two decades ago, the election of an Anglican Archbishop in Sydney was not just news, it was a matter for critical commentary in the opinion pages of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Earlier this year, the retirement of the previous holder of that office, Archbishop Glenn Davies, was not even mentioned in the secular press. The death of former Archbishop Donald Robinson, Archbishop from 1982 to 1993, likewise scarcely caused a ripple.

All this tells you something about the current cultural moment into which the new Archbishop of Sydney must step. With a Pentecostal Prime Minister, much media coverage of religion in the past three years has centred on Pentecostalism as the fastest growing, and increasingly influential, Christian movement in Australia. The growing subscriber base of the Australian Christian Lobby is reportedly drawn more from these new church movements than from the established denominations.

Sydney Anglicanism is old news: the usual media criticism of Sydney Anglicans weekly fodder for journo-comedians like Mike Carlton for years has morphed into indifference.

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Despite the vigorous efforts of Raffels predecessors, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney has not been growing overall. Parish attendance figures have not declined as sharply as with other denominations and other parts of the Anglican Church, but that is of no comfort. The reality is that, while Sydney itself expands and grows numerically and geographically, the Diocese has struggled to keep up.

Not only that, but the Christian faith is struggling with declining cultural influence. Whereas once to be moral was to be Christian, there is now a serious question over that assumption. Christian morality is not the same as societys general moral sense. However much people speak of Christian values or admiring the teachings of Jesus, when it comes down to anything that matters like money, power, and sex sharp divergences appear.

All churches have been tainted by the revelations of child sexual abuse, which has caused a profound loss of trust in them. In fact, trust in all of our social institutions is at a low ebb, whether they be trade unions, sporting clubs, political parties, banks, or the once-great media companies. But the church had developed a trust problem all of its own. In addition, the Anglican Church is culturally Anglo-Australian in many ways a strange fit for a multi-cultural city, where every third citizen is born overseas.

Whats more, the Christian contribution to the cultural and intellectual landscape has become largely invisible. Its a surprise to many people to discover that two of our leading contemporary novelists, Helen Garner and Tim Winton, profess Christian faith in one form or another. The biblical references and Christian themes remain unnoticed in their work, because literary critics are not trained to notice them. The association of Anglican Christianity with colonialism and with the establishment breeds an assumption among the left-leaning intelligentsia that Australias Christian heritage is, at best, an embarrassment.

Its not that people are become less spiritual as such. True atheists remain a very small (and mostly male) group. But younger people are more inclined to describe themselves as spiritual not religious. In her book Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World, Tara Isabella Burton charts the decline of interest in institutional religion among young Americans (and Westerners in general) and the simultaneous pursuit of what she calls intuitional forms of spirituality. She writes of millennials and Gen Zers:

They prioritize intuitional spirituality over institutional religion. And they want, when available institutional options fail to suit their needs, the freedom to mix and match, to create their own daily rituals and practices and belief systems.

Of all the forms of Christianity, Pentecostalism seems a better fit for the intuitional moment. Its emphasis on the experiential, emotional, and spontaneous side of faith feels more in tune with the zeitgeist. But as it becomes more established, it too has struggled with institutional versus intuitional problem.

As one speaker at the recent Archbishops election synod put it, Sydney Anglicans are like the Ever Given, the massive tanker that got stuck in the Suez Canal. The Anglican Church has impressive resources in property and personnel, but its infrastructure was designed for the Sydney of 1850, not 2050. It has an admirable commitment to democratic processes and to the independence of its local parishes, but at the expense of efficiency and quality control. For every growing parish and there are some amazing stories of growth there are many more that are in decline.

Any organisation facing this kind of stuck-ness is open to several temptations. The trouble is, that to fall for any of them is to hasten the decline, not arrest it.

The first of these is the temptation to appoint a crash-through leader. Anxious people want superhero leaders who will fix everything. They dream of the alpha individual who just crashes through the barriers to change and growth, firing and hiring at will. We want the guy who will build the wall and make us great again. (Sound familiar?) The church is no different. We yearn for a radical change agent. And yet, the problem with the crash-through leader is well, the crash. They will likely prove polarising and destructive.

The second is the temptation to become culturally defensive. A church could retreat into itself, becoming a bunker against the waves of social change. It could attach itself to cultural and social conservatism and rage against the advance of progressive causes that it feels are undermining the Christian character of our society. The problem here is not that the church needs to get with the times or that it needs to upgrade its views. The problem is that it always ends up fighting on terms set for it by others. It is perpetually on the back foot. And it never sounds like it has good news to share.

