Archive for February, 2007
Do people understand what you’re good at?
Do the people you work with understand what you’re good at? I don’t mean what you do or what your job description is, but what you’re good at – how you add value to your organisation, how you can help other people do their jobs more effectively.
I sometimes wonder whether everyone I work with understands exactly how Planners can help them understand their target audience better to make communications with them more effective. “We’d better get a Planner in” is no good unless they know why they are doing it. More internal training needed I think.
All power to the Showgirl Princess
As a reward to myself for getting up at stupid-o’-clock to catch the London train, I went to see Kylie: The Exhibition at the V&A today.
It mostly comprises costumes from her tours and video shoots (that woman is tiny if her frocks are anything to go by) and they were fabulous – but it was almost as interesting to watch the incredibly wide range of visitors touring round with me.
There were kids who couldn’t have even been alive in Kylie’s Neighbours era on a school trip, people like me skiving off on a work day, tourists, lots of wheelchair users and their carers and a very chilled out guide dog asleep on the floor. It felt very welcoming and inclusive which, lets face it, is a bit unusual for a museum. All power to the showgirl princess.
Musical Desks
I’m moving desks. Again. This is the third move since I joined the agency nine months ago.
I have just worked out that its my fifteenth desk move in my 8 year career. Which seems excessive. No-one seems to know where to sit Planners – so far I’ve been billeted with account handling, new business, research, design and the directors – but never with creative. Which probably says a lot about how agencies are set up.
I can understand why agencies need to shuffle things around every so often as clients change, teams expand and the business grows/shrinks – and on the plus side I can now pack my desk and life into two plastic crates in ten minutes flat.
Top tip – if anyone gives you anything relating to a project, give it back to them as soon as possible…and continue to enjoy an easily-packable workspace.
Someone who is slightly less organised than me is the wonderful amalah.
Greener – but not necessarily cleaner
This week’s Innocent Drinks weekly newsletter linked to a piece about MIT’s City Car, a concept 2-seater. The idea is that these cars would be available to hire from central locations and you’d just pay with a credit card & grab one from the pile stacked up like supermarket trolleys.
The thing is, most trolleys at my local supermarket Booths are mucky when we go to collect one for the weekly shop – and I don’t fancy picking up a grubby car full of someone else’s empty drink cans and sweet wrappers. It seems that the Great British Public can’t be trusted to leave things as they found them and that organisations aren’t prepared to take responsibility for maintaining standards of cleanliness (last weekend’s quick trip to London confirmed this with some really filthy trains and tubes).
I live in Leeds, with a fairly rubbish public transport system and traffic gridlock – so I’m used to spending a lot of time in my nice clean car. If you want me to adopt greener forms of transport, you’ll have to make sure they come up to my usual standards of cleanliness.
So what is it you do for a living?
You can guarantee that whenever I’m at a dinner party/family reunion/drinks do someone will utter the immortal line “so what do you do?”.
I’ve been saddled with one of the most unhelpful job titles in history meaning that ”I’m an Account Planner” isn’t really an option as the person opposite (unless they’re a paid up member of the IPA or APG) generally assumes that I’m some kind of financial organisation whiz.
So, the options are:
“I work in advertising” – this normally results in a demand to hear your client list and running through agency credentials isn’t top of my list of fun things to do at the weekend.
“I work in marketing” – too vague. Results in additional questions.
“I’m the voice of the consumer” – waaaay too pretentious.
“I do consumer insight and brand strategy stuff” – better, but still sounds a bit scary and academic.
Help! Has anyone got a better answer?
Stupid Cupid
I went to a Valentines singletons event last night at a style bar (it was that or sit in front of the telly feeling sorry for myself).
It was…random. Lots of eligible men rendered totally ineligible by the sheer quantity of alcohol they had consumed, yet still surrounded by predatory blondes. Enough dwarves, gay cherubs and party princesses to rival Ibiza and music so loud that you couldn’t even talk to the inebriated bachelors if you wanted to.
I’ve never been so openly sized up in my life and came away feeling deeply depressed by the whole experience. Perhaps my mistake was staying sober?
Oh – and when the time came for the glamorous prize draw (on offer – flights to Paris, Spa days, luxury watches etc.), I won a pile of vouchers for a well-known brand of frozen pizza.
It obviously wasn’t my night. On the other hand, I suspect I’ll be dining out on the experience for the next few weeks.
The event was sponsored by a dating agency, but throwing a lot of singletons together in a room with lots of alcohol doesn’t seem to me to be the best way communicating their ‘fun, laid back and stress free’ brand values and explaining what differentiates their recipe for finding true love from every other internet dating, speed dating or introductions operation out there.
Yet another arrow that failed to hit its target.
snowy weather / online behavior correlation?
I had a wardrobe clear-out recently and stuck some clothes up on ebay. The auction ended this Friday.
When the buyer details came through, I was surprised to see that three out of the five buyers came from Wales. And then I thought about the really snowy weather they’ve been having.
So my hypothesis is that the loads of people in Wales were snowed in and bored, so decided to get on the internet to entertain themselves – and ended up impulse buying on ebay.
I started wondering whether anyone has done any research into how the weather affects online behaviour? Then I googled and ended up at hitwise, finding their take on how the weather affects visits to the met office and BBC Weather. Nothing about ebay though…
Get indexed
I’ve just found the wonderful indexed.
Otherwise known as ’101 things that can be explained using an index card’.
I think Jon Steel might like this one :-)
Planning is mediation?
Jason has posted about the role of a planner within an agency - that of a kind of client mediator.
I share Jason’s view that Planning is about creating great work that works. But while Jason thinks it should be all about the planner-client relationship, I’m more in favour of a value-added ‘helping wherever you’re most needed’ approach.
Maybe its a London/regions thing, or maybe its just a case of horses-for-courses (or planners-for-projects).
everything but the laptop
Reading an old post of mine on is your desk the window to your personality reminded me 
of a fun exercise I did with a some friends over email last year. I asked everyone to reply with a list of everything (excluding the obvious laptop, in trays etc.) that was on or around their desk. I didn’t like to ask exactly what they were doing with plastic dinosaurs and water pistols, but its was enlightening all the same.
Heres my list:
- full size estate agent’s ‘sold’ sign
- IKEA pot plant from the New Year that miraculously isn’t dead yet
- spare pair of shoes
- selection of clear plastic pencil cases (really long story…)
- Veuve Cliquot 2007 sporting season guide
- copy of The Publican
- Industrial and Commercial Equipment catalogue
What about you?
