My Reflective Report – Final Assignment, phew..

Hi. My name is Jamileh, and I am a Creative Economist (a.k.a. MACER)

“So, what are you studying?” the girl sitting next to me on the plane asked. “Creative Writing and the Creative Economy!” I answered, flashing her a big smile. “Creative Writing? Wow…” “And the Creative Economy.” I reiterated. “Oh… erm, what’s that?” I won’t be exaggerating when I say I got almost exactly the same reaction from most of my friends back home, most of my family members, and most of my fellow students at Kingston University, when I told them what I’m studying. To be quite honest, I was a bit confused with the major myself. I’d ask fellow MACErs, “So guys, what do you answer when people ask you what Creative Economy is?” And I got such diverse answers that it made me feel somewhat more secure about mine. Diverse. That’s one word I’d choose if someone asked me to describe our Creative Economy class. I met individuals from all over the world, with their own mindsets and beliefs; their own ideas and goals; their own hopes and dreams. It can’t get any more diverse than this. I googled Creative Economy, to be honest, and I was taken to a website that is -seven months later- still one of my favourite websites relating to Creative Economy. “The fastest growing business in the world.” (Howkins 2001) That was the first thing that caught my eye. What also intrigued me is that when people who would ask me, “Oh, so you’re doing economy? Like money, finance, stuff like that?” I used to respond with “No, not at all…” But as time passed by, I realized that even money, finance, and certainly economy can be creative. Take Square for an example. Square was founded with a concept of making money transfer easy, in the most creative of ways. Established by the co-creator of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Square gives anyone the chance to accept physical credit card payments through their smartphones, laptops and computers, by plugging in a tiny device; no fancy card reader, no nothing. (Roth, 2010) Now I’d say that’s pretty creative!

My story…

I wanted to tell my story the way I did throughout my blog. I wanted to share my journey, and write about it, the way I love to write the most; the way that portrays me best. Surely, I could’ve started by saying, “Once upon a time, there was this girl, who came all the way from Jordan to learn Creative Economy. She wanted it so bad that she worked very hard until she got the scholarship she always wanted. She worked for four years to build a career so that she can know exactly what to major in where her career would go with this course. She came to the United Kingdom seeking knowledge; seeking experience; seeking wisdom.” Yes. I could’ve started with that; since with storytelling, an efficient way would be to actually, well… tell your story, in a simple conventional way, and in the most traditional of senses. But I chose not to. See my specialism is Creative Writing, and I figured it would be too expected of me. And I never take the predictable road; the road too often-travelled. At least I try not to. So I didn’t go with fiction. Lord knows I was tempted, but I didn’t. Then I thought a bit more about how to tell my story throughout the past seven months. I thought maybe I should be basic. Professional. To show my maturity; how I’ve grown over the course of this, well, course, and thought I should exude a sense of professionalism and seriousness. But, who am I kidding, I am who I am and that would’ve never worked out. Eventually, I thought I’d tell my story, just the way it happened, and talk about my journey on this Creative Economy rollercoaster, just the way that I would say it. No tricks, no games (and as little sarcasm as humanly possible.) Just the truth, nothing but. I will say this though, it did start very much like any novel would; or any fairytale maybe, it started with a dream, a notion. After studying English Literature for my Bachelor’s Degree, working as a copywriter for three years in an advertising agency in Jordan, and being an editor of a magazine for one year, I set out on my journey to learn more. To be more.