Sydneys Anglicans have noticed that numbers of their members who say that they are willing to invite someone to a church service have fallen in the last decade. If you keep telling people that society is becoming a more hostile place to be a Christian, is it any wonder? Cultural defensiveness will breed a generation of anonymous Christians, brave on Sundays but terrified the rest of the time.

The third is the temptation to pursue structural solutions at the expense of spiritual renewal. There is no question that Sydney Anglicans need to renew and refine their organisation. The administrative burden on clergy sucks the joy out of the job of being a parish minister. Many experienced parish clergy are leaving the job prematurely. As the west of Sydney fills with new communities, we need to shift our resources and quickly. There is a need for greater accountability and transparency, fewer conflicts of interest, and fewer overlapping committees and departments. Less energy needs to be spent on governance and more on sharing Christ.

But what it really needs is a commitment by all Anglicans in Sydney to spiritual renewal. What we need to see is Christians who are more deeply shaped by Christ that is to say, Christians who are more authentically, well, Christian. We need to experience once more the grace of God in Jesus Christ. We need to repent of our past sin and receive divine forgiveness. We need to be marked by our generosity, our humility, and our love. After all, the church of Jesus Christ is not primarily a corporation seeking greater efficiency. Our greatest and most powerful resources are spiritual.

The fourth is the temptation to become obsessed by infighting. You dont need to be a sociologist to know that groups that are under pressure start to fight with one another. This is true of churches, as well. The temptation is to become focussed on finer and finer points of doctrine as markers of true belonging and trustworthiness. Defending the purity and power of the in-club can become a substitute for the real mission. There can be a lot of talk about connecting with outsiders and sharing the gospel, but that can become a smokescreen for the work of internal politics.

Its not exactly a secret that Sydney Anglicans can be very political when they want to be. But the detrimental effects of infighting dont need to be spelled out. The sheer energy taken up by infighting exhausts good will. A person who feels continually excluded from the group is less likely to work for the good of the group. Infighting eats away at trust and creates a motif of fear with a community. Theres not really an upside.

But even more importantly, infighting is profoundly unchristian. From the beginning, Christians have argued with one another about important things. Thats not surprising. But to disagree well is a basic ingredient to the church an expression of the very unity we have in the Spirit.

What, then, can Archbishop Kanishka do? What is the Anglican Church in Sydney to do, under his leadership?

I am reminded of the words of St. Paul when he was imprisoned. Not much use, his followers might have thought, an apostle in chains. But, as he wrote in 2 Timothy 2:9: the word of God is not chained. However stuck Sydneys Anglicans might be, they do not follow a God who is stuck. The followers of a resurrected Lord cannot act as if anything is an insurmountable barrier to him. In just a few short decades, to take one example, the church of Jesus Christ has exploded in places like China, despite the active and violent suppression of the faith by the Communist regime.

And this means: whatever a Christian church is to do, it must not anxious. It mustnt look to crash-through leadership, nor expect it of Kanishka Raffel. It mustnt retreat into cultural defensiveness. It must renew its structures, but not as a priority. It mustnt descend into infighting. At one level, the millennials are right: there is a deadening institutionalism that can infect churches that is antithetical to true spirituality. If the Anglican Church in Sydney is to survive, it must never become poisoned by institutionalism.

The answer must surely be that the church of Jesus Christ needs to be more authentically what it actually is. Christians in Sydney be they Anglican or not need to be more Christian. The calling of the church of Jesus Christ is to be more like him. It is called upon to worship God, and to live life together that reflects his character, whatever the circumstances. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

The Church is the Church only when it exists for others ... not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.

Archbishop-elect Kanishka Raffel has not been appointed as a manager or as a CEO. He has not been recruited by a firm of head-hunters after a world-wide recruitment programme. Hes been called to be a spiritual leader not to try his hand at a corporate style of leadership, but to embrace the prophetic and pastoral ministry of his office.

He must lead his churches, then, in a concerted effort in prayer and repentance. There can be no priority higher than this. It would be a grave mistake to put evangelism above this, since evangelism is powerfully effective when there is evidence that people really live as if the gospel is true. In the past, weve been too triumphalist, too presumptive. The grace of our message has not always been matched by the grace of our welcome.

