The effects of Covid-19 and the measures put in place to combat it over the past 7 months have brought severe changes to all our lives. It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. The pandemic has shown me, almost instantly, that the path I had anticipated for 2020 was not going to materialize.
True curiosity is not simply the gathering of information, it’s the questioning of information gathered. I think we have to get better at asking our audience what they want from us, improve how we engage with consumers and re-evaluate our business models. You don’t need permission from people to lead them, they are waiting, we are are all waiting for you to show us where to go next.
Queen's Birthday Honours: My sister becomes MBE
Everything starts with a story and it’s never been so easy to get your message out there. Because it’s never been easier, everyone has the power to publish and everyone thinks that they have a story to tell, paradoxically, it’s never been harder to get someone to listen or care! Our story has to be authentic if we really want to connect with an audience. Everyone’s telling their story online and everyone thinks they have something to say.
I think that only by applying the ancient art of storytelling with precision and power can we truly reach out and connect at a deeper emotional level with our audience, and this is when everything changes. My sister has become an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for her work in education.
- Who is the hero of the story?
- Who is Valerie really trying to help?
- Can we empathise with her audience, I mean really understand what they are thinking and feeling?
- What are the challenges that they are facing?
If we can show and tell them that we understand their reality then they will listen to us. And if we do it with a story then it will be even better and easier for them to share.
You can read Your Croydon’s article about my sister here
Throwback Thursday
Imran Amed, founder and editor-in-chief of The Business of Fashion and I were keynote speakers at Fashion Talks, Antwerp (October 2013).
You Do Have A Choice
It’s all about mindset, from the moment you wake up to the moment you rest your head at night, everything is up to you! Your emotions, your thoughts, your perception and your reactions - every moment. When someone tries to trigger you by insulting you or by doing or saying something that irritates you, take a deep breath and switch off your ego. Remember that if you are easily offended, you are easily manipulated!
I think the only thing you can control is how you treat yourself and this knowledge of that one thing can change everything. Before I write anything, be it an e-mail, text message or on SoMe, I ask myself these 3 important questions:
Is it important?
Is it respectful?
Is it necessary?
Service
What are the fundamental capabilities of a human system that are crucial to its capacity to execute flawlessly and innovate consistently?
““We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the secret sits in the middle and knows.” - Robert Frost”
The words you use to frame your current situation will change your mindset and elevate your mood. A positive mindset allows you to stay open to new possibilities where others see barriers, and a positive mood will lift your spirits and attract people in your life who will help, support or hire you.
Successful individuals in any field used positive words to frame an outcome. It's an imperfect world and despite hours of practice and years of experience, the ball won't always bounce your way. Now and again you will be dealt a bad hand or an unprecedented pandemic, and by default this will change your plans.
I think the important thing is the path you travel and the people who accompany you, not the destination to which it takes you.
What Have I Become?
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a time for reflection. I am fully aware that opportunity is always mixed with difficulty, therefore, the only time when things will change is when I change. “I am not a product of my circumstances I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey
I had an epiphany last week that made me think about the meaning of my life and what have I become. The voice said, “You can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are and unless you change what you are, you’ll always have what you’ve got.” I know that the major key to my better future is me, and in my case true happiness is not contained in what I get, happiness is contained in what I become. I immediately knew that I had to start working on myself and as there are only 24 hours in a day, time was not the issue. You cannot get more time, but you can create more value as we primarily get paid for the value we bring to the marketplace. We have plenty of energy to do the things that we really want to do as motivation creates energy.
The Last Dance - Netflix
What are my life goals? How can you hit a target that I don’t have? How to set goals and how to achieve them? I know that you have to have your goals in place to get what you want, and I have to set the kind of goals that will mean something by achieving them. I have to start by making myself comfortable with being uncomfortable as when you let yourself get comfortable with your way of life, you miss out on what you could accomplish when you keep reaching for the next golden ring. One has to eliminate all the negative influences in your life and that also means friends who are dragging you down and keeping you from reaching your goals.
