Month: June 2012

definition: ideas person

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

What they say: I would class myself as an ideas person

What they mean: I am a lazy f***er who classes my job to be done just as soon as I have come up with a completely unscientific idea for a campaign that is basically abstract crap and I can pretty much guarantee nobody on the business side of the agency will ever be able to sell and no client will ever run.

Why would anyone brand themselves an ideas person?
As if people would hire anybody who COULDN’T come up with good ideas?

Ranty Thursday innit.

DONTCONTACTME@facebook.com

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

On Monday, Facebook rolled out a new change where everybody’s published email address under contacts, was changed to a newly assigned one based on the @facebook.com format.  What this means for Facebookers is that anyone emailing them via their Facebook account would see their mail end up in FB messages, not the usual email inbox.

Facebook maintains it is giving the user the choice of email but as The Guardian blog puts it,

We shall gloss over the question of whether a “choice” really exists if a user is not aware of it.

Want to change yours back? Simple advice again from The Guardian about how to go about it:

Hey, wanna share a job?

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Licensed under creative COmmons from LydiaShiningBrightly

Why not? I am sure you’d want a bit more time off, no? Part time hours / three days a week but a role that is still senior, meaningful and client facing? Someone with complimentary skills to bounce ideas off? A team, even though you’re the boss?

Sounds pretty idyllic I think….

Why don’t more people work as jobshares in PR? I mean you see the co-CEO model every now and again but why not other pairings? Have you ever applied for a job as a pair? Have you ever received a pair of CVs for one job?

Part time jobs are so few and far between and flexible part time jobs (i.e. home working) even more so. Surely the best all round is if two people share the job, providing full time cover but allowing flexibility in their timings and their homeworking status.

As a client, I get two brains instead of one (pref a left and a right!). As a junior member, I learn two lots of skills, instead of one. As an agency owner, I have doubled my ideas, my perspectives and my skills whilst keeping my costs the same. As the jobsharer, I get to keep my job, have time with my family, be office based 50% of the time, have cover when I am on holiday and have a partner with skills different to mine to ensure the clients and teams get a kickass service.

Am I missing something?

YOU DON’T KNOW MEEEEEEEE

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Why oh why oh why in an age where it has never been easier to reach a diverse population or hire a team that fully reflects a diverse range of people, do soooo many agencies leave diversity down the bottom of the priority list.  This isn’;t about box ticking or an equal opps rant.  This is about common bloody business sense.

Want to sell to mums, errr, have some mums on your team.

Want to sell to flexible workers….maybe don’t have an entire team of London-based twenty-somethings who live in Clapham and don’t have families doing the comms.

Running a campaign for women? Why are there only men on the senior account team?

You get it. I know. So I’ll stop ranting.

But a final plea to the PR industry….mix it up for Gawd’s sake….let’s get rid of this typical white middle class industry with mostly women at junior ranks and mostly men at the top. If we can’t get our shit together for equal opportunities, at least let’s get better at what we do.

useful comms quotes #329 – Seth Godin

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

If you don’t get it built, the work doesn’t matter.

So when you’re pitching, writing plans, costing proposals and brainstorming endlessly, remember – that work, that investment, that blood sweat and tears doesn;’t matter if you can’t actually persuade someone to take the risk, run with the idea and do the campaign.
As an industry, we place a lot of emphasis on creativity and ideas people.
But the people who make them happen, push them through, get them bought and finish them off are the ones you need in your team too.