Nothing will ever get in my way. I am invincible! (Sarcasm 1: Jam 0)

“Creative Writing and the Creative Economy, now that sounds absolutely perfect! I’m a creative writer, and this whole Creative Economy thing is the new trend! This is going to be a piece of cake!” Wrong. It’s been tough. Very tough. Getting out of my comfort zone like that, where I was a big fish in a small bowl, and coming to London to be a student after working for years, is a lot of things, but a piece of cake isn’t one of them! And so the journey began… and what I remember most from the very beginning of it was Corrine’s question. “What is unique about yourself?” Huh? “Ask yourselves. Take a moment, and write down what you think is unique about you.” Oh, that’s easy. I tore out a paper from my notebook, and wrote down a whole list of things that I thought were unique. I speak Arabic. I went to Greece! I’ve worked in advertising. I come from a mixed background. I have crazy ideas! Needless to say, it didn’t take long to find out that I wasn’t as unique as I thought I was. Sure, I did have novel ideas, I had innovative thinking, but God there were so many new things I had to learn it was insane. The first month on the course was very challenging. Reality had slapped me on the face on so many different occasions, it gave room for low self-esteem to creep into my life, take over and hog all my personal space. It attacked any shred of confidence I had left from years past.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, no really…

I had to snap out of it eventually. I had to remind myself why I came here in the first place. Once I got into the routine, things started to fall into place. I have finally become part of a group; a lovely group I might add, and my confidence started building again. I realized that I too had bright ideas, things to share with the group, with my classmates, and more importantly, I had work experience. That came in very handy within my team, and I started getting some self esteem back. I realized that for starters, the Creative Economy can be quite subjective. It is a mindset; the way we think. There is no right and wrong, and that’s one of the main reasons why I chose to study Creative Economy rather than do an MBA, for an example. “The main question of our age is how we live our lives. As we struggle with this, we face other questions. How do we handle ideas and knowledge, both our own and other people’s? What relationship to ideas do we want? Where do we want to think?” (Howkins 2009). I loved this opening paragraph of Creative Ecologies. “How do we handle ideas and knowledge?” (IBID) It spoke to me. And I started acting accordingly. We began the brainstorming sessions on what our business was going to be about, and I kept reminding myself; how do I want to handle these ideas? What can I do with them?

Do not fight Temptation…

From an idea, came Temptation; our business. It was going to be the one constant in our course for the next six months; a food magazine for students living in Kingston. And ever since Temptation was born; every week, we had a team meeting to work on our business. I started getting to know my team members, but also started to get to know myself. I have worked in teams before, but there’s always something new to learn about yourself. According to Belbin’s Team Roles (2010), I categorized myself as someone who takes a bit of every role. And that could be a good and bad thing; depending on how you look at it. I just felt that I was a bit of a Shaper, Completer, and Evaluator; and felt that I was a lot of a Coordinator and sSecialist. (IBID) All my years as an adult, I felt that I was always in between; I was something of everything, and nothing of something. If that even makes sense. The fact that I’m doing a joint masters programme, that basically combines art and business, I just learned to accept that it’s a good thing to be a bit of everything. It’s not always so horrible being in between; if anything, and as cliché as that might sound, I just might end up getting the best of both worlds if I work hard for it.

