The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

That might sound weird, but it was.

Part of it was because I started the morning with the brilliant Brixton Finishing School listening to a bunch of students answering a brief I gave them with passion, mischief and possibility and part of it was because I got to spend significant time with my brilliant planning gang to say goodbye.

But there was another reason, which is that the first thing I did when my life at R/GA was over – literally within 30 minutes of being officially made unemployed – I was doing an interview with Faisal Ahmend about diversity and inclusion in adland.

And while it is an issue I am very, very passionate about …

And while I continue to feel the industry only gives a superficial response to it …

And while my headphones and wifi makes me sound like I’m Darth Vader speaking from a tin box with intermittent wifi …

…. even I’m slightly suprised how upbeat I sound on such a significant day in my career.

But then, as I said in the post that announced it, not only was I glad this happened to me rather than a person of colour, a woman or a youngster starting out in their career – who are often the first victims in these situations – the reality is the last time this happened to me, it led to the most exciting and creative time of my career and so I felt no reason to feel anything other than optimistic about the future.

Now I admit with hindsight, that may have been naive of me – especially with all the shit going on in the World with pandemics and political fighting, not to mention my old, old, old, old, age – however based on all that has happened to me since that I announced I’d been made redundant, my hunch has been proved to be right.

So far. Hahahaha

Normally I hate listening or reading things I say.

I spend the whole time slapping my head either muttering, “why did I say that?” … “why didn’t I say that?” … or “why am I jumping about and rambling like I’m a loon?”

However this one is a bit different.

Sure there’s things I wish I rephrased.

Sure there’s things that I might have got slightly wrong.

But at the end of the day, I say the one thing that I feel had to be said … the one thing to counter the excuse I continually hear why there is not more diversity in adland today.

When asked how do I find the people to add diversity to my team, I respond …

“You don’t have to ‘find them’, they’re everywhere … you just have to want them.”

You can listen to it here.

You can listen to far more intelligent and articulate people here.