Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Cunning, Devious Strategy, EvilGenius, Love, Management, Perspective, Professionalism, Resonance
Redundancy is horrible.
It happens but that doesn’t stop it being horrible.
You feel discarded, worthless, devalued.
Even if you know it is absolutely none of those things and you’re just a victim of circumstance you can’t escape the feeling you have been singled out.
It’s even worse when companies approach it as “business, not personal”.
I appreciate that there are countless legalities that you have to jump through but while it might be business for the company, it is always personal for the individual being let go.
That doesn’t mean you want to receive any sense of contrived compassion but you do want to feel respected as an individual.
I remember being let go once and then told that because they knew my visa would mean I’d have to leave the country in 28 days – they would happily delay telling the authorities for a month [to allow me more time to find a new job] but – and it’s quite a big but – if I sacrificed the residency payment I was legally obliged to have been given.
Pricks!
[Though it gave me the resolve to start cynic so it wasn’t all bad – but absolutely no thanks to them]
Anyway, the reason I am writing all this is because I read a story of someone in NZ who was being made redundant who dealt with the situation in a unique way.
Not only did they ensure they owned the situation but they also ensured it was the company letting them go who felt the awkward ones.
It all started when the individual was told they were being let go and informed they could bring someone to the meeting for support.
Who did they bring?
A partner?
A parent?
A colleague?
A lawyer?
Nope … a clown.
A bloody clown.
You can read the story of my newfound hero here … even though when I first heard the story I thought it was the agency who brought in the clown to try and make the mood lighter.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Anniversary, Birthday, Comment, Dad, Daddyhood, Family, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, Otis
Happy birthday Dad.
Oh how I wish you were around …
You’d be 81.
EIGHTY ONE!
I’m not sure what is more amazing … that or the fact it means you’ve been gone 21 years.
We would have had such a lovely day.
Now we are in England, we would have come down for the weekend and spent a few days there – organizing stuff, from a cake to a present.
Oh the present would be hard.
I’d want to get you something you have always wanted but could never get, let alone justify.
In a perfect world it would be an old Rolls Royce … in yellow … with white wall wheels.
I can see you now driving to Asda in it, laughing at the beautiful ridiculousness of it all.
God I’d love to have got you that … though I imagine that attitude would change quite quickly once I see how much the bloody thing cost to keep on the road.
But I’d still try and do it for you.
What you and Mum sacrificed for me will never be forgotten … will never be taken for granted.
I would do anything to be able to sit with you and talk about the choices and decisions I’ve made.
To see the corners of your beautiful blue eyes turn up with happiness knowing I am now ‘back home’.
I would love to give you a huge, huge hug and a big kiss on the cheek as I say “Hello Dad” … even though I know you would brush me aside so you could say hello to Jill and then your wonderful grandson.
Oh I wish you could have met them, you’d have absolutely loved them.
I can hear you asking them cheeky questions – at my expense.
The mischievous grin.
The dimple.
The tongue curling up on your top teeth to signify you know you have been a rascal.
For Mum to walk in and give you that look of loving exasperation as she says, “Oh Roger”.
There is almost nothing I would love more than to be with you today, though I suppose while I am not able to be physically with you, I am emotionally which leaves me with this.
I love you Dad.
I miss you so much.
A few weeks ago we went to visit Silvana’s flat in Bayswater and I started crying IN THE STREET.
OK, so I hadn’t been there for around 28 years, so seeing a place that contains so many memories of us being together really knocked me for six.
But in a lovely way.
I could see where you used to park … I could see us running up the steps to press the buzzer to be let in. I even went up and touched the front door because I knew you and Mum had done that and weirdly, it made me feel close to you.
I wish you were on the other side of that door.
I wish you were still here.
Happy birthday my wonderful Dad. Give Mum a hug from me.
Above is a photo of one of the members of my team, Toby.
Toby is Australian, talented and a good human.
None of this serves any point to this post.
