Why do today what you can put off until overmorrow

Are you a procrastinator?

Do you have a long list of things you plan to do today but never quite get round to.

I stumbled across a great new word this morning on Twitter.

Perendinate:

To defer until the day after tomorrow; to postpone for a day

I might set up a company called that one day. Not today obviously, that would be mad.

Anyway, if you knew your time was up what would you really want to do?

I read a powerful piece in The Telegraph today about the legend that is Mohammed Ali. The Greatest fighter to ever live.

He is quoted saying: "I believe that when you die and go to heaven God won't ask you what you've done but what you could've done."

Put aside religion, I quite like the sentiment.

What's stopping you doing something you really want to do?

Really stopping you.

Step through the fear my friends. Just feckin do it.

We have a phrase at work, born out of some business theory or other, that you should worry most about the bits you can control.

Worrying about stuff you can only influence a bit, or have no control over is futile. But we all do it.

My brother who works in A&E as a doctor has another more humbling phrase. 'No-one died today did they.'

Work has been tough recently. Really tough. Things haven't all gone to plan. In fact it feels like I've let people down.

I can post rationalise why we are where we are. It mainly involves blaming other people or circumstances out of my control.

But nobody has died.

So today I make this commitment to you, I'm going to do something today that normally I'd put off until overmorrow.

You'll have to come back tomorrow to find out what it was.

Brilliant idea? Or shower of sh*te

What is it about showers and ideas?

Apparently warm water increases the flow of dopamine. So that helps I guess.

It's also relaxing.

And according to Lifehacker when we have a relaxed state of mind, we're more likely to turn attention inwards, and therefore more able to make insightful connections.

So there you go.

You may have guessed I had a shower moment this morning. And I'm desperate to share it with you.

Btw, did I ever tell you I'm the proud owner of Mediocre Ideas dot com?

It is a graveyard of things I've come up with over the years and not done anything with. Or at least it was meant to be.

I have this tendency to want to share my 'best' ideas before they are fully formed.

When I have them they feel like they're earth shatteringly good. Literally going to change the world.

My adrenaline then kicks in.

I can barely get out of the shower quick enough to type the text message, email, or What's App to whomever I think will be most interested in hearing it first.

Of course time after time what happens next is inevitable.

The idea starts to deteriorate.

Like an unstable atom my amazing idea has an extremely short half life*

Halving in impact by the day until eventually being worthy of appearing on aforementioned website.

Which ironically is a mediocre idea itself.

At the time of purchasing the domain for five years, yes five years, I thought I was onto a real winner.

It'll go viral. I'll make a killing.

But then it ran out of steam, or I did, and I simply moved on.

Now you could argue eventually one of my brilliant/mediocre ideas will coincide with a serendipitous moment in time and get a lucky break.

Either that or I'll meet someone who is really good at the next bit. Taking my rough diamond, and creating a gem.

Anyway, today's idea involves disrupting not one, but two industries. Plus a new range of toy products and...

Even as I write it I can feel my confidence waining a little.

Time will tell if today's shower was a moment of brilliance or another washout.

*via Wikipedia: Half-life (t_1⁄2) is the amount of time required for the amount of something to fall to half its initial value. The term is very commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay, but it is also used more generally for discussing any type of exponential decay.

Peering into the future

This week's Future Foundation conference in London has unveiled the top trends coming to a world near you. 

It's always fascinating peering into the future, and impossible to argue with the predictions as to some extent those who make them can always claim they weren't wrong, they're simply early.

Anyway, Rebecca Coleman in Marketing Magazine reports today that the top five future trends range from multi-faceted paths to purchase, to hedonistic offsetting and solo living.

The one that caught my eye however was number 3, emojinal intelligence.

According to Future Foundation’s managing director Meabh Quoirin brands have an opportunity to harness the power of real emotion.

She adds: 'No-one can deny that emotional marketing works, but the ways in which brands are getting there is becoming increasingly varied.'

And 'amplifying emotional messages is one way brands can meet the ‘adblockalypse’ head on, on the basis that people are much more willing to share ads and content that makes them feel good.'

It caught my eye partly because today also saw an ad blocker take out a punchy ad in the Financial Times to denounce the internet advertising industry.

Lara O'Reilly, Business Insider's global advertising editor reports that Shine, the Israeli ad blocking company, has placed a provocative print ad in the Financial Times to denounce the US advertising trade body the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

The ad features the famous image of Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston, with the strapline:

"The @iab knew we could block. Now they know we can punch, too."

Both stories highlight the conundrum facing brands in the modern digital environment.

How to reach and engage an audience that leads to meaningful interactions and ultimately a deeper relationship with their brand.

The recent rise in ad blocking is a consequence of advertisers having taken advantage of that relationship in recent years.

It's time to make amends, and quick. Connecting through real emotion may be the answer, but doing that consistently and at scale is no mean feat.

Why community management matters in social

Christina Miller from VML has nailed it on the head in a piece penned for Digiday.

