AdNews brings the stories of those working from home (WFH) in the advertising and media industry during the coronavirus crisis.
Luke Clifton is head of ideas at Jack Morton Worldwide.
How are you dealing with the silence?
Music. It’s been great.
The downside?
Has anyone else noticed how the first week or two of working from home meant that everyone was constantly on a video call? We often feel the need to be doing something, anything proactive. The performance of action can be more important than any outcome. And so we talk, share thought bubbles, ideas, articles, insights. I’ve been resisting the urge to add to the deluge. I think we are already consuming all the information we can bear and I’m unsure how showing each other more trees will help us better perceive the forest we are in.
From a work perspective, there has been a sudden pause in the world of experiential. Clients are feeling uncertain, events are being cancelled or postponed, and offices are physically closed. It can feel pretty grim. But I can’t help feel that this pause has been an incredible opportunity to better understand and articulate the value of what we do. The human need to come together, to experience for oneself may be temporarily denied to us, but that need has not gone away. To have something so innate to who we are taken away will only fuel that need further.
The upside?
Which brings me to the upside. The current situation is forcing everyone, brands and agencies included, to stop phoning it in. We have to come up with something new to fulfil this need. A new culture, a new way of being in our world is forming in front of our eyes. It’s a fantastic challenge and we have the tools to adapt. We’ve been given the opportunity to build hybrid experiences that open the window for participation and coaching clients on stagecraft for virtual comms to reach ever larger audiences. Who knew there’d be so much for an experiential agency to do when no-one can be in the same room.
There’s another upside and here is where I pick up my earlier thread around productivity. Creativity and productivity are not natural friends. I see my role as a constant battle between providing space for creativity vs. the need to deliver. But maybe, if we do it right, this newfound isolation could provide part of the answer. We can think about our own human needs and intelligently balance work and life in a way that fosters creativity and works for everyone. We can step out on to the balcony, spend time with our family, maybe even take a midday nap. We can discover what works for us outside of an arbitrary set of nine to five rules resulting in happier, more creative lives.
So maybe there’s an opportunity for those of us lucky enough to be creative for a living, to shift the focus from when and where we do what we do - to what we can achieve. If we do this, the benefits will last long after we’ve returned to the office.
How are you using the commuting time saved?
To be honest I can’t remember, but I know what I’ll be doing now. One of the guys has figured out how to ‘deepfake’ me in video calls (see the image accompanying this article), appearing as an old photo of me that unnervingly jerks and spasms in response to his movements. I’m going to spend my commute time finding a way to get him back.
I am looking forward to being back in the office because...
The face-to-face conversations where people are looking at you when they’re speaking. I’ve noticed that everyone looks at their own image on video chat - you can see their eyes looking down and to the side - and I can’t unsee it.
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