NORTHERN PLANNER

So, back to work. Grumpilly got out of bed after sleeping in too late, thought about rushing in, had a long bath instead in some sort of last act of defiance.

Then I thought back to the New Year when I didn’t have a job to to go back to. That useless, helpless feeling, while the rest of the world starts moving again is a whole lot worse believe me. Then I went back into the depths of time, when I wasa temping graduate –  selling plumbing and drainage insurance over the phone wasn’t much fun either. So despite wishing I was back in bed, I’ll be grateful with my lot. At least until lunchtime.

Like Rob, I’ve got too much to do before Friday, so this is the last post, Happy Christmas.

Since I’m off to Mum’s I’ll be stuffing myself silly, which won’t be hard since she always does too much, like Mum’s should.

Gemma has given me a spiffing pressie already. Along with a fiver’s sponsorship for doing my swimming thing, she’s given me a planning ruler, with special templates to create flowcharts on the move. Thanks Gemma.

One New Years resolution will be to write on Lets see what happens more now the swimming challenge is done, but I’m doing a mile swim in Newlyn Bay this summer and my nephew must not beat me. We’ll see.

One Woman Running has tagged me. As a result, I have to post five things you probably don’t know about me – so that precludes drivel about tea, coffee, science and Star Wars.

1. I’m right handed but I play pool left handed, although I’m okay using the right too. This means I never have to use the rest for those tricky shots you usually can’t reach

2. When I’m alone and no one else is around I enjoy playing Manic Monday by the Bangles (I also sing Britney Spears when drunk, but Marcus and Famous Rob already know that)

3. When I eat fish and chips I must have three slices of buttered bread with it. I’ll make a sandwich out chips, then another out of fish and chips. Finally, I’ll make a bigger sandwich out of fish. No one in the world will use more ketchup than me

4. I got by at university doing the bare minimum. When it came to my finals, I realised I hadn’t done enough work and revised day and night. This was going okay until it I realised that I had got the time wrong for the South African Politics sitting. Since it was the next morning –  not next week as I thought –  I stayed up all night and just about had enough in my head to get through. When I got to the exam, my nose exploded, literally jetting blood. The doctor said I had got so stressed my blood pressure just went haywire.

5. When I was young I used to be a good swimmer, but I wanted to good at tennis. I was one of those kids that bought the ridiculous Andre Agassi denim shorts/cycle shorts combo – in pink. I wanted to be like him so much I ended up bald as well.

I now have to tag five more people to let you into 5 of their secrets:

First up in Rob Campbell, he’s fiercely clever and firecely opionated, so it should be entertaining. He’s having Christmas off blogging, but it should be worth the wait.

Famous Rob Mortimer can give us some scoops before he sells them to Hello magazine – if he cab drag himself away from his new Wii that is.

Scamp needs no introduction, but from  my point of view, it’s great to hear from the creative side, and takes the time to share stuff that’s useful for us all, from aspiring creatives to cynical planners. If only more suits read stuff like this..

Scott’s views the world in an odd way. For a PR luvvie, he’s surprisingly interesting.

Finally, I’m tagging Helen, who makes me think about all sorts of things, and manages to write beautifully while she does it.

If I get tagged again I’ll tell you about how many slices I can eat at the Pizza Hut all you can eat buffet.

Q. What do Ikea and Volvo have in common?

A. The Swedish trust both more than the Church

Saw this in the office.

In Pr Week this week, there’s an article on how the PR sector is losing out on word of mouth marketing, just like it failed to "seize ownership" of the internet as a comms tool. Now I’m not being funny, but isn’t PR supposed to be ABOUT word of mouth? Maybe trying to "seize ownership" instead of being part of a team could be the problem…

Meanwhile, heres an example of getting consumers to do your marketing for you.

This postcard was on Beccy’s cabinet at work, she loved the hamsters on TV enough to actually pick this up from somewhere, I see it and I’m thinking of swapping banks…you get the picture.

Someone at work read this blog for the first time this week, she got interested (easilly pleased) and read the whole thing, starting with the latest post and finishing with the first. The feedback was interesting and largely okay.

Apparently it’s a lot different from the beginning in April. At first it was a bit unsure of itself and talked about what it thought people wanted to hear. Then it started to get a rythm and momentum, it seemed to gain the confidence to say what it really thought. Since October -ish, it’s got all reflective. I never really thought about this before, but it really does take a while to feel confident about putting your thoughts up here, at least for me. Looking back I can see how posts reflect my frame of mind at that time, whether I like it or not. I never thought blogging would tell you things about yourself, but looking back it really does.

I’m naturally a shy person, until I get to know people, or feel confident with what I’m doing, I tend avoid saying much and listen. A younger version of me would always apologise   before speaking in meetings. Now I feel I know enough to have a right to speak. Blogging has been a bit like that, I feel happier about thinking out loud now. So love it or hateit, I’m going to carry on.

Even worse than my sad breathing Darth Vader thing from Empire, Helen has exposed my obsession with science. Not content,  I’m going to make it worse by admitting I love working on apparently dull products or services. Anyone can sell trainers, but when you have to make boring stuff interesting, it’s a real challenge. My favourite client (not down to the marketing manager’s resemblance to Wonder Woman of course), used to sell computer software to labs, not only was it a kick to produce some great B2B advertising for them it was a personal Matterhorn to understand what the hell the product actually did.

I’ve already mentioned that I learned loads working on homebuilding, considered the career graveyard by some. Not is it great practice, doing strategy on the stuff no one else wants to provides a chance to try new stuff while no one is looking. You’ll also get the undying gratitude of the creative teams you’ll be working with, since they’ll escape the mind clamp of boredom and will be able to try something new too.

I think that ads and design can be a useful singpost for what’s happening in our culture, sometimes they can influence them of course. Some people I know actually use ad breaks to get a flavour for what’s going on.

I know a lot of architects that think like this too. Of course they’re building things for people to live and work in, but they do more than that. The aesthetics of a building can have a profound effect on how you feel, or what you think about a place. When I think of city, or even country, I remember three things: the people, the food and the buildings.

They can add to, enrich your environment, or they can ruin it. Even worse, they can just ‘be there’.

I saw these quotes from beck’s futures and really liked them:

• The duty of an architect is to make it beautiful
• Beauty if the promise of happiness
• The best buildings make us sad: they remind us how incomplete and compromised the rest of our lives are
• A good building is like a good piece of music, it can make us cry
• The world will only become beautiful when property developers become architects

This taxi driver was marginally funny the other week. He got very, very lost, and he had an asphyxiating cocktail of air fresheners. As soon as I Stu giggling to himself, I couldn’t help joining in . The harder I tried to stop, the worse it got, especially when Kirsten joined in. How come something mildly amusing became so rib tickling?

This morning I heard that they’ve discovered that the reason for infectious laughing like this. It’s all linked to human empathy – a way for groups to get closer together.

When we see others display a strong wave of emotion, our bodies are biologically hardwired to feel it too. This imperative is stronger for positive emotions than negative. So although we may sometimes feel our lips quiver when we someone crying from time to time, we’re more likely to join in infectious laughing or singing along to together.

It begins to explain a lot, from football chants to the reason a funny film makes you chuckle on your own, but laugh out loud in a group. It may even explain why I found myself actually enjoying a Take That concert last year (Her Indoors wanted to go), although the hordes of screaming hormonal women may have had something to do with it too.