Kanishka must lead them in a return to the Word of God. Martin Luther once said, with typical exaggeration, the ears alone are the organ of the Christian. The Christian church is a listening church. It is found wherever the Word of God is preached. Where Jesus is declared to be Lord, and where people gather to hear it, there you find the Spirit of God active not only there, but certainly there. When the people of God are seeking the voice of God in the pages of the Bible when they hear themselves addressed by him from above then there is hope.

The Archbishop must encourage us to be local communities of loving welcome. The action, as it were, is not in the bishops office or in committee rooms. The faith is not a matter of reports by theologians. It lives in the congregations that gather Sunday by Sunday, worshipping God and hearing him address them. Archbishop-elect Kanishka has written of a visit he made while holidaying to a small congregation, unimpressive by normal standards and few in number. And yet, he wrote later that he saw there the stunning beauty of the gathered people of God. It is my experience that people who are you might think the least likely to find a spiritual home in an Anglican Church in Sydney do so when they find that the hospitality they experience is for real.

But there must also be a courageous and prophetic engagement with post-Christian culture. The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth once said that sermons should be written with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The Bible gives us eyes to see what is really in the newspaper. But it is also the case that news may help us to see better what is in the Bible. The mistake that many American evangelicals have made is to imagine that political and cultural means are the way to pursue or to defend the kingdom of God mostly in alignment with the political right. That is a fools errand. It leads to an idolatry of political power, as was seen the Trumps presidency. It shows no faith in the ultimate Lordship of Jesus, who is the churchs only Lord.

But neither should the church simply follow the spirit of the age. Its calling is not to provide a chaplaincy to contemporary narcissism. It finds laughable talk of getting with the times or history being on our side. It does not pursue relevance, as if that were anything worthwhile. It outlasted Rome: it will surely outlast Atlassian.

The culture question is not simply an either/or. Too often Sydney Anglicans have framed it in this way. Culture and the church are not simply separate, opposing domains one sinful and the other holy. This is intellectually and ethically unpersuasive. Every church lives in its culture, and is part of it, sharing in its besetting sins and benefitting from its glories.

Instead, a new Archbishop will need to sponsor and encourage the kind of work that Augustine did in his epochal book The City of God. Contemporary Western culture is arguably showing signs of decadence, as Ross Douthat has recently argued. The pandemic has exposed the lack of spiritual values at the heart of the secular Western paradigm for human flourishing. Questions of meaning and value have by no means been settled simply by jettisoning Christianity. The Christian tradition presents its adherents with some powerful intellectual and ethical weaponry for just this moment.

Is Kanishka Raffel the person to unstick Sydney Anglicans? No, he isnt. But Ive been arguing that thats the wrong paradigm of leadership in any case. The stuck-ness is primarily a spiritual challenge; and the true agent of spiritual change is not a human being, but the Spirit of God.

Kanishka, however, is a man who will be able to lead Sydney Anglicans to be more truly what they are supposed to be. Converted to Christianity in his twenties from a Buddhist background, he is something of an outsider to the Sydney Anglican establishment. He is clearly not from one of the dynasties that are part of the fabric of the diocese. He did not go to an Anglican school. He has spent many of his ministry years outside of Sydney, as Rector of St. Matthews Shenton Park in Perth.

When he returned to Sydney to serve as Dean in 2015, Sydneysiders were reminded that Kanishka is a preacher of rare quality. And yet what you hear from him in the pulpit is what you hear from him in person. Kanishka is a person of empathy and compassion. He has a noticeable humility, if such a thing can be said. Those who have worked with him have immense regard for him. Rory Shiner, who worked with Kanishka in Perth, says that:

The lasting impression has been his character, integrity, and devotion to Jesus. There are few people I know whom I trust more, respect more, or whose relationship with God Id more like to imitate than Kanishka.

If Sydney Anglicans can catch something of the character of Christ as it has been refracted in their new leader, and imitate him as he continues to imitate and serve his Lord, then who knows what the Spirit of the living God may do? But the task of any Christian, and of any Christian church, is to witness to Christ and to leave history to God. As the great Christian historian Sir Herbert Butterfield once wrote: We can do worse than remember a principle which both gives us a firm Rock and leaves us the maximum elasticity for our minds: the principle: Hold to Christ, and for the rest be totally uncommitted.