Have I grown? Grrrr…

Corrine asked us in class after the winter holidays, where do we see ourselves in five years? And in my blog I wrote… “In five years time, I want to be the CEO of my own copywriting agency, or the director of a newspaper, editor of a magazine, just something that has to do with holding a senior position in the area that I love: words.” According to the GROW model (MindTools, 2010) Corrine did an amazing job directing us towards our goals. “You help your team member decide where they are going (their Goal) and establish where they currently are (their Current Reality). Then you explore various ways (the Options) of making the journey. In the final step, establishing the Will, you ensure your team member is committed to making the journey and is prepared for the conditions and obstacles they may meet on their way” (IBID) I was able to define my goal from the beginning, (where I want to be five years from now, one year from now even) and realized where I currently stand and what I need in order to get to it. So what I initially gained from this course was the tools that helped me think, experiment with and explore the ideas that would possibly turn into the reality that is my goal. But does that mean I needed a leader to grow? Did I need someone to lead me into thinking this way? It all depends on how you look at it really. We had Corrine as the primary leader, definitely; and that helped in the growing process. But within the team itself, we technically didn’t have one leader throughout the whole process, but rather each of us being a leader within our own domain. There was a lot of talk about leadership in the beginning of the second semester. The term leadership has been referred to, used and abused in so many different contexts, discourses, clichés, and meanings. Getting even closer to reality, the whole leadership bonanza got me thinking about our group. There was one exercise we did with Piers Ibbotson (2010) where we were split into groups, and each group had a different functionality relating to leadership. One group had its members representing higher levels of management, another with a typical hierarchy you’d find in almost any corporation (senior management, middle management, juniors, etc…) and another group had members all equally competent, good at what they do, but no one was anyone’s boss. Piers wanted to see (and wanted us to acknowledge) which group functioned the best, and consequently, who achieved the best results in the task that we were given. That’s when it hit me. It could be that I’m old-fashioned, I have a classic way of thinking, or simply that this is the only way I know how, but it seemed to me that the best way of getting things done is when there is a leader, there are dependable experts, and also there are aspiring ambitious juniors that needed to start from the very beginning (i.e. do all the donkey work!) How does that concern me? On some level I believe I did want a leader for Temptation, and concurrently I’ve had the urge to lead. But on the other hand, we did quite well as a team, each with their equal responsibilities, each knowing what they have to do, that maybe it wasn’t necessary. True at some point the drive slowed down, the enthusiasm candle burnt down, and the energy levels deflated, and typically, in the hierarchy that I’ve been used to, this was when you go to your boss for encouragement. And at the same time, this is when the leader gathers the troops, the coach gathers his team, the teacher gathers her students, and rebuilds what has been broken. I think this is what our group was lacking. And on a more philosophical note, is that what was actually missing? I mean, do we really need a leader in order to succeed? Does a nation need a leader to survive?

Fail often and… wait, what?

When Corrine first told us about IDEO’s “unorthodox prototyping model – described by its founder as “fail early and often to succeed sooner” (Sosa, M & Bhavani, R. 2005), it took me a while to relate to it. Sure, we weren’t successful as a business from the beginning, but it was difficult to understand how businesses would want to fail often when they first start. Wouldn’t that put a damper on their morals? But I did eventually understand the concept behind it. It is after all being realistic, and choosing to realizing that it is better to fail in the beginning when you don’t have much to lose, rather than to fail later on in the process. It was kind of like a mother telling her daughter, “Look, if you’re going to be dating, at least bring him over so I can meet him first.” That way… she’s keeping an eye on things and cutting her losses. On the other hand, IDEO’s ‘Project Journey’, (IBID) which consists of the five fundamental steps: Observe, Synthesize, Generate Ideas, Refine, Implement, that I could relate to straight away. That’s how the creative process took place in Young & Rubicam, where I used to work. The account planner would enter a brief through traffic to the creative department; copywriters and art directors would meet with the creative director and discuss the brief. We’d brainstorm and then each group would set out to “Observe, Synthesize, Generate Ideas, Refine, and then Implement them.” A mental storm… What I found out through my research here is that it’s efficient to ‘brainstorm’ by yourself as well as with others, at least at first; to think of a few ideas and several directions before you meet with the group. Research showed that “people are ‘more creative’ when they ‘brainstorm’ alone rather than in meetings.” (Sutton, 2006) And that’s what I believe we didn’t do much of in Temptation. We always got together first and then started to brainstorm. Another thing that I found to be efficient in brainstorming is where you actually do it. We talked about this in Corrine’s class, how some people preferred our classes when they took place at Innoversity, and believed it gave them room to creatively let their imaginations run wild. “The modular space is fun because it can accommodate different group sizes and configurations easily. When play and movement are encouraged the blood gets flowing and innovative ideas follow.” (The D School, 2010) I’m the boss of me. Yes I am! What surprised me most about myself after taking this course is the fact that I now want to do my own thing once I graduate. OK maybe not straight away, I do want to apply to some creative agencies, advertising agencies, maybe magazines and newspapers, but I am surprised in terms of my willingness to actually do this. Like really do it! Ever since Corrine asked that one question in class, “So who here wants to do their own thing once they graduate?” and I just had a “tadaaaaaaaa” moment! I do I do. It is no longer a scary thought in the very far future. The thing is, whenever anyone would ask me, I would always answer with “sure, I do think of eventually opening my own copywriting agency, or maybe my own magazine…” but if I were to be completely honest with myself, I don’t think I truly believed it. I don’t think I truly believed in myself to do it. Until now. Now that I got to experience something similar, I feel that it is doable. I want to create a brand; a powerful brand; an innovative brand. I have a long way to go, but when it comes to brands apple is my dream! It has been positioned as “the most innovative company in the world” (Thomke, Feinberg, 2009). Talk about being innovative!

