Got a project by phone this morning on the way back home. Research agency hasn't delivered - its a tricky problem. Client is getting impatient.
And after holidays my mind is as blank as a bank of snow. Any ideas? Nope. I just need a few hours to set my unconscious loose. Lovely!!
I've been listening to a CD of Paul Valler in the car while I was driving this morning to my next lot of church research. He is former FD of Hewlett Packard in the UK. and has a new book out called Get a life which you can buy here and the website will get a percentage! He has a really interesting idea about Identify Theft and the way in which people's identities are stolen by their companies. Even to the extent when your company starts to provide concierge services to make you more productive and have taken your role identity outside of work as well! His very simple point is that no one should take away your identity unless you let them. And you don't have to.
Its always the way - I clear my desk for a holiday and the phone starts ringing. So far I'm one workshop and one research project down. At least 10K's worth. It had better be a good holiday :-} As is my wont I try to find other people to cover the work I can't do. And this time for the first time I used facebook to see what everyone was up to. Very odd to be talking with bogus confidence to the would be hirer about who was in and who was out and about.
Into London to get into the office in good time without rail/tube chaos. AT lunch time I dashed to another agency round the corner for a status meeting about a research project. Fascinating conversation with the chief exec of a communications group about how to create synergies between the companies they keep acquiring - so much more difficult to actually get everyone working together instead of paying lipservice. A technical debate about a knotty research problem which needed teasing out. Finished the work I had set myself to do for the day. Then a swift beer with a planning head from a third agency about where comms planning is going and how to organise a clutch of different planners around an integrated pitch. Once back home I found myself wandering round the garden eating fruit off the trees as the sun went down. Thinking you lucky bastard there has to be payback time - life can't really be this good.
spent reviewing online research. With a very interesting lunch to sit back and agree best practice. My favourite kind of work. It's not just the work you do. It's how you do it and how you do it better. The more radical the technique the more interesting it gets.
What else? Passed Mark Earls like a ship in the night - same building even but too busy to even coffee when we had been trying to orchestrate a coffee elsewhere.
And had a brief conversation en passant with Malcolm chair of the APG about an idea to do with the APG awards which in summary he wasn't too keen on but I'll spare you the details.
This morning my mind woke me up around 5 - a sure indication that it has too much on its plate so wants me to share the pressure. I've got 3 research jobs running concurrently and several training courses to write - as ever there is an experimental element because I rarely get asked to do more of the same. And I start to get that feeling so familiar to those in full time employment - where the mind is never able to get the space to create and the round of meetings and deadlines conspires to make the hapless employee less effective. This rarely happens to me running my own show - there is always space and the work is better (in my judgement) because of that. Which is why I get nervous when I'm running close to full - because the quality comes from the headroom you preserve.