You see I found the above .gif in my phone and I have no idea how it got there or what ‘subscribe nooooooooow’ refers to.
I could ask him, but he’s not in yet and, to be honest, I have a slight concern that he looks like he has been held captive in a terrorist cell and been made to do this which means he may not come in again for a long, long time.
I did think it could be for our WorldWideWeird but that’s Amelia’s baby so that doesn’t explain it … though she definitely has a dark evil within her, so you never know.
Any suggestions …
[Acknowledging a wealth of insults are about to come my way]
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Comment, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Empathy, Management, Marketing Fail, Potential Darwin Awards, Standards, Talent
One of the things I do when I first get a brief is try to see the creative opportunity.
Where we can make the biggest and most interesting difference.
Changing something.
Pushing something.
Destroying something.
However the reality is that in many briefs, this isn’t always clear – mainly because so many are written from quite a transactional perspective, designed for an agency to ‘answer it’, rather than use it as a springboard for bigger, more powerful and more sustainable impact.
And that’s why the best thing you can do is ask questions.
Explore.
Prod.
Challenge.
Not just in terms of who authored the brief, but the people who are responsible for what comes out of it.
There are some people who think this approach has the potential of alienating clients, but in my experience it has quite the opposite effect. People in power regard this as a demonstration of someone who gives a shit … someone who wants to help them achieve the best outcome in ways that can best serve their business. Ideas they may simply never have seen or considered before.
And that’s exactly why I do it because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t know the level of the clients ambition … their desire for change and impact … and without that you can’t possibly see the creative opportunity you have in front of you and you may go down a path that leads to nowhere because you have made assumptions that simply aren’t true.
Don’t get me wrong, we all need new business to survive – let alone thrive – but my point of view is that if people aren’t excited or clear on what we are looking to do, then it either leads to a painful journey with painful work at the end of it or just mistrust and quite frankly, I haven’t got time for either of those in my life.
So what’s all this got to do with the title of this post?
Because I recently read an article on the famous Woodstock festival and was reminded – from a comment by Tommy James from the band, Tommy James and The Shondells – how dangerous ‘assumption’ can be.
And who is Tommy James from Tommy James and The Shondells?
Well, this might tell you why you haven’t heard of him or them …
Don’t assume the person communicating with you has total clarity on their situation.
Don’t assume the people around you have total clarity on the situation.
Just don’t assume.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Awards, Brilliant Marketing Ideas In History, Communication Strategy, Confidence, Content, Corporate Evil, Crap Campaigns In History, Creative Development, Creativity, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Freddie, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, London, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Packaging, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Pretentious Rubbish, Queen, Research, Resonance
Today I’m judging the Effies.
Oh awards …
I’ve written so, so much about them in the past.
Like here. And here. And here. And here.
I must admit, I am intrigued to see what they are going to be like in the UK.
Will they be a celebration of insightful efficiency or will they be like I experienced too many times in Asia, a stream of consciousness that just rumbles along till they think they have explained how they got to their idea and how they have proved it worked.
I guess we shall see later today.
I really, really hope they are good.
Not just because the Effies have always had a standard they’ve lived up to, but because it will give me faith the industry still has fight in it to do things right.
In my time in the UK, I’ve read a bunch of planning documents/portfolios/resumes that have been more about packaging.
Repeating a client brief in a way that has been ‘sexed up’.
Superficial.
Executional.
Literal.
There are a bunch of reasons for this.
Part of it is the lack of training agencies give their strategiests.
[Hence why we started the School of Strategic Arts]
Part of it is the huge amount of freelance planners out there who are doing exactly what they are asked because they are fighting for their livelihood.
And part of it is because of the client/agency remuneration deals which means planners are giving too little time to explore the best outcome to the problem they face.
Planning has a valuable role to play in effectiveness.
Planning has a valuable role to play in creativity.
But it needs to be allowed to do it to make it happen … so here’s hoping we see the best of what it can do today, because the Effies is not just important for the people who win, but for what the industry needs to get back to being.