The beginning of the end, but the beginning of the rest of our lives…

“April 30th” Corrine said when we asked her when our final presentation would be. And I thought, April 30th, we have a lot of time. There is so much we can do in six months; so much. But now… as I write the final words of my report, it is already May 1st; a day after our final presentations. Six months passed by so quickly! The presentation was as I hoped it would be. The term ended as I hoped it would. And most importantly, now I am more realistic. Now, I believe in myself more. Now… I feel I can do everything I want to do, but I have to plan it right. Of course, it sounds so corny, something a teacher’s pet would say. “Oh wow, now that I am done with this course, I feel like I can conquer the world. I have changed 360 degrees, and I feel like I am equipped for real life! Oh thank you, thank you!” But it is sort of true. I do feel like I have developed throughout this course. And I do feel that creating my own business isn’t something so far out of reach now; it’s doable. It’s tangible, and I plan on doing it…

Bibliography:

ChangingMinds (2010) Belbin’s Team Roles. Available at: http://changingminds.org/explanations/preferences/belbin.htm (Accessed: April 25, 2010) Howkins, J. (2001) The Creative Economy. Available at: http://www.creativeeconomy.com/think.htm (Accessed: April 20, 2010) Howkins, J. (2009) Creative Ecologies: Where Thinking is a Proper Job. United States of America. Transaction Publishers Ibbotson, P. (2008) The Illusion of Leadership. United Kingdom: Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan MindTools (2010) The GROW Model: Coaching team members to improve performance. Available at: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm (Accessed: April 25, 2010) Roth, D. (2010) The Future of Money: It’s Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free: Wired Magazine. Available at: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_futureofmoney/ (Accessed: May 4, 2010) Sosa, M & Bhavani, R. (2005) IDEO Service Design: Management Today. Available at: http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/search/article/548074/fail-early-fail-often-ideo-service-design/ (Accessed: May 2, 2010) Sutton, R. (2006). Eight Tips for Better Brainstorming: Business Week. Available at: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2006/id20060726_517774.htm (Accessed: May 2, 2010) The D School. (2010) A Playground Space Built For “Breaking Things,” at Stanford’s d.school: Fast Company. Available at: http://www.fastcompany.com/1634217/playground-spaces-built-for-learning-at-stanfords-dschool (Accessed: May 1, 2010) Thomke, S. & Feinberg, B. (2009) Design Thinking and Innovation at Apple: Harvard Business Review. Available at: http://hbr.org/product/design-thinking-and-innovation-at-apple/an/609066-PDF-ENG (Accessed: May 4)

Back to Business

Things are about to get CRAAAAAAAAZYYYY these next two weeks! 

Now that Easter break is over, there’s two weeks left for our Creative Economy class. I won’t say that there’s only two weeks left for Temptation, because I’m really hoping it goes beyond just a school project. Things are going very well for Temptation, thankfully, and we’re now looking forward for our Temptation Experience: The Picnic

The trade fair was quite lovely, we checked out different businesses, while we promoted our Temptation experience and got as many contacts as possible so we can send them e-mails once the picnic was confirmed.

Then, the picnic promotion started. Throughout the Easter break, we used different mediums to promote the event, and Facebook proved to be highly efficient in promoting our event. We created a Facebook Event and invited everyone we know that would be interested in this event, and started sending messages and getting an approximate number of how many people are attending.