Rev. Dr Michael Jensen is the rector at St. Marks Anglican Church, Darling Point, and the author of Sydney Anglicanism: An Apology, Between Tick and Tock: What the Bible Says about How It All Begins, How It All Ends, and Everything in Between, Is Forgiveness Really Free? And Other Questions about Grace, the Law and Being Saved, and My God, My God Is It Possible to Believe Anymore?

The rest is here:

Sydney's almost unnoticed Archbishop-elect: The challenges facing Kanishka Raffel and the Anglican church - ABC News

I think Boris can safely re-tile the kitchen now. Much of the broadcast media was convinced his No10 makeover would hurt him in last Thursdays elections: we werent far off a Newsnight reconstruction with Lewis Goodall, dressed as Carrie, running around an animated John Lewis with a can of petrol. But the mood on Have I Got News for You on Friday, recorded when the votes werent counted but obvious nevertheless, was funereal. Why, the host asked, didnt Wallpapergate cut through? Given that this show created the Boris phenomenon, much like The Apprentice invented Donald Trump, the confusion is strange.

Have I Got News is a microcosm. Hip when it started in 1990, anti-establishment and witty, it now creaks on as an uncancellable institution, the echo chamber for a cultural elite that is powerful yet not in power and magnificently out of touch. You could not tell from the TV or tinternet zeitgeist that the Tories were going to win Hartlepool, and journalists looked suicidal when they did. Social media fell out of the sky like a rocket made in China. I was reminded of Paul Masons verdict on the 2019 general election: a victory of the old over the young, he tweeted gracefully, of racists over people of colour, selfishness over the planet. No doubt the nurse gently touched his arm and said: And what planet do you think youre on right now, dear?

Hes not even on the distant moon of London, where we were told Count Binface, a joke, woke candidate with zero laughs, would surge in the mayoral race and Shaun Bailey, a black Tory candidate, was a bigot that Londoners would reject. Binface got 1 per cent; Bailey, in the second round, 45 per cent.

The Green Partys Sian Berry said she wanted to make London the most trans-inclusive place in the world, thus adding the capitals tiny trans community to her rainbow coalition of 7.8 per cent, just 91.2 per cent off the 99 per cent socialists claim to speak for. Trans people pay tax and get burgled, too; you might want to talk more about that. Or stick to green stuff! But the Left, which feels every bit as culturally alienated as the dissident Right, betrays its abiding concerns every time it sinks to its knee, recommitting itself to a culture war a very old-fashioned war that began around the time Have I Got News started that in some quarters it has already won and in others doesnt amount to a hill of beans. Laurence Fox, the anti-woke candidate got just 1.9 per cent of the vote in London. He finished behind a YouTube star whose most interesting policy was to freeze the Thames to create an ice rink.

The beat goes on. Someone at Sheffield University says Darwin justified white supremacy. A school has reported its own chaplain to an anti-terror unit. And among the stories on the BBC website, at the time of writing, is a 23-year-old girl who has come out as asexual.How many elections must the Left lose how many viewers, how many readers? before the penny drops that many people find all this irrelevant? Or that when they vote Tory, its not because they dont care about standards in public life, but that they cant see the scandal in this instance?

And far from being a bunch of little Hitlers, they are drawn to a Tory party that has cleverly occupied the centre ground of cultural feeling, a centre ground, incidentally, that is much more liberal than it oncewas. Just not completely bonkers.

But is the Left still winning the war? The Conservatives, once the party of hunting, will this week relaunch as the party of pet welfare, completing their trot from Chipping Norton to Uxbridge, and they couldnt have broken into the Red Wall seats without dumping austerity for big spending. Central banks and governments across the world will continue to print money while keeping interest rates low.

Last week, incumbents did well as voters rewarded them for the vaccine rollout, yes, but probably for the lockdown and furlough, too. There has been hardly any popular resistance to the most shocking assaults on our civil liberties, let alone a mainstream anti-lockdown movement like there is in America. An early rival for Trumps Republican nomination is Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who wanted to keep schools open. Who is the British equivalent? Laurence Fox, and look how he did (sorry to rub it in).

Im not totally against this as Im not a libertarian and I think there are things a strong government should do to help their citizens, but theres irony in it being Boris Johnson who has transformed the Tories into a social democratic force. He once said that his favourite character in Jaws was the mayor. Why? Because he kept the beach open. Now the Tories are like Chief Brody, obsessively scanning the shoreline for fins. Will they ever let us go back in the water again?