1. Identify exactly what you want.
2. Why do you want to reach this goal?
3. What are the obstacles you need to overcome in order to achieve this goal?
4. What are the skills and knowledge required to reach this goal?
5. Who are the people, groups, organisations you need to work with in order to achieve this goal?
6. What is the plan of action required to achieve this goal?
7. When is the completion date?
Your goals could be physical, mental, spiritual, social, family, career or financial. Are you committed to reaching your goals? When you have a solid base with a solid commitment and solid objectives then you have a much better chance of reaching your goals. Please do not confuse activity with accomplishment! Have you written out your clearly defined goals? Yes? If no, why not? Is it because of fear, a poor self-image, no desire or just because you don’t know how? Would you like some guidance with how to set your goals? I am interested in building characters and developing leaders. Contact sb@stephenburrell.com
Who is Responsible for Your Return to Work Strategy?
”CUE” illustration by www.ved5tiden.dk
The most successful global leaders in fighting coronavirus have communicated clearly, displayed empathy and always favored science over politics. When challenges arise we don't rise to the occasion, we sink to the level of our training. We have to recognize that things are not going to back to what they were before the coronavirus. The pre-COVID world was all about performance, agility and efficiency, the post-COVID world will be all about one thing - survival. Does your organisation have a plan for how we get people back to work? Are you ready to tackle the challenges ahead?
Health and safety of the workforce should be management’s top priority and managing employee numbers will be critical to protecting workplace health, as the higher the number the higher the risk. Have you thought about the benefits of a staggered reintroduction, e.g. rotating who works from the office and who works at home?
”ROUTINE” illustration by www.ved5tiden.dk
Once open, how can you keep your employees safe? There will be more questions than answers, for example:
- What will be the new physical setup?
- How much distance should there be between desks?
- Have you made restrictions on your office building capacity?
- What about employee gatherings around the coffee machine?
- What about the cafeteria and lunchtime procedures?
- Have you developed new office sanitization protocols?
- Will there be guidelines for wearing personal protective equipment, e.g. face masks and/or gloves?
- What are the rules for checking employees who are returning to work after illness?
- Will your employees need help to manage this mindset change?
- How will you deal with employees who are reluctant to return to the office?
- Do you have a Crisis Management team to deal with ethics and compliance complaints?
Would you like to have a training plan for implementing new operational procedures, processes and policies during your “back to workplace” transition and beyond?
Contact us on sb@peakbalance.dk to hear more on how we can help your organisation.
“REWARD” illustration by www.ved5tiden.dk
Crucial Conversations Training
Did you know that I am a certified Crucial Conversations Trainer?
Crucial Conversations teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional and risky topics - at all levels of your organization. By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), you’ll surface the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions and then act on your decisions with unity and commitment.
What Is a Crucial Conversation?
A crucial conversation is a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong. These conversations - when handled poorly or ignored - lead to strained relationships and dismal results.
What Does Crucial Conversations Training Teach?
Crucial Conversations teaches participants how to:
• Speak persuasively, not abrasively
• Foster teamwork and better decision making
• Build acceptance rather than resistance
• Resolve individual and group disagreements
Who Needs Crucial Conversations Training?
Does your organization suffer from taboo topics, deference, disagreement, analysis paralysis, information hoarding, office politics or alienation? Is your organization battling declining productivity, safety violations, low morale, reduced quality, poor customer satisfaction or other bottom-line concerns? Then you, your team, or your organization needs Crucial Conversations Training.
My aim is to guide teams, leaders and entrepreneurs on how to focus on your company’s performance and culture by integrating open communication into the heart of your business. Crucial Conversations workshops are two days and ideally have a minimum of six participant. For further information please contact me.
Simon Nygaard Hoff, co-owner and creative soul at Wonderland Agency
You and I met each other around 2008 when you had the WAS Gallery in Vesterbro even though we have not seen much of each other over the past couple of years. Last year we bumped into each other at Helle Mardahl’s ’vernissage‘ in Boffi and we both remembered that healthy relationships are nurtured by good conversations.
Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet me. As adults we often let the serious things in life suck all the joy out of our lives. We need to engage the younger side of ourselves to remember what it means to have fun. It’s important to let yourself be a juvenile every now and then, not everything needs to be so critical all of the time. During this interview, I will go with the flow and it’s totally unscripted 😊.
Can you tell me a little about your background?
It all began with the Wonderland Magazine in 2005 which kickstarted the Wonderland journey. In the first magazine we had a big article with Tal R and Jonathan Meese. We based the concept around dressing them up as Freud and his mum, as they were both in love with Freud. Tal R and Jonathan Meese said they would like to use the costumes, but we had to come over to Berlin. As we were still students travelling to Berlin was expensive but we managed. Subsequently, Tal R and Meese had a huge exhibition at Statens Museum for Kunst called ”Mor”, SMK had already made promotional material which they scrapped in favour of our images for the official press release, advertising and posters. Crown Prince Frederik and the Minister of Culture, Brian Mikkelsen, opened the exhibition. We were buzzing, this was an ideal start for us and the success was a big deal for us students, over the next couple of years we made 11 issues of the magazine, which were distributed in Denmark and Germany.
What are you up to nowadays?
Product design, furniture design and interior design.
Copyright: Please Wait To Be Seated
What made you choose to design the salt and pepper pots?
It was because I made the concept and interior design of a restaurant on the top floor of Illum. I was hired by Carlsberg to design the Bar Jacobsen restaurant/bar - I did the concept and interior design, and then I bought a lot of chairs from a company called, Please Wait To Be Seated (PWTBS). The owner (Thomas) came to the opening and asked if there was something I would improve. Now, as there is always one thing that you are annoyed about and it was the salt and pepper pots. Thomas said that is was really funny as he, wanted to add a salt and pepper design to the PWTBS collection and then I was hired as the designer. I told him that if he gave me 14 days I would come back with some great ideas and the rest is history.
They are made in wood and are being sold in cool shops like Illums Bolighus and Stilleben, but we think they still need a more commercial retailer as it's a royalty agreement.
How did you get into the art world?
My education is a pretty boring project management degree and I am an autodidactic graphic designer. I slowly moved into the art world when we opened Wonderland Art Space in 2008. Working with the room experience, collaborating with different artists to build and design art bars for festivals. In 2010, I was working on the visual identity for Roskilde Festival, making an art bar for Absolut vodka (Pernod-Ricard) with Helle Mardahl and Andreas Emeniusalso I was making a campaign for Diesel. I was subsequently hired by Roskilde Festival in 2011 to make another art bar, again it was sponsored by Absolut vodka but this time I worked with the artist, Anne Sophie Sandal on the project.
What were you interested in whilst at school?
I grew up in Svogerslev (small town outside Roskilde), I went to high school in Roskilde, but immediately afterwards I moved to Copenhagen as I was so tired of small city life. Even though I really like Roskilde and will probably move back one day...
I was interested in creativity and art whilst I was at school, I wasn’t interested in learning languages or mathematics, I just wanted to play football and learn about creativity. The only thing that I knew was that I had to move to Copenhagen as soon as possible. I attended a 6-month foundation graphics course at Copenhagen Technical School which was extended to one year and I attended film, drawing and graphic courses.
Afterwards, I started a small T-shirt brand called SLRP with Rasmus Blæsbjerg who was one of the first web design teachers at the Design School and was also best friends with Oliver Bjerrehus. I moved to New York for a few months with Rasmus and tried to build up SLRP over there with an American partner, but it did not work out.
Courtesy of W Magazine archives
Did you read comics or magazines? Who was your hero?
No, I read magazines and I was really inspired by the American W-Magazine that featured fashion, art, film and culture. I remember receiving some money from my aunt and immediately buying a retrospective book featuring W-Magazine issues from 1990. The book was huge and cost DKK 2.500. Then I knew that I really wanted to make a magazine one day.
