Good day today.
I have got everything ready for the Board meeting, which is planned to take place virtually with Clive in China after the Youth pitch tomorrow morning.
Really pleased with the effort put in for tomorrows pitch. I think the creative is amazing, especially given the timeframes and Andy has been a huge help here, although he has been able to build on the great work already done by the team.
It’s always a nice feeling when you have a presentation you are looking forward to giving
8am and the buzzer went, which is most unusual at Global Beach as they are not the earliest risers! It was, of course, our new Creative Director Andy Paterson-Jones whose arrival I have been eagerly awaiting for a couple of weeks.
Andy has already been helping us on a number of projects we have been working on and we have a pretty full on week this week. We have a second meeting with a Youth Charity here on Wednesday morning which requires quite a bit of Andy and my time but that will be time we enjoy giving as it is a really interesting project it would be fantastic to win.
Off to Crewe again on Thursday to start a planning process for the year with Bentley and then we have an introduction meeting on Friday with Juliet from AAR whom I know from previous agency life, as well as a number of new business opportunity meetings.
It will soon be Friday before I know it…
As you may have read I am in the process of finalising the new business plan and vision for the agency. The Chairman sent me a clipping with a quote from the Bentley Chairman over the weekend. It read “We have to deliver what our customers are looking for and not create technologies which are then searching for customers that want them”. Not a bad mission statement for all of us…
I have been head down on a new project for Bentley which we are presenting today. And like the last time I added a post on here what a beautiful sunny day for a presentation in the countryside!
As well as this I have been working on our new business plan and more recently our mission statement. I have had a habit of using that old movie line ‘if you build it they will come’ in many of my internet ramblings over the years and I tried it again yesterday only to have Stuart rightly cross it out.
The world has, of course, moved on since I last ran an agency. It is now much more about developing an idea and then working within all of the different channels where people will interact with that idea. Viral, social, online, mobile etc. I am slowly starting to distil this into a mission statement we can be proud of and hang our virtual hats on.
So without further ado, a first airing…
Intelligent Interaction
We help our clients manage their brands in a digital world
Consumers now have many ways of interacting with a brand. Knowing how to retain an influence over this interaction is where we come in…
Answers on a postblog please
7:30am on a beautiful chilly, but sunny, Spring morning in London and I’m at my desk with a big smile on my face. That smile has been there pretty much every day, with a few exceptions, since returning to agency life. I bloody love it and I’d forgotten how much I do love it.
My Nano is plugged into one of our clients, Bowers and Wilkins, fantastic Zeppelin Ipod Speaker systems . For those of you who are like me and only know Bowers & Wilkins because of the Zeppelin they are an amazing British company making some fantastically innovative audio equipment. Check out their new surround sound Panorama system that we have launched on the website today.
I have always loved starting work at this time of the morning. The phones don’t ring and the office is quiet allowing me to get my thoughts together for the day ahead as the staff start to drift in for our 9am start. This morning I have a new business catch up with one of my closest friends who is helping us build our pipeline. This has been sorely neglected and is one of my highest priorities. With the reputation and experience Global Beach have we should be appearing on many more companies radars when they are looking for a digital agency.
I then have a kickoff meeting for a new Bentley project. Bentley!!! I still keep pinching myself. I may only drive a people carrier but I definitely got goose bumps when the cab taking me from Crewe station pulled up outside the gates at Bentley. I was made to feel very welcome and the whole experience took me back to the days when I ran the Waitrose accountat my old agency. Being in the canteen with all the workers sitting down to lunch around us was a real sense of déjà vu.
After that I have a catch up with Clive to discuss how I am getting on against my 7, 30 and 90 day plan (Pretty good I think but you can always do better). One of the discussion points is going to be personnel and what skill sets I think we require to be the strategic and creative agency I want us to be. Having worked in this industry since 1996 I already have my feelers out amongst old contacts and the first post I am looking to fill is Creative Director. On that more next time…..
Then Lara and I are heading over to Kings Cross to firstly discuss a new project we are about to launch for Terrance Higgins Trust and then one of my favourite things, presenting new designs for a brand new project for the same client.
Being that I live in Bethnal Green I will probably G-Wizz it home from Kings Cross and work on the Business Plan I am writing before finishing the day with a call to Matt Passey in our Los Angeles office to discuss ways we can help each other.
Not bad for a days work and I might even find time for a bit of twittering and Facebook catch-up, despite Lara’s scepticism. Like Lara I may not want to know about my mates dissolving earwax but that’s my choice. The beauty of mediums like Twitter is you choose what it is you are interested in, not the other way around.