Content is still king, but community management is queen

She argues that brands spend countless hours and dollars creating content that speaks to their target audiences on social media, but while engaging and relevant content is important, it can only take the brand so far.

'Community management is the personal touch. It’s how the brand can show it cares and can create a more intimate relationship with its audience through thoughtful one-on-one interactions.'

She goes on to make the point that brands that truly embrace social understand the importance of customer service, are poised to respond swiftly and with care, but also seize positive endorsement and amplify it quickly.

It reminded me of a deck we pulled together a few years back to explain, initially internally, what social media was all about and why it should matter to everyone at Asda regardless of function or job title.

It's fair to say our strategy evolved over time based on trial and error, and was driven out of PR not marketing.

We learnt as we went.

But on reflection it also became clear that our successful approach was based on a very sound formula.

Listen. Engage. Influence.

I'll never forget being asked to present by our then chief operating officer to the Operations Board.

A group of hard nosed retail operators, who'd all grown up in stores at the real front end of customer service not the virtual world of social media.

There was a hefty degree of cynicism in the room as I entered.

Rather than try and sell the benefits of Facebook, I started with stories of why and how we got involved at first.

Twitter was exploding. A free focus group of customers talking about our brand in real time.

Good, bad and ugly. A true reflection of our reputation, what people say about you when you leave the room.

And an early warning device that enabled the PR team to fix issues before they escalated into a crisis. Countless examples of pricing errors, advertising slip ups, or simply well connected angry customers who we got to quickly and handled well hence negating a potential  PR story.

Twitter alone was helping us stay one step ahead of the media.

If nothing else, the bare minimum now for brands I told them was to listen.

"So it's not just people taking about what they had for their tea?", said one. Precisely.

I still firmly believe you only have the right to engage on positive territory with your customers if you are doing the basics of listening well.

Yet all too often you see glossy marketing campaigns on social media that simply ignore the noise already out there.

Everyone wants to jump to the engage and influence phase without having first mastered the basics.

Social media is, as Christina points out, made for conversations — a way to connect with the people around you.

'Brands won’t be successful if they’re just talking at the audience by pushing out content; they should be talking with the audience through the extension of community management. It humanizes the brand and creates relationships with fans.'

I couldn't agree more.

Christina Miller is a senior channel manager at VML, a global marketing agency.

Letting girls be girls, Barbie dolls included

I'm a dad of two girls. One aged nine the other fast approaching seven.

Even at their tender ages you can hear the occasional worry about how they look.

Am I too thin? Too small? I wish my hair was longer, shorter, darker, lighter.

But how much of this anxiety is driven by a comment at school, and how much is a result of the pressure of growing up in a social media fuelled environment?

After all, my girls are part of the first ever generation to have never known a world without YouTube and Instagram.

Two stories caught my eye this morning.

The first is a rather troubling account from an Australian teenager who has quit social media having created huge followings by posting, as it turns out, fake illustrations of her perfect life.

Essena O'Neill is quoted by the BBC saying:

"I've also spent hours watching perfect girls online, wishing I was them. When I became 'one of them', I still wasn't happy, content or at peace with myself."

Perhaps not surprisingly the glossy exterior covered up a real girl who was experiencing all the usual self doubt and need for reassurance any child needs when growing up.

Hers was self-inflicted to some extent having become addicted to the immediate response and recognition that 250,000 followers gives you.

Contrast that however with another young successful female blogger called Zoe, who openly talks about her anxiety and posts videos without make-up.

Recently Davina McColl made a point of recognising why Zoella (her online persona) was a role model she was proud of.

Quoted in the Standard she explained why.

"Zoella talks about anxiety and she talks about things she’s worried about. She’s such a cute looking girl but she shows herself with no makeup on, and with pimples, and I love her for that because these little girls, my kids, really look up to her and think she’s a great role model.”

The other story that stood out this morning was a new campaign by Mattel for their Barbie doll.

Will Burns, writing in Forbes, outlines how Barbie Dolls have had a brand image problem the last couple decades and an acute sales problem the last few years.

He goes on to say: "The brand image problem relates to the unrealistic body image that a typical Barbie Doll presents to children..."

But makes the important distinction, that 'when we see a child playing with a Barbie Doll it’s not a buxom babe projecting negative influence onto the child. It’s imagination at work, a blank slate, a world of possibilities shaped like a doll.'

In other words it is us as adults projecting our view of what our kids see, not in fact what they are imagining.

The Mattel ad that he then links to is a brilliant piece of storytelling. Combining neatly the real life reactions of adults to kids roleplaying imaginary careers. It's well worth a look.

Will adds: 'the film squarely positions the Barbie Doll as a conduit for the development of a child’s self image. A professor, a veterinarian, a business woman. Not a bimbo, as many adults have been conditioned to believe, but a business woman.

'Because make no mistake. This film is targeted to parents, not kids.'

These two contrasting stories highlight for me the importance of letting kids be kids. Whilst always emphasising positive role models and real life.