I have never been a big fan of comics, Rasmus Blæsbjerg was the man I looked up to for many years, he was a character and very funny. The Wood Wood guys were also quite an inspiration, especially in the beginning when they had the shop on Krystalgade.
What was your first big career decision?
In the beginning of the 2000s, I started to learn a lot more about visual art and then I became a fan of a lot of artists because for me art is pure creativity where there are no rules. There are just your own rules, there is no client, you don't have to think of a brand, there is no brief. As an artist you can do what you like. The downside of all of this freedom is also the difficult part! I have been advising a lot of young artists about their career, they should know what they want to do, which direction they want to pursue, for example, sound, video, installations, etc. You cannot do it all, if you want to be an art superstar you have to think about your own brand - Tal R is a good example as you never doubt that it is him when you see one of his paintings. The way he combines the colours and figures, he has a childish way of painting with an edge. Tal R is also really good at speaking about his art, his work has a high level of quality, his motives are appealing - it's painting, it's childish, it's funny. He uses beautiful colours and he's really charming and good at networking. Tal’s also made a lot of right choices, e.g. he’s represented by Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin and I've met the owner, Bruno many times, he's also a lot of fun. There are so many characters within the art industry 😊
Everyone wants a deeper connection with their clients, how do you create an emotional connection with your customers?
We at Wonderland are a commercial agency but we combine our own projects e.g. salt & pepper, with more commercial projects. We have just reopened the gallery, we are making a podcast about the advertising business. We don't ask permission, we just do it!
It's really important to get your own experiences, for example, trying to make an event because it is really difficult. Getting people to come, creating the marketing and promotion, so if you have that experience then you know how hard it is when you have to do it for a client. Their client’s budgets also have to reflect that if they want to be successful.
It's difficult to get big budget projects, you really have to fight for them and then to have permission to be creative within your own field of expertise and that takes a lot of back and forth, briefs, meetings, etc. Now we are staffing up on the management side, as we know that we have a good reputation and the best creative freelancers want to work with us, where we have struggled in the past to get the big budget jobs.
Courtesy of Wonderland Agency
It appears as though you made a seamless transition from the art world into communication & design. What were the key drivers for you to make the move into the communications world?
The transition has evolved by taking small steps, going more towards a commercial agency and away from the art business. We had a tipping point at the end of 2011, where we had to make the decision whether we wanted to run a creative agency or to run a gallery. At that time the gallery was representing 5 artists and they wanted to be represented at international trade fairs. However, we were not prepared to spend our weekends trying to sell art when we knew that we made all our money from the creative agency. The gallery was more the face; it was definitely not the body.
We started to make small campaigns for Tuborg, we became the Danish advertising agency for Absolut vodka and Diesel, and they both liked the edge that we could bring by gathering the cool creatives. We could not give the artists the representation they deserved, so we decided to close the gallery and move in the city and run our commercial agency there.
In 2103, we landed our biggest job to date for Somersby. We created a sub-brand, ”Somersby Unlimited” specifically targeting young party goers in Denmark. Here we had our commercial breakthrough and a huge budget. We created everything for the concept (strategy, brand name, visual identity, packaging design, etc.).
Carlsberg sold out of Somersby everywhere during the first two years and this is really something phenomenal when a Carlsberg brand sells out, as they really produce a lot of units. There was so much hype created around the product, simply by adding animal print on the bottles - it was a really simple idea, but the timing was perfect. Fashion is really mainstream and it can move a lot of people, we needed a creative basis for the idea for Somersby to become fashionable. The following year we knew it would be floral prints and we knew that if we integrated that on the bottles it would be a hit and again it sold out. The third-year was really difficult to follow up on the iconic bottles, so, unfortunately, Carlsberg closed down the brand.
Courtesy of www.markedsforing.dk
What role has digital taken in your business model?
