If you want to get on – get out

If it ever feels like the hands on your watch spin around like a propeller, I’m right with you. Despite the life-enhancing technologies, convenience culture and super-speed connectivity to everything, there’s never enough time. What that can mean is that the ‘desk’ becomes the factory. You clock into your laptop, wherever you are, and start dealing with the conveyor belt of communication that is delivered to you minute by minute.  It’s efficient. You tick off hundreds of requests like a Selfridges Santa, motivated by the satisfaction of keeping the queue down.

But creative people must engage with the world.  And I don’t mean through Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and Snapchat.  It sometimes takes a breath of fresh air – a genuine breath of fresh air – before you recognise how much you needed to get out in the breeze.

Yesterday I attended a roundtable debate at the Institute of Directors on flexibility at work. A good subject and something I feel strongly about.  Something that we hold dear at Wordville because it’s our view that the most creative people are those with full lives- those resourceful, engaged, social individuals who take on responsibilities and are connected to their communities. They require flexibility and we’re happy to trade a more open-minded working structure for their commitment to making our agency unmatched for originality and service.

So I was excited to have a discussion about a favourite subject. What I hadn’t given myself time to consider were the people I was going to meet – from entrepreneur Tracey Bovingdon (http://www.tea-monkey.com/Index.aspx) to Microsoft Envisioning Officer, Dave Coplin to Havas UK Group Chairman Kate Robertson – and the effect they would have on me.  It was terrific to be inspired by a group of 11 informed, opinionated, open-minded business folk.

I loved the debate – we didn’t all agree – but the interaction was invigorating. Getting to grips with different businesses, different approaches and different views is always enlightening.  I love the ‘art of business’ – and enjoy engaging with clients, the press, the analyst community and my colleagues and partners.  It’s important to step in amongst a group of strangers now and again. It changes how you feel. You may not feel you have the time to do this¸ but believe me – you don’t have the time not to.

By Lucy George