Traffic on the website has been high as well, as through YouTube and Google Analytics  we realized that the videos we post are among the most viewed categories on the site, so we worked on more videos and the video cook-out challenge is up so yay! The cooking challenge received very good feedback, it seems people relate mostly to videos, I think it is what makes the website stand out from just another recipe guide. The videos are fun, interactive, and create discussions and word of mouth, which at the end of the day what we really want. Plus, the total views for our Temptation videos is close to 500 according to our Techie Alice, so that’s pretty cool!

I’ve been getting many responses on the ad as well, and should be discussing them with the group in our next meeting after Easter break, once everyone’s back in Kingston.

I also spread the word to university students while I was in Jordan; I approached university students and told them about the website; asking if it helps. Hey, why not go global? It’s a website afterall, so it technically already is. And I was surprised by how many students DO actually live on their own, from suburbs of Jordan and appreciate such websites. Yay Temptation!

Now……. BACK to the Picnic! We’re all set preparation wise, we’re selling tickets, and we have a good approximate number. Approximate being the keyword as so many people are interested in the idea, but either don’t have the cash on them, or like the idea but “are not sure…” So we’re wishing for the best, and prepared for the worst!

Do not fight Temptation………. Join our Picnic

J

Marhaba – from sunny Jordan

I am writing this as I wait for my flight to go back to London. After an 18-day Easter vacation, I am recharged and ready to roll. This vacation was very much needed after months of rain, cold and lots of grey.

I’m trying to get back into student mode so I figured the best way to ease into the routine is through my blog… even though I use most of this post to talk about my vacation, it is still, nonetheless, blogging, and therefore easing back into student life.

After surprising family and friends (as they weren’t expecting to see me for Easter break) we started planning the two weekends that I have. I spent as much time as I possibly could by the beach, soaking up the sun, and a lot of time with my grandmother, who isn’t getting any younger :/

Anyway, all in all, it was just what I needed after months of winter.

I managed to get quite a strong kick-start to my project for Managing Creativity and Innovation during my time here in Jordan. I will be writing about Orange penetrating the Jordanian market; the first Arabic country to host Orange: an international telecommunications service provider. I will be tackling the market entry, the advertising campaign, and rebranding MobileCom (the local mobile network) into Orange (an international brand). I conducted interviews, gathered research, and visited the creative team that I worked alongside with during the rebranding. It got me reminiscing about the days (and nights) spent in Young & Rubicam. Thinking of concepts; getting shutdown, thinking of more concepts; getting tonnes of changes, then, finally, getting the “ta daaaa” moment where you know this is going to sell; you know this is the winning concept. Of course I tried not to get blindly back in love with advertising, I can’t easily forget the pressures of working in such a fast-paced field, in an Arabic country that lacks much-needed awareness, but nonetheless I still missed it.

March 26 was the first time I EVER miss Corrine’s class L Unfortunately, the only flight I could book back home was Friday morning. But, I have read other MACERs blogs on Nesta?? And plan on doing some reading of my own as well and choose a favourite or two. A lot of them seemed very interesting and I’m looking forward to getting some reading done!

Perhaps this course specifically, (Introduction to Creative Economy) opened my eyes to other opportunities within the advertising field. And that’s what I discussed with some of my friends who are also in the field. I want to get back to advertising, (After spending one year as a magazine editor) but I’m not sure I only want to be a copywriter. I am now at least more open to other options, other opportunities, that involve as much creativity as copywriting.

But then again, I can’t really be picky, can I? In a time like this, in a market like that, I’ll be honest here… I’ll take whatever’s available to me, and work my way up from there!

You know what? I AM getting back into student mode. YAY! I’m already thinking of updating my CV, working on my portfolio, applying to internships, damn damn damn there’s SOOOOOO much to do!

Vacation: over. Real-life: Hello

Apprentice Challenge #2 – and we win again! Whoop whoop!