Me, I was always pro-shark. I have one at home: my pups teeth are coming through. A fang fell out the other night and he was rushed to the sofa for an emergency cuddle. This Wednesday he goes to doggy daycare for the first time. I have to pack a lunch. They grow up so fast! Yet, strangely, they never ever learn to take themselves for a walk. What are they teaching them in schools nowadays?

Link:

It shouldn't be a shock to the Left-wing media that people vote Tory - Telegraph.co.uk

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The Big Ideas Store is now open for its fourth event asPowered by Nine takes attendees sky high with two-weeks of high-profile speakers, creative workshops, exclusive research, and a retail pop-up taking over the 22nd floor of Nines new HQ in North Sydney.

The Big Ideas Store will showcase the way Powered Nines marketing solutions division can leverage creativity across TV, digital, print and radio, and bring guests physically closer to engage with Nines ecosystem of brands.

Running across the full two weeks is the interactive pop-up, grouped into four categories: Youth, Lifestyle, Christmas Retail and Sport, as well as a series of client and content events, sharing insights from thinkers, leaders and creative minds.

Week one will dig deep into topics such as the allure of branded long-form content; sustainability and societal impact; the power of audio, and effectiveness for senior marketers with all in-person attendees at this session receiving a copy of Powereds exclusive new book, What We Know About Advertising Effectively.

Week one of The Big Ideas Store will wrap up with the virtual-only Culture Shock event in partnership with Initiative, titled Cannabusiness, which lifts the lid on Australias medical cannabis market the fastest-growing in the world and the opportunities for brands and marketers to capitalise on this momentum.

Week two will tackle the changing Australian dream of home ownership; a world without third-party cookies; creativity and innovation in a hybrid workplace; big creative bets, and two exclusive pieces of research. The first explores the phenomenon of living local, and the second unboxes the trends in retail, food and culture for the 2021 festive season.

The second week will culminate with the Great Debate, with two teams battling it out over this question: Does advertising lead culture, or is advertising led by culture?

Register to see Powereds, director of strategy, insights & effectiveness, Toby Boon, alongside, Rachael Fraser, head of strategy at M&C Saatchi, and Roshni Hegerman, chief strategy officer at McCann go head-to-head with Powered Enterprises, Michele ONeill and Andrew Wynne, CEO of Joy.

The Big Ideas Store continues to grow year-on year and has become one of the biggest events on the calendar for marketers and agencies. Were incredibly proud to be back for the fourth year, showcasing the unique ability Powered has to help brands grab hold of big marketing moments and amplify them through incredible content, said director of Powered, Liana Dubois.

We cant wait to welcome guests back for in-person events, much needed networking and a cheeky cocktail and canape, after Covid sent us all virtual last year. However, we embrace new found flexibilities and so for the first time we are offering The Big Ideas Store as a hybrid event, including virtual options so even more people can benefit from our big thinkers, big ideas, and tackle the big issues challenging marketers right now.

Register for The Big Ideas Store here.

The Big Ideas Store sessions and contributors

Branded Content Strategy: The Allure Of Longform Tuesday 11 May, 3:30pm

Long-form storytelling is once again emerging as a key element in many brands content strategy. But who is best-placed to bring that content to life the marketers who live and breathe their brand and its message, or the media owners who create content with the audience front-of-mind?

Advertisers, agencies and content creators come together with Powered by Nine to discuss the impact of long-form content and how it can best deliver for brands and audiences.

Panellists

Sarah Stewart, director of content partnerships and client experience, Powered Hamish Turner, program director, 9Network Zara Curtis, director of content, IAG Liana Dubois, director of Powered by Nine

Effectiveness The Language Of The Boardroom Wednesday 12 May, 3:30pm

How do senior marketers build internal trust to pursue brand growth whilst delivering against short-term goals? What is the best approach for bringing together audience data, sales results and measurement when looking back at past campaigns and planning for the future?

Join Powereds director of effectiveness, Jon Fox, and director of Powered Enterprise, Nicki Kenyon, with a panel of Australias leading marketers to discuss their Effectiveness journey.

Panellists

Jonathan Fox, director of effectiveness, Powered Nicki Kenyon, director, Powered Enterprise Henry Turgoose, marketing director, Reckitt Health Phil Springall, sales & marketing director Retail, Karcher

The New Commercial Imperative: Doing Well + Doing Good Thursday 13 May, 11:00am

The pandemic has given many companies the opportunity to reset and rebuild aspects of their businesses on stronger foundations for the future. Those taking the lead are defining and measuring their sustainability and societal impact. Beyond doing no harm, they are actively setting out to do good. Is there a rise in conscious consumption and are we holding companies and brands to account?