Yes, it does! We have two sides of the Agency, I am head of design & art and there is not much digital on that side. The other side is SoMe and digital marketing. Here there is a lot of digital, looking at online trends, Facebook algorithms are constantly changing but as we are doing all the SoMe for Fitness World we have to stay on top of the game. And my business partner, Sophie Hardinger is running that side of the Agency, she has become a SoMe nerd. We have 4 people in her department and hire freelancers if we need to work with Adwords etc.
What makes your brand stand out from the crowd?
I hope that this artistic creative edge we have is the reason why clients want to work with us. Pernod-Ricard recently contacted us again as they want us to integrate their brands in a creative and cool environment.
I realised that when you develop strong ideas and you invest in the creative process, for example, thinking about the materials, the look, etc. delete. then I am really good at taking a brand and taking it into a physical dimension with a lot of funny creative solutions. I prefer to work on interior designs rather than creating advertising campaigns! The work will last a lot longer than just a quick fix, but of course it's difficult to convince companies to invest money into a long-term solution than a quicker, cheaper one. I have managed, so far, to explain and sell to a supertanker like Carlsberg where the Hall of Carlsberg has been up for 5 years and the Carlsberg VIP Lounge at Parken has been there for 7 years
A Little About The Way I Think
1) I spend my time listening and making others feel special rather than telling them how great I am.
2) I understand that relationships are built on trust, and trust takes time to develop.
3) I think that the best way to differentiate is to be honest, caring and hardworking.
4) I usually identify areas of shared interest and create opportunities for everyone to be a winner.
5) I provide encouragement, show concern, listen with interest and instill a strong set of values.
6) I always treat my clients with dignity and respect.
Your Dreams May Not Come True
Image: via standard.co.uk
I think that if your dreams are big enough they will not get completed during your lifetime. For some human beings the song in their heart will die if the situations around them does not work out the way they think it should happen.
Your inner experience should not be determined by what is happening around you. In the very nature of things, life is made in such a way that the outside will never happen 100% the way you want. And it should be that way, as if everything happened 100% your way - where do I go, where does everyone else go? Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it goes my way, sometimes it goes someone else’s way - everything is fine.
What do you want for yourself could be either blissful or miserable!
Remember fundamentally everyone wants the same thing: Pleasantness within themselves and pleasantness around them. I think what you want for yourself is the highest level of pleasantness 100% clear - the highest level of pleasantness.
· If pleasantness happens in our body we call it health, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it pleasure.
· If our mind becomes pleasant we call it peace, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it joy.
· If our emotions becomes pleasant we call it love, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it compassion.
· If our life energies becomes pleasant we call it bliss, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it ecstasy.
· If our surroundings becomes pleasant we call it success and this is all that we want in our life.
The outside pleasantness is determined by many forces, not just by ourselves. And all of these forces must cooperate to create outside pleasantness, but to create inner pleasantness we do not need anybody’s cooperation, just ourself!
This one thing, if we can make it happen will enhance our dream in such a way that it could not be fulfilled in one lifetime. The fear of suffering is what is making people dream small, think small, work small because if I dream big and it doesn’t happen what will happen to me.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO NOW IF YOU KNEW THAT YOU COULD NOT FAIL?
How would you answer this question? You can share your answer here or you can keep it to yourself, but mostly I hope you do something about it.
The Same Old Cycle
Love Is A Dirty Word In Business
For many, love is a dirty word in business. Bringing love into the workplace, it’s platonic, but it’s there. I love these people and I am going to support them doing great work and we are going to do this together. According to Richard Branson, “Customers should not be first, employees should be first because if you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers.”
Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so!
Having a deep purpose to the why we do things, it’s not just a job, it’s not just a salary. I understand that these things are so important and people get caught up in working for organizations because they have obligations - but there is a choice about picking something that you are passionate about. And then the human connection, recognizing your own humility - I think Brené Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability Ted Talk from 2010 sums it up quite nicely.
