NORTHERN PLANNER

I'm not sure anyone can really have a favourite song, not really. Maybe a top 10, although I struggle to even narrow down my top 10 albums.

This however is my favourite at the moment. 

 

The video is pretty close to the released audio version. There are many reasons I like this track.

Some of it is to do with deceptive cadence, where you don't realise how much a song is building pace and tension until the crescendo hits.

It's like when I get on a bike after a tough day and didn't realise how much tension was building up until I can't stop pedalling like crazy, despite the lava agony flowing through my legs.

Some of it is the story in the song It reminds me of something that happened to me a long time ago and something that happened to me more recently. 

What's truly amazing though, the original version is just ok. It was on an early album, same lyrics, same chords. Just none of drama, none of the sheer SOARING this version achieves.

That's worth bearing in mind if you're doing presentations or crafting creative work. It's not the components, the execution is everything.

I saw them play live earlier this year, the last gig I went to before lockdown. I was with my best friend, last time we saw each other for four months. I'll never forget how it felt when they played this and it reached the crescendo.

Some things are correct, and good. Some things just go deeper and connect. I think it's worth chasing the latter. 

There's too much experience out there, we're all a bit numb really aren't we? When you find whatever it might be that makes you feel something, eventually you realise you need to work for it, fight for it and protect it when you’re lucky enough to attain it. You risk it hurting or falling down around your ears, but if it’s really worth it, well it’s worth it.

If you find whatever makes you feel something, fight for it with all you have. If it doesn’t work out, at least you know. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So yesterday I swam in a lake. After pining for swimming in water and finding a pool not, I don't know, visceral enough, I decided to engage in the open water swimming sub-culture. 

And it really is some sort of secret society, or at least the Leeds version is.

A Facebook group you need to be accepted into, codes for names of the lakes you swim in, yet open arms for those who are willing to be inducted into the ways of the force.

I went swimming in 'Carolines' which to the laypeople, is a lake in a nature reserve on the far outskirts of Leeds. A kind soul offered to take me on my first adventure, simply to assist with the small codes and rituals you need to adhere to.

The biggest dilemma was wetsuit or not. This was the hottest day in August for ages. Added to this was the context that this little cult is divided between the moderates and the zealots. The moderates are happy to feel they are getting something more real than a chlorinated pool, while the zealots follow the one true path, where anyone foregoing bare skin is somehow lesser.

Sod it, it was hot anyway, bare skin it is.

Before you think its all weird, these little rituals and subtle ways of initiation matter.

I ride my bike. A lot. No one told me you don't wear lycra bib shorts without pants. That's right, those middle aged men in lycra are going commando, usually with a good dose of chamois cream (arse butter) to boot. In certain cycling circles, men without shaven legs 'just don't get it'.

(I don't care that you know I shave my legs, after one horrible crash, I skidded across 20 metres of tarmac and experienced a month of sleepless nights, as the layer of skin trying to grow back on my leg was hampered by the ooze of matted hair. Ever since then, it's all been whipped off. Attractive no?)

Before you decide to read something a lot less like a fetish website, I presume you're here because you're something to do with brands and agencies.

Consider the hidden rituals in your own tribe. Look at the uniforms in the, supposedly original creative department. Go to an all agency meeting for the first time and try and understand the acronyms cheerfully thrown about. We all love to belong to tribes, its just who we are. Some just take it further than others.

I digress. 

This is what you are greeted with when you arrive at 'Carolines'. 

It takes your breathe away.

And into the water I go, The sensation of the mud and reeds underfoot totally new. The cold water refreshing in a way the chorinated version can never be.

Skin is water proof, but nevertheless, the fresh water penetrates the outer layer and invigorates the soul.

I dive in properly. Then swim. Really swim. The cold takes your breathe away, but you keep going. Swimming is an natural to me as breathing, but experiencing it here was like doing it for the first time. Usually, it takes a while to loosen up, to really feel the water. 

Not today.

I do a circuit around the edge of the lake. It's about a mile and a half. At one point I have to swim around swans. I'm doing front crawl full pace, cutting through the water, the sun in my eyes and the cold on my skin. I zip past other folks, I'm not racing them, I'm just doing my own thing. Somehow more present in the moment than I've been for a while.

Everything feels different, yet exactly the same.

It's magical. 

By the time I do a full circuit, I have that familiar ache in my arms and shoulders. What's new, is the sense of feeling cleansed.

The cold has seeped into my bones. So when I'm done, I just sit on the grass and let the sun warm me. 

