So I’ve been doing this planning lark for a long time.
And while it is very un-British of me to say, I think I am pretty good at it.
Not as good as some … like the people I know who have never been planners before and yet suddenly get a job in an agency as the head of the department, but good all the same.
While I’ve had my fair share of accolades over the years, I recently saw something on Linkedin that made me think, “I’ve made it”.
Can you see what it is?
It’s that thing on the far right hand side of the page.
The one with the headline, ‘Are You A Head of Planning?’
This might help:
Yes, I know I’ve had my fair share of weird experiences with Linkedin in the past, and I also know that the brain tends to dismiss reality when it is being complimented, but I’m a head of planning so it must be targeted at me, which means I – little ol’ Rob Campbell from Nottingham – has the chance to be in the ‘Who’s Who’ book of Bristol.
Yes, Bristol.
Fucking Bristol.
Putting aside the fact the Who’s Who is a massive money making con and the only people who go in it are ego-maniacs with low self-esteem, who the hell would want to be in the Bristol edition except for someone who lives in Bristol?
Even then, who from Bristol would want to be in a book featuring countless other ego-maniac/low self-esteem individuals who all have weird accents and evaluate ‘success’ by how many times they’ve crossed over the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the last month.
Look, my ego could put Bono to shame and my low self-esteem would keep a psychiatrist in business for decades, but even I wouldn’t want to be in this. Believe it or not, I wouldn’t want to be in the Nottingham edition either [though I might give it 0.2 seconds more consideration than I gave this] … which basically highlights 3 problems with digital :
1. Digital marketing is not as precise as many like to claim.
[Yes, it’s better than most of the ‘old approaches’, but it’s still got a shitload of flaws in it, of which one is that we now have so much quality data available to us, it has become harder to distinguish between what can give us answers and what will throw us off the scent]
2. Big Data should be renamed Broad Data.
3. Linkedin really do hate me.