It’s not everyday you see over 100 St. Louis creatives gathered in one place with no promise of free booze. But on February 15, 2011, it happened at the first Ad Week “Creative Next” event held in Rodgers Townsend’s basement in downtown St. Louis.

The two-hour Q&A event featured an all-star panel of creative directors and alike in St. Louis. Moderated by David Johnson of Coolfire Media, the panel starred:

Steve Hunt of Cannonball

Hafiz Huda (and his mustache) of Infuz

Eric Thoelke of Toky

Tom Hudder of Rodgers Townsend

David Angerer of 4ORCE

The room listened closely as each panel member offered his perspective on the St. Louis creative community, where it is, where it’s headed and ways we can improve it. On top of that, social media, creative interns and award shows were hot topics as well.

While our own creative leader, Hafiz Huda, was on the panel, the entire Infuz creative team was in attendance as well. The past couple days, we’ve been discussing what we heard, learned and thought. So we decided to share what stood out the most for us, along with some commentary.

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