For those of you who might be reading this without knowing me personally, I apologize for seeming to be such a, how do you say this, I-won-and-I-want-to-shove-it-in-everyone’s-face kind of winner… I really do apologize. But it just adds to the experience when you win best presentation two times in a row! GO TEAM TEMPTATION

I must admit, the second challenge was much more interesting than the first one; at least it was to me. And, yes I am aware that this isn’t actually “The Apprentice” but I loved the picture and I wanted to make-believe we were actually on the show so give me a break!

And since I’m in confession mode, what I realized from Friday’s class is that I don’t know if I would’ve had the guts to actually pitch an idea to a real client the way we did in the apprentice challenge. Sure, I do stand by my idea, and I love it, and thankfully I do think we did a damn good presentation, but I love the fact that we were out there! If it were in an agency, and I was among a team that had to present an idea to a client, I’d probably be a bit more reserved about acting out a writer who wants to promote herself on a dating website; or suggesting that the client be more open to the idea of showcasing his company as a dating agency! So I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be honest! I had a  blast!

What we did this week was work on ideas for the trade fair and it is going to be FAB! We are going to be selling a Temptation Experience, so be prepared… be very prepared

Do not fight Temptation…

J

What the f*&k is custard? (post from March 4)

I won’t lie to you, we’ve thought of changing our slogan into, “what the fcuk is custard?”

It is catching ON! I have friends from back home, hallmates, classmates, friends, all telling me that this line is sooooo Temptation Magazine! Haha! How can I NOT smile at that?!

This week, we worked on our advertisement! Can I say just HOW MUCH I LOVE IT?

We came up with several ideas, and then decided to settle on our personas so that we can target as much audience as we possibly could…

Alas……….. the Temptation Magazine Advert!

Welcome to the real world; it’s not always pretty!

Change is good. And in fast-paced industries such as advertising, marketing, media, and such, change is the only constant. So you’ve got to embrace it. And you’ve got to love it! 

And in the spirit of change, the next three Fridays are going to be apprentice challenges! FUN!

The first Friday took place with a client briefing us about their project; GRM TV. We listened to his briefing, took notes, asked questions, and went into our little cocoon to brainstorm ideas and think of a strategy to pitch out idea! Luckily, I’ve worked in advertising for a few years, so I know that this is how things are supposed to go. You get the brief, you gather all your notes/research/client input, and you get cracking! But what I particularly enjoyed during this class is different people’s views and perceptions on the process.

I was very impressed by many of my classmates who have never worked in the industry, and possibly never worked in their life, that asked really good questions, and were able to pitch their idea. I was, thankfully, very impressed with our team as we managed to get our point across and won best presentation (yay!)

However, I think it was especially fun to see how different people dealt with the situation. Throughout this course, I realized that some people aren’t taking this as real life experience. They’re not treating it like real life experience, and that’s a shame. Of course, only through mistakes do we learn, and I’m learning so many new things that I sometimes forget I once worked in this challenging industry! 

I hope that more people begin to treat their businesses, their teammates, and the clients that we come across in challenges as real as they possibly could, because this is real life. You have to know when to talk and when to shut up; you have to know how to talk to a potential client that is possibly worth 1-10 million pounds, and you most certainly need to know how to pitch your ideas without sounding either too condescending or too big of a wuss! What I especially found difficult, in this challenge, and in many accounts I worked for, was to come up with great strategies, and great campaigns for not-so-great companies. I’ll tell you now fellow MACErs, and everyone else who’s reading my blog: If you think for one minute, that throughout your career in Advertising/Marketing, that you won’t have to deal with clients you don’t approve of; or work for accounts you completely disagree with or are against, I had to break it to you: you’re very mistaken. Life is all about the grey areas; sometimes you have to come up with a slogan for frozen meat when you’re a vegetarian; write a Valentine’s Day card greeting when your boyfriend just broke up with you; or smile at the marketing director that said your concept was ‘shit.’ This is the real life. And if you’re too much of an idealist now, you will learn to adjust to real life eventually.

