NORTHERN PLANNER

One thing I was thinking about while was away was doing what you do as well as you possibly can.

I think I’m doing a talk on swimming at The Interesting conference, and while I may ask for help later, I already know it will be about the joy of doing something well.

So what has this to do with planning? Well…I love this little corner of the web. I love all those ideas, and being able to discuss it with so many people. I love being able to rub shoulders with those far more talented than I.

But learning about the latest thinking isn’t enough to make you a great planner in my opinion. It keeps you fresh, gives something something tougher to chew of course, but it doesn’t help you with the basics, with the REAL day job, which is far less theory and far more work and rigour.

It’s easy to find a blog that rejects brand frameworks, but it’s a lot harder to find one that explains what they are. And in the real world, unfortunately, many clients still want stuff like this. It may be trendy to avoid research these days, but it’s still a big part of planning and can be bloody useful if it’s done well. I still think the best place to start with stuff like this is Truth Lies and Advertising. Aaaaanyway….

I was doing some groups with Stu the other week. We had some creative routes we thought we’re pretty bang on and wanted to check. All the ideas bombed. Totally. Quite a few researchers I’ve come accross would have stopped there. We didn’t. We knew there was something we weren’t getting. We probed, we chatted, we got them to draw, we all worked together. And at the end, we got a proper insight, the kind of stuff that seems so obvious when you have it. All from a group that didn’t like the creative work.

And it felt good (and yes it was only a focus group – not the most fashionable thing to do)just like the beautiful simplicity of frontcrawl, or the perfect marriage of timing and power that’s the tennis serve . Not just going through motions, working hard on the basics.

Just like the work Stu developed as a result. Not an ad really, a piece of commercial film you want to watch again. Something people will actually enjoy seeing. You can tell that people liked making this,not just making a quid. You can see Stu got the best out of everyone. There is a single second that took half a day to shoot. It shows. No one will notice, but that’s the point. Real craft, putting everything you’ve got into making something great. Loving to do something well. Not stopping ’till you’re happy.

That’s what excites me about what I do. Not just the clever theory, but rather the sheer beauty in proper rigour, the unexpected thrills from the simplest of tasks done well. It’s the same as why I love swimming (I’m better at swimming though) and you don’t have to work at a fashionable or large agency, with the correct post code to do it.  These things reminded me of that. Thought you might like to know.