I overheard my eldest saying a boy at school said girls can't do x, y, z with a football. Cue her immediately proving him wrong. That's my girl.

Never let anyone tell you what boys or girls can or cannot do. You can do anything you want.

Words I must live by myself in that case, including letting her play with her sister and their ever growing collection of dolls or watch endless Zoella and Alfie videos.

Declared interest: In my day job for Asda I work closely with the talent management company Gleam that represents Zoella and a number of other vloggers.

At another crossroads

I daren't start this blog by saying I'm at a some kind of a crossroads.

I've seemingly been at more crossroads in recent years than Benny and his wooly hat (a cryptic reference unless you are of a certain age).

Anyhow, I'm at a reflection point let's put it that way.

(As a quick aside, as I write this I'm currently sat in Dragon's Den playcentre in Keighley. The incessant pop drivel blaring out of the cheap crackly speakers is hard to ignore. But ignore I must as this blog is itching to get out.)

My dad once told me if you find a job you love son, you'll never work another day in your life.

I thought he was very clever.

And his wise words stayed with me for more than twenty years helping guide many of the career decisions I made.

When he officially retired from Queen's University I got the chance to address him and his fellow boffins.

In a hall reminiscent of something out of Harry Potter I recounted how proud I was of my father and what a privilege it was to do a speech to him and his contemporaries in such prestigious surroundings.

When growing up I'd always judged his cleverness by how much facial hair he and his colleagues had.

All academics back then had beards. Proper wild beards. Not the trendy Shoreditch type you see on the hipsters these days.

I recounted that on one of my dad's work trips to China I'd stumbled across quotes from Confucius.

He'd been telling me how his over enthusiastic hosts had entertained him all day, and he was completely shattered. He'd visited the home of Confucius.

Prompting me to Google said philosopher.

Lo and behold, as we exchanged emails this popped up on Google.

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

Confucius Born: 551 BC, died: 479 BC

http://mobile.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/confucius134717.html

My dad, a professor of chemical catalysis, who had always jokingly said I'd done a degree in bullshit (public relations) was a professional blagger himself.

Anyway, I digress. Whether it was Confucius or Prof Robbie Burch, the idea of enjoying what you do in your working life is such an important aspect of being happy.

What's more if you are passionate about it, your job can become a vocation in life.

As someone who is not particularly motivated by money, or status, or title, being passionate about what I do is key.

I love to be creative. To try new things out. To take chances on stuff.

A conversation on Twitter this morning reminded me of how I describe innovation. 

"Spotting an opportunity or a problem that needs solving, having an idea, giving it a try, measuring if it worked, if it did crack on, if it didn't what did you learn. Repeat."

I love doing that.

So as I look forward and consider what I should do next, I am determined to ensure the path I choose has plenty of fun on either side of it.

BTW, if one of my team is reading this and is wondering where I'm off to, don't worry. I'm not going anywhere in a rush.

But as a 41 year old, mid way between starting out at Prudential at 18 all those years ago and retirement at 65 (hopefully) it seems a good moment to pause for thought.

And if all else fails I guess I can go back to my former life as a professional bullshitter eh dad?

My top tips for a successful career in PR or marketing

It's scary to think about it, but I started my degree 21 years ago.

I was trained in PR, seems a bit funny saying it like that, but it's true.

I went to a former polytechnic, Leeds Metropolitan University, now renamed Leeds Beckett I think. The course as a result was deliberately vocational.

Anyway since graduating in 1998 I've spent the last 17 years in a variety of comms roles at Green Flag, Direct Line and Asda.

The land of the pocket tappers has never been dull.

Having started there back in 2002 initially looking after food and farming, I was lucky enough to take up roles including head of PR and head of social media.

More recently I've overseen marketing innovation, helping explore new revenue opportunities for Asda. That's included leading a team that has built a pipeline of new digital assets to unlock investment from FMCG brands who value having access to Asda's 18m households.

I've also overseen the transformation of Asda.com's adserving capability, which in the coming months will enable Asda to become a credible media publisher.

And I've built Mum's Eye View on YouTube, capturing 11m views since launch in under 18 months.

I was asked by The Drum recently what keeps me awake at night. Truth is very little (other than my six year old), but the work thing I ponder about most in those quiet moments is how brands are going to make the transition from mass market, broadcast media, to targeted, content driven comms, but at the scale they need and crave.  No-one has cracked the nut yet.

In fact for many brands they are yet to embrace digital, let alone understand how to harness it.

The abyss is just round the corner, but by the time they wake up and realise they need to change it could be too late.

It's an old adage but you no longer need a digital strategy, your strategy needs to be fit for the digital age.

If you're reading this and just starting out on your career in PR or marketing, these are my top tips:

1. Never stop being inquisitive.

2. Network, network and network some more.

3. Be healthily paranoid that your assumptions could be wrong.

4. Take a chance once in a while, but be humble when it goes wrong.

5. Learn from your set backs.

6. Find a good mentor.

7. And then coach others in return.

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