Tuesday 12 March 2013

All quiet on the freelance front

After nearly 2 years of solid freelancing I seem to have hit somewhat of a void. In the past 4 weeks I have had a weeks work doing some holiday cover, and 2 interviews with actual ad agencies (not just with headhunters). It seems I am not the only one so I know it is an industry wide void, it happens this time of year every year but I have always been lucky.

But on the plus side it gave me time to see the kids at the School of Communications, catch up with friends and do some OCD house work (EVERYTHING got moved and cleaned!).

That's enough of my riviting unemployment...

Tuesday 5 March 2013

Spending time with the kids (School of Communications)


Today I took a day and gave it to the School of Communications Arts. They have a Mentor scheme where professionals from the advertising world give up whatever time you can and pop down to their School in Brixton and spend time with the students.

They get briefs from real clients or agencies and they come up with ideas and present them to the clients just as they would in the real world. The Dean Marc Lewis is very hands-on and it is a great environment for the teams to learn and grow.

The students are encouraged to work in teams and change teams often with the plan of leaving the school with a permanent partner, experience working on live briefs and the learnings and encouragements of the team.

The kids have so much energy and I was impressed with each and every team I met with and the passion and conviction behind every idea was so infectious - no matter how simple or embryonic.

I had a brilliant day and would certainly go back and spend a day with these inspirational kids.

Certainly knocked a bit of the cynicism I had build up all these years out of me.