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.
