NORTHERN PLANNER

..but this helped.

More from Genius on Radio 4. This week’s best idea was a solution to the bead conundrum. It’s annoying that bread only comes in fixed thickness of slice – thin, medium or thick. Of course, you can have unsliced bread and do it yourself, but slicing bread isn’t easy for people as hamfisted as me.

The solution? Perforated bread. Just tear it at the thickness you want. Brilliant.

One thing I miss about being a suit is all the free lunches, good food is my third favourite thing too- drink is second. Don’t forget I’m from North, ergo tight fisted; free is good.

You can imagine then how much I’ll enjoy the coming weeks of sampling some eateries on expenses.  It’s for a pitch, and if we win there’ll be more free food. It’s Wagamama tommorow, I’ll savour every free bite (I hope).

Two apparently unrelated things connected for me this week.

Firstly, thanks to all the swimming training I’m doing, I occasionally find myself a bit tired and have to watch out for momentary lapses of judgement at work. It’s hard doing anything anything significant outside of a full time job unless your commited and fantastically organised (I’m commited but the organisation is something I’m working on…..). This may explain the embarassing typos and less than interesting posts on this blog, or that’s my excuse anyway.

Which brings me to the other thing. I work on ChildLine for free, which isn’t always easy to fit around paying clients’ . This is nothing next to the volunteers who give up regular evenings and weekends to man the phones and raise money. You have to admire their commitment when it can affect the energy they have for their real job, and ‘me time’. Makes me wonder how  much recruiting volunteers for stuff is about them getting some slack from the people they work for, and live with. Maybe it’s no coincidence that the profile for charity workers is bored Mums and empty nesters. 

I was reading that Lucozade is being respositioned as an alternative to the caffiene pick me up. Interesting thought (although Lucozade will always be a funny tasting drink to have when you’re ill to me). Did you get that from any of those ‘Energising Britain’ executions? I certainly didin’t, maybe my brain’s tired. Time for a cup of tea I think.

Famous Rob’s posted about the John Smiths ads here. There’s 30,000 people called John Smith in the UK, you could have some fun with that………

Nice time of year to be outside. It’s warm enougn to sit down with the paper, but there’s enough warning of winter on the air air to stop you overheating. The shadows are a bit longer too.

It’s time for planning next year’s garden, planting bulbs and tidying up (or to be truthful,reading the paper while her indoors does it).

Kato came out to join us.

This was me aged 12 on a swimming trip to Germany, proudly sporting my City of Leeds team t-shirt. It was my first trip abroad without Mum and Dad, and I was bit nervous, but a bit curious about what it would be like.

It ended up being one of those times when you feel everything is perfect and you really would not change a thing. I stayed with a lovely German family who treated me as their own, I had a purple patch of form and won a few races; and I finally got to kiss Samantha Lightfoot. I can still see the proud look on Mum and Dad’s face when I got off the coach with my medals back in Leeds.

I’m 32 now and there have been a few more moments when everything seems in it’s right place. Getting married was one of course, but there are others that just simply arrived.

One was in Hamburg the night before the Millennium. We picked a quiet bar to save energies for the following day, but we ended meeting some nice people and going to a party full of different nationalities and backgrounds. I can remember standing on this balcony just chatting with these people I’d never see again and just thinking how perfect it was.

Another time was just walking on the beach in Cornwall, where Mum and Dad live now, with the sun on my back.

They don’t come around very often, but when these moments come, they stay with you forever.

There’s an interesting post on Russell’s blog with lots of advice on moving from account handling to planning. There’s plenty there on how you can make it happen, but less about the things you might want to consider first. I made the move myself and found that I had to get used to some new things. There were differences in the way people behaved around me – and the way I needed to be around them.

Here’s what I learned; take it with a pinch of salt since I was never going to be the best suit in the world (Jonny Hornby I’m not). It may reveal more about my shortcomings than anything useful but I hope it’s helpful in some way.

1. Surrendering control and winning influence– The buck tends to stop with the account handler so you’ll be used to making decisions as a divine right. Creatives will to be involved, and of course, in the end, the client decides, but planners don’t officially get to decide that much. They do get to suggest and influence a lot, if what they contribute is useful and delivered in non – threatening way. You can no longer tell, only suggest – so make your suggestions very, very good.

2. No one needs you in the room – As a suit, you’ll be used to attending most of the important meetings as a matter of course. Suddenly, you have to earn your right to be there. Creatives, suits and clients can get along fine without planners complicating things, you need them to want you there. Some of this will come from the quality of what you contribute, the rest is how you behave. There are lots of egos in these rooms, with creatives, suits and clients all jockeying for positioning. As soon as you make anyone feel like you’re stealing their thunder, you won’t be asked back. You’ll remember as suit wanting to deepen your relationship with the client, but there’s creatives desperately holding on to their idea too. How can you be the person that can help these people with these objectives?

3. Creatives will be wary – rare is the suit that hasn’t  borne the brunt of being the bringer of bad news; making the logo bigger, altering a line, the work’s bombed in research etc. Personally, I think the conflict is good – both fill each other’s gaps – but now you have to convince these people do something rather than telling them. Hopefully, they’ll trust you anyway, after lots of projects where you’ve shown you care about their work and argued their case in front of the client. But they’ll be a bit cynical of you now – "Used to be suit, so don’t expect much". You’ll have to be twice as interesting as the next planner, but there is something else that will help. You can be a non – threatening ally. How will you convince them you can get there work through, how can you get them coming to you for things that will make the work better? There’s a good start here and here, and here if you need to use the dark side….. You can actually use your former life a suit as a big positive. Most of a creative’s work ends up in the bin -and a fair bit of this is culled before it goes to client. The creative director is a barrier of course, but so are the account handlers. You know how suits think, and some of their dark arts. Sharing this will help the creatives trust you, and they’ll owe you one.

4. So will suits – You used to be one of them, now you’re not. Not only will they be doubly wary of you stealing their thunder as a former suit, they’ll be very cynical about your planning powers since you’re "No better than they are". You’ll have to work hard to prove yourself of course, but there are some dark arts to employ too. You know how they think, you know what matters to them. You’ll be loving not doing the admin they do, you’ll be ecstatic that you’re not piggy in the middle anymore. This means you’re in a better position to help and appreciate what they do for you. You know what it’s like for them so you know how to help. Here’s some more pointers.

I hope the above is a useful start. Anyone got anything to add? I found the transition a challenge, but it was well worth it. It’s a privilege to have a job that seems more like a hobby. By the way, I’m of the opinion that more and more planners will end up on the client side. Anyone gone through the experience? What was it like?

I’m enjoying  Joe Klein’s new book. In ‘Politics Lost’, the author of ‘Primary Colours’ argues that politicians need to lead with more conviction and humanity. As voters look for sincerity rather than minutia of policy, it’s how you come across, not what you say. This blog and politics don’t mix, but just for once…….I reject the idea this means voters are stupid, maybe it’s more that they are failing to connect – except one?