What did I like?

We're all bit jaded these days, even though I arrived with someone and joined a group, it just felt more real. It was just me, the cold, the sun in my eyes and the feeling of the water. 

I liked the feeling of doing something the usual people don't. You know when you like a band and it becomes really popular and ruined for you? It feels like 'somewhere only we know'.

Mostly though, I was born to swim. I've never lost that joy of doing something well. Doing it in a different context made me discover it all over again, like a renewing wedding vows or something. 

I'll be back. 

 

 

 

 

I became  became a planner after failing in client services.

I was always late and got the invoices wrong, just about surviving thanks to Writing briefs, annoying creative people with common sense, that type of thing. Thankfully someone told me I was a really bad suit but had the makings of a planner.

How this turned out is for others to judge.

It's fair to say I had to learn on the job, I wasn't brought up on the classical rules. So I didn't understand the need for a workshop to crack every single brief – I still don't to some degree. It took me a while to get my head around brand frameworks, overly long comms strategy process, endless rounds of research to tell you what you can find out by simply going out and talking to real people. 

This led to one or two bumps in the road. I've lost count of the times a could see an answer to something, yet it was mysteriously swallowed up by the monster known as 'proprietary process'. Over time, you learn to fit your voice to what others expect, yet retain your way of thinking and working. Seriously, it doesn't matter how good your work is if no one feels able to buy it.Them are the breaks. 

I wish I hadn't the retained the fear of being found out to some degree. We all have imposter syndrome, but learning on the job ramps this up exponentially. I'm always looking over my shoulder, waiting to be found out.

Without that doubt though, I'm not sure I would still feel like I can contribute something and move things forward. That's the point of doubt and fear, it keeps you sharp, as long as you can control it. 

I used to race at swimming and used to beat more naturally talented youngsters because I just trained harder. I've seen so much talent fall foul of complacency, I've learned to welcome the fear of not being good enough. 

With that in mind, let me share of truth about how everyone really works. It's simple really, don't believe the case studies, embrace hard work and messiness. 

Case studies and process are designed to make everything look predictable and professional. They are also designed to tell a story, usually, a progressive complication, a moment of crisis, a resolution and then it's all good. This bears little resemblance to the truth.  For me certainly and for most of the people I've worked with.

It's more like my experience of sport, specifically training. When I used to get into a freezing pool to do swim training as a teenager, nothing would work for the first few minutes. I was cold, stiff, the water didn't feel good around me and I wanted to be in bed.

Then I got through the warm up and things felt a bit better. Then we did the first hard set and though it didn't feel good, it didn't feel bad. After this would be the killer hard block and it would hurt so much you couldn't focus on anything but the pain in your shoulders, the fire in your lungs and the next lap. Then suddenly you stopped thinking at all, you didn't notice the pain, or you came to terms with it at least, and you enjoyed the sensation of doing something you knew others mostly could not.

In other words, I worked until something clicked. The more I did it, the more I was confident the click would always come. It did mostly. Those times it didn't, well that's when you find out about yourself. Willpower works in short bursts at least. 

That's how I work too. There's no flash of insight, no foolproof process that works every time.

I hate starting a new project, I fear I won't get the answer,  that it won't make sense, that I'll get found out despite having done this for years. I welcome it now, since it makes me bang my head against a brick wall, reading, writing things down, knocking stuff around until, finally something clicks. 

Not the answer, not the pristine insight or proposition or whatever. Something that works, I might not be able to articulate yet, that's a long way off, but I still get a wave of relief it will be OK after all. Then it's the graft to reduce, edit, precise, distill to get something watertight and exciting. 

I know the click will come if I'm prepared to work for it.

Fear and self doubt are potent tools if you can control them, rather letting then control you. Sometimes I think that's the difference between experienced people and those still learning.

No actually, the difference is those with experience understand, like a Great White Shark, if you stop moving forward you're done for, fear is a great way to stop that happening. 

I think that's why I'm able to accept and welcome curve balls in my life, even at 46. Change may be forced on you sometimes, it can be terrifying, but from that can appear all sorts of things you never expected, and they can wonderful. 

I'm the clumsiest person you'll ever (or probably never) come across. To the point where if I meet someone new and it involves a beverage, I'll warn them they're likely to have it accidentally thrown all over them sooner rather than later. 

Be warned. 

Yet, when I get in the water, everything works. It's like I was born in the wrong ecosystem, maybe I'm really Aquaman, who knows. All I can say is that when I start doing a few strokes, things just start to fall into place.