Director of Powered Enterprise, Michele ONeill will lead an international panel of leading marketers to discuss why doing the right thing matters for all stakeholders; investors, employees, consumers and communities and why it has become a commercial imperative.

Panellists

Michele ONeill, director, Powered Enterprise Rupen Desai, Global CMO, Dole Packaged Foods Kimberlee Wells, CEO, TBWASimon Lowden, chief transformation officer, Arnotts Lisa Davies, editor, The Sydney Morning Herald

Surround Sound: The Audio Evolution Thursday 13 May, 3:30pm

In 2020, Australian audiences doubled the amount of time they spent listening to podcasts. Talk radio continues to win ratings battles, and the emergence of new social channels like Clubhouse signal that we are entering a new era in the evolution of audio.

What is it about audio that connects so deeply with audiences in the 21st century, and how can the platform continue to innovate? A panel of audio evangelists will debate the latest developments in the space, as well as exploring why audio formats are such powerful vehicles for brands to reach consumers and drive real results.

Panellists

Sophie Cook, head of content partnerships Radio, Powered Russel Howcroft, 3AW Breakfast host Helen McCabe, founder, Future Women

Culture Shock: Cannabusiness Friday 14 May, 10:30am (virtual only)

In partnership with Initiative, this session explores the rising cultural (re)acceptance of cannabis and how brands are leveraging this wave to power business growth.

For the last century, the communications around cannabis have been centred on its destructive effects. With a largely negative reputation, cannabis has been attributed to unemployment, violence, and a gateway to the consumption of more illicit and harmful substances. In a way, its a lesson in marketing 101: apply a consistent message for a long period of time and in turn you will build up the desired memory structures. However, there is an undercurrent of change thats closer to our shores than you may think. Australia is now the fastest growing medicinal cannabis market in the world and decriminalisation is building momentum. With the regulatory landscape moving at pace and multi-billion-dollar acquisitions taking place across the world, cannabis is one of the fastest growing industries globallyand its a matter of time before it comes Down Under.

So, the real question is, for a commodity that has a lifetime of preconceptions, misconceptions, and demonisation, how do you set up or study up to ensure youre either leading the charge or leveraging this cultural movement?

Panellists

Sam Greer, national managing director, Initiative Martin Lane, co-founder and chief growth officer, Cannabiz Natasha Gillezeau, journalist, The Australian Financial Review

The Changing Australian Dream Monday 17 May, 11:00am

In 2018, Powered by Nine launched The Australian Dream Reimagined, a study exploring what home means for Australians homeowners and renters alike. Three years on, for many of us our homes have become even more central to our lives: our workplace, school, and place of safety. What does that mean for how and where we choose to live? How do different generations feel about investing in property? And is it time to accept that for some, home ownership is a dream that will never come true?

Join Nines panel of experts as they explore the trends driving property in 2021 and look ahead to what they mean for the next ten years.

Panellists

Lisa Day, partnerships director, Nine James Hennessy, editor, Business Insider Nicola Powell, Senior Research Analyst, Domain Brooke Corte, host, Money News, Nine Radio

Cookies Crumbled: Data And Advertising Beyond Third Party Cookies Monday 17 May, 3:30pm

With major changes to data and privacy regulations on the horizon, advertisers are facing targeting and measurement headwinds which they have never had to navigate before. Join Powered by Nine as they uncover what the new world will look like without third party cookies, the impact for brands and explore data-led advertising solutions that will be available when third party cookies cease being supported.

Hosted by Mi3s Paul McIntyre, this session will bring together Nines director of advertising and data products, Ben Campbell, with a panel of experts across Australias leading data and technology providers.

Panellists

Ben Campbell, director of advertising and data products, Nine Gabbi Stubbs, APAC product marketing lead, Adobe James Young, managing director, Magnite Jonas Jaanimagi, technology lead, iAB Paul McIntyre, executive editor, Mi3 Culture Club: Tuesday 18 May, 10:30am

Marketing and advertising businesses have always thrived on a creative culture and passionate workforce. Collaboration and big ideas came off the back of brainstorms, impromptu or planned, and careers were built from networks made in those formative years. Then along came Covid and the impromptu kitchen table workforce: one defined by Zoom calls, sweatpants and flexible work. As a new normal descends, there is a reluctance to return to the before in order to not lose the new wins. But will it cost in the creativity, careers and office culture stakes?

