Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Brand, Campaign Magazine, Colenso, Colleagues, Context, Creativity, Culture, Design, Environment, Wieden+Kennedy
Yes I’m back.
No, I can’t tell you what I did.
Or who for.
Or even where I went.
And I won’t ask if you missed me because I wouldn’t hear a response.
Not because I don’t allow comments anymore, but because no one reads this blog anymore.
If they ever did anyway, given any visitor was here to either insult me or read the insults.
Anyway … let’s get on with it, shall we?
Every home has a room that’s a bit of a disaster.
The one that doubles up as a storeroom.
The one that you never got round to unpacking.
The one that just seems more trouble than it’s worth.
The same happens in offices.
The meeting room no one really likes.
The meeting room that feels claustrophobic.
The meeting room that no one uses for client meetings because it’s a bit shit.
But in an open plan office world, meeting rooms are at a premium … so those ‘happiness sucking spaces’ often end up being used as a last resort, even though it is literally the last place you want to be.
We have one of those spaces.
A room that makes dentist waiting rooms feel exciting.
It’s called ‘the attic’ … because, quite frankly, it’s out of the way and uninviting.
But recently we had a client video call in that room and we’ve never felt more self-conscious, so we finally decided to change it.
However rather than try and change the feel of that miserable space, we chose to own it.
Welcome to the most boring room in Colenso. Literally.
I know … I know … you may be thinking, ‘why would you do such a thing when you could have changed everything’?
And I get that, but there’s 2 reasons …
First, as Eminem taught us in the movie 8 Mile, when you own your truth, no one can own you.
Second, the great irony of being self-aware – even when it’s about something dour – is that you can end up being more interesting than those places you know are trying their hardest to be interesting.
That’s not dissing the importance of physical space because it’s real and it’s important.It can play a huge role in influencing and shaping how people engage, interact and explore shit.
But at the heart of great working environments is that they have been shaped by the culture of the org rather than a byproduct of it.
As I said years ago in Campaign …
And so while this might be the most boring room in Colenso – and it is – by owning that fact, it’s weirdly become a place we’re OK with being in rather than trying our hardest to avoid.
God humans are weird aren’t we!?
But not as weird as that room.