So during lockdown, I've ached for swimming. Having pools taken away from me has been tough.

My parents live by the sea, not being able to see them was bad enough, not being near the sea for so long is difficult too. 

Now of course, we're allowed back into pools. So first chance available, I was bashing out as many laps as I could before I feared my arms would fall off.

When I used to race, there was never a day when my shoulders and arms didn't ache from all the training.  Having that pain back was welcome reminder of who I am, or at least who I was. No, definitely who I am, that person does't disappear, he’s just dormant. 

Swimming re-arranges me, pure and simple. 

But the sea, the sea. The tang of salt in your nostrils, the feel of pushing against the current, the sensation of smallness against the vastness of the ocean, the restorative cold, the shocking pain of the first icy grip that loosens into pleasant ache. 

I didn't realise how much I crave the sea until I wasn't allowed to be near it.

So it's with relief I can report I'm finally taking the kids to see my parents next week, to Cornwall. I can already see that first morning running down the hill, the three of use have body boards under our arms, ready to thrown ourselves into the waves.

That said, I've realised this is still not enough. While the pools were still closed, I began to investigate open water swimming closer to home.

I soon discovered a whole subculture of folks living a double life. Normal people with normal lives and jobs, who also happen to swim in lakes, almost right under my nose.

Sometimes it's legal, some times it isn't, but it's like a secret society, a cult who love doing something the usual people do not. They relish the visceral thrill of diving into real, bloody cold water, they way it stirs the soul as well the body. I realised I want that too.

So I'm going to start quietly driving to some of the lakes near me, getting in and seeing what happens. I don't know what will come of it, but there's only one way to find out isn't there?

I know I'll enjoy the deeper experience, I expect I'll enjoy being a quiet rebel, but mostly, I'll just love swimming under the sky more often. 

I'll still do the pool a bit, I simply can't give up the pain and suffering of cycling, but just want to try this too.

I've found that trying something new doesn't change you, it reveals something inside that was always there. Just as meeting certain people can give you a fresh perspective on who you are and who you want to be.

I suspect the yearning to do this is like that, you might want to call it a mid-life crisis, you might be right, but I just kind of think there are parts of be that haven't been given a voice yet. It takes getting to a certain point in your life to understand this. So let's what the voices want to say. 

 

The fast food industry prioritises speed, convenience and price over flavour. This is fine, this makes money.

This is really easy to compete with though, if you're prepared to put the work in, for the right people. 

With flavour. Like the cafe I work near.

Coffee made from outstanding beans, brewed with love. Tea served in a warm pot. Food you can taste. 

It's just re-opened and customers are making a special effort to come back, spending more because they want them to survive.

Agencies and clients are a bit like this.

There will always be clients who want the equivalent of Starbucks. Lots of work that's been flattened. All the highs and lows taken out, precise, pre-planned. Just okay.

Then there are the others, less of them, who don't just want to throw money at the problems, or kill it with analytics. They want stuff that can instantly change minds, cut-through all the shit out there. Stuff that really works, rather than just ticks boxes.

Stuff with flavour.

We need more work with flavour right now. Popular culture, what we really compete with, has never been so rich and full. Not with rampant creativity alone, stuff that strikes a nerve, resonates with you, makes you think. 

Clients like this are harder to come by, they tend to be more demanding, but I tell you want, they're much better to work for. You feel you're making something something worthwhile, rather than something you can tick.

You have to work at these relationships, you have to care more, but it's more rewarding, short-term and long term. 

I venture these are the clients sticking with their agencies at the moment, where they can. 

When most, of course, are not. 

 

You may or may not know I love tea.

Made properly, in the pot. Three minutes brewing as a minimum.

I've often thought it's little rituals that get you through the day, this is one of mine.

I also think you can tell a lot about the person through the little things.

Same goes for clients and agencies.

I can count on one hand the organisations I've worked with who didn't pay a little attention to a decent beverage, and turned out to be OK. Confirmation bias? Probably. 

It's also why I think you should surround yourself with quality.

Great people, great tea bags, good mugs, great books and other reference, great coffee beans, great music (on decent speakers). It just rubs off on you somehow. 

Put another way people who you can see have standards, well, have standards. 

So it's a great joy to me that my children love a decent cup of tea. 

In lockdown, our morning ritual is having that first cuppa together.

They are also getting into decent espresso coffee. By which I mean decaf, and before you pull me up on decaf espresso, try these beans first. 

Goes for zoom too, the more effort you put how you come across in video, the better you look. Just saying!