In this session, Nines experts, along with CEO of Culture Garden Karl Treacher, discuss how to navigate a hybrid workforce and incorporate the lessons of COVID while continuing to innovate, create and move forward.

The panel discuss these questions and more as they explore what the future of work could look like.

Panellists

Anna Quinn, general manager, Powered Studios Karl Treacher, CEO, Culture Garden Matt Rowley, chief executive officer, Pedestrian Group Janine Allis, founder, Boost Juice

Neighbourhood Watch: Is Local The New Global? Tuesday 18 May, 3.30pm

From the noisy clash of State of Origin to fiery debates over whose local caf serves the best flat white, the ties between community and Australian identity run deep. For some time now, unifying moments of disruption such as the 2019 bushfires and 2020s pandemic have accelerated the hold that local identity has on our culture. More than ever before, we have adapted to living local, we have travelled closer to home, and our inclination to support brands and businesses that align to community values has increased significantly.

In partnership with Fiftyfive5, Powered by Nine has explored this phenomenon and what it means for brands. In this session Nine will share their latest research and explore its implications for advertisers both homegrown brands taking ownership of their role within the community and international brands seeking to harness some Aussie magic to connect with audiences.

Panellists

Toby Boon, director strategy, insight and effectiveness, Powered by Nine Hannah Krijnen, director, Fiftyfive5 Susan Wheeldon, country manager, Airbnb Stuart Gregor, co-founder & trade director, Four Pillars Gin Placing Big Creative Bets Wednesday 19 May, 3:30pm

For brands trying to navigate testing times and a disruptive environment, it can be tempting to play it safe. Just how tempting became apparent in early 2020 when, faced with the uncertainty of the pandemic and production restrictions, numerous advertisers went to market with similar messaging, musical cues and imagery much of which did little to help them communicate their distinct objectives and values.

There is, however, evidence to suggest that those brands who were prepared to take risks and innovate have emerged from the Covid era in a stronger position. As Nine prepares to celebrate creativity with the launch of State of Originality Australias richest creative prize, worth $1 million the panel will look back on the brands and campaigns that delivered, and explore the power of placing creative bets.

Panellists

Liana Dubois, director of Powered by Nine Tara Ford, chief creative officer, The Monkeys Ant White, chief creative officer, Howatson+White Chris Howatson, CEO, Howatson+White Melissa Hopkins, CMO, Optus

Unboxing Christmas 2021 Thursday 20 May, 11:30am (followed by lunch)

Last year, in partnership with The Lab, Powered by Nine launched Unboxing a Christmas like no other the research looking back at Christmas 2019 and forward to an unpredictable Christmas 2020. This study helped brands and agencies to navigate the unchartered waters of a Covid Christmas and the broader impact on the Australian summer.

Building on this foundation, Unboxing Christmas 2021 will look ahead to the trends in retail, food and culture which will influence our purchasing decisions during the festive season. Powered will also reflect on the dominant marketing messages of last year, revealing the advertising approaches which delivered the most effective results for brands.

Panellists

Toby Boon, director strategy, insight and effectiveness, Powered by Nine Bec Brody, strategy director, The Lab Jane De Graaff, food editor, nine.com.au and Today Genevieve Quigley, associate editor, Sunday Life

The Great Debate Does Advertising Lead Culture, Or Is Advertising Led By Culture? Thursday 20 May, 4:30pm

Great advertising can open our eyes to new products, new categories and new ways of living. Catchphrases and taglines become so embedded in everyday conversations that we sometimes forget where they came from. But does advertising really hold sway over our culture, or is it cynically raiding the zeitgeist and exploiting the human experience for commercial ends?

In 2021, The Big Ideas Stores Great Debate returns this year bigger than ever. Join as industry heavyweights battle it out to determine once and for all whether the dog wags the tail, or the tail wags the dog.

Adjudicator

Tim Burrowes, editor-at-large, Mumbrella

Debaters

Toby Boon, director of strategy, Insights & Effectiveness, Nine Rachel Fraser, head of strategy, M+C Saatchi Roshni Hegerman, chief strategy officer, McCann Michele ONeill, director, Powered Enterprise Andrew Wynne, CEO, Joy

Original post:

Nine announces The Big Ideas Store panels and lineups for 2021 - Mediaweek