There’s a lot to be learned, in this course, in other courses, and in life. And hopefully, these challenges have given us all a taste of what real life can be like.

Hoooraaaaahhh for Team Seven and the can of Sprite we won! Whoop whoooooop!

J

Hi. My name is Jamileh. And I’m a technophobe.

I tried. I really really did. I got caffeine in my system, plenty of it, and headed to Corrine’s class for beginners (and I mean BEGINNERS) in web design. I went in with a fresh mind, and willingness to learn. I challeneged myself, comforted myself, and (figuratively) patted myself on the back for the excitement I summoned up for anything to do with technology.

I could tell that Corrine was using her words very wisely. Talking to us beginners very carefully, innunciating every word, making sure each and everyone of us is getting it. And I must say I did get the general concept behind website, (kinda, sorta) but it’s just TOO much. Could it be that I’m just not interested? I mean, I’m a writer, and I’ve been proud to call myself a writer for the past 10 years now, and only last year did I start to blog. I’m a music fanatic and only a month ago did I get my first iPOD. I just can’t be bothered to keep up with everything, when everything is moving soooo fast! By the time I finally threw out my old music tapes and walkman, (and shed quite a few tears) to replace them with a diskman and CDs, everyone started talking about MP3s and how awesome that is. By the time I managed to get a good music library on my computer, everyone was using cute little laptops! When I bought my beautiful mac (God bless my beautiful pink apple) everyone started asking me is it the NEW macbook PRO? did you get the magic MOUSE to go with it? It never ends… I can never be “in” when it comes to technology…

Now that I’ve made my point, I would just like to pay tribute to our awesome techie, Alice Vaughan, for putting the beautiful Temptation Website together… and thank GOD I didn’t have to worry about what goes behind the scenes of making a website, because she’s made it so easy to blindly trust her with everything technology related

What I did this week was focus on more writing material for the website. I went through the website to see what was missing, and also to know what people were viewing the most so that we can put more content of that in there. I worked on several recipes from different cuisines. I also put in my favourite recipe everrrr, dessert to beat the winter blues, and much more! (www.temptationmagazine.co.uk) I’m also preparing for the next theme for Temptation’s website for March; working on recipes for St. Patrick’s day, and things to do on the lovely green occasion. I also wrote a letter for managers of restaurants that we are approaching so state all that we are offering them for our Temptation Experience. I’m also working on a timeline for the next two months for our group. In our group meeting, we discussed our plans/to-do-lists/tasks for the next trade fair, and I won’t say much now but it’s going to be FAB! (More on that next week!)

We also sat down and I asked each of the team members to talk about any issues/concerns that they are facing. I wanted to push ourselves into OPEN COMMUNICATION. And it was good there were a few issues we needed to address in terms of time, and I just want us to accomplish everything we can and MORE in these two months! I basically included what we should do in these two months, week by week, (it’s a rough draft but I’m still working on it) and I want us to surprise ourselves and eachother by doing even MORE than  we had hoped for. Yes, I used the word ‘more’ twice, and capitalized it. And yes, I am aware that I’m being optimistic, a tad too optimistic, but we have to give it our best shot! If not now, then when?! I’m all adrenaline, and ALL IN so let’s do this!

On a final note… a BIG idea is brewing at the moment… Temptation Exposed! It’s going to be BIG! Stay tuned…. watch this space! I CAN’T WAIT!

J

Suspending Judgment – Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Imagine living in a world where judgment doesn’t exist. Imagine coexisting in a universe that knows no preconceived notions whatsoever; a world oblivious to hierarchy, chains of command, rankings, and judgment. How surreal would that be?

Fear would be an extinct emotion. When there’s no judgment; when there’s no fear of being judged, that’s when one can unleash their thoughts and just set them free, not being scared of what others might think of them, or their ideas.

That’s one of the many things I learnt during the two-day workshop the amazing Mr Pierce has