Faris is an award winning strategist, creative director, writer, public speaker and geek. He’s trying to work out how we communicate in a networked world, how we can make people happy, how we can make awesome stuff that is useful or entertaining or both. Faris likes to help nice clients and agencies be more awesome. GeniusSteals is his strategic planning and innovation practice. You can read about it here: http://geniussteals.co/ Previously he was Chief Innovation Officer of MDC and founding partner of Spies&Assassins, the mysterious creative technology boutique. Before that he was Chief Digital Officer at McCann Erickson NYC, and Head of Digital Strategy at Naked Communications. He was named one of the most respected planners in the world by The Planning Survey, and one of 10 modern day Madmen by Fast Company. His blog, Talent Imitates, Genius Steals, has been nominated as one of top ten ad blogs to follow by Campaign and Mashable. Faris writes on technology, media, brands and creativity for a variety of publications including FastCompany, Forbes, The Financial Times, Contagious and many publications with the word Ad in the title. He is also the author of the first chapter of the book Digital State, published by Kogan Page June 2013.