Read this quote. It's from a fellow called Julian KYnaston. He runs a big-ish agency outside London: “We tried to distill down what we felt agencies will be facing in this tough climate and we came up with a one liner, that ‘clients need better strategic advice faster’. “I have not been a fan of…

Like a lot of planners I know, I never intended to be a planner, it sort of just happened. After graduating and coasting nicely as a personal trainer, I had a vague idea that I wanted to work in an advertising agency. I started out as a suit, failed at that and realised I was…

The Yorkshire Tea School of the Web project isn't quite finished. Stephanie Kelly's entry got lost somewhere between her inbox and mine. So we're going to take a look at her entry today. This is the very last post before Gareth or Rob pick up the next project. Stephanie's focused on some rock hard truths about tea drinking. I love…

So. after much delay, finally we have the results for the Yorkshire Tea Account Planning School of the web task. Just in case you can’t recall what it was about, read this. If you can’t be bothered… This was a task about tone and manner – the hardest thing to get across to creatives. I…

Had to go to Geneva for a couple of days last week, for something or other. I was quite shocked to find that Mel travel bag was smaller than mine. Poses a big question about my masculinity no? Always good to go travelling with a suit, you don’t have to organise a thing. Mel was…

All the entries are in, looks like people have worked very hard. Results and feedback will appear two weeks today (3rd November). Helping on the judging will be Steve Groves, one of the account directors here. Good to get a suit perspective for a change. Steve takes a dim view of planners – as far…

The very first patent for a typewriter was given out in the 1860’s for QWERTY keyboard. It was specifically designed to make people type slowly, ensuring the commonest letters were scattered around the left hand side to confound the majority of right handers.  thus avoiding keys jamming by being too quickly. It became so entrenched…

So I was at the IPA Fast Strategy conference last week. Like others, I had and have my doubts on  the merits of this. The best ideas tend to emerge over time, you need space to not think about something etc. BUT we, and most certainly I, live in a world where out time is…

You may have seen me get into a little local trouble a short while ago, over a badly written post about different agency departments being, well, different. I was glad when all that blew over…. Then I read this post. Or, to be more specific, the comments. Obviously memories are long, assuming it’s to do…

So it was the Northern at The Northern on Thursday night. Everyone turned up,along with a few new faces. It was lovely to meet Sarah again, along with Ian who got my old job. Yet again, too little time to talk to everyone, but there you go. It was particularly nice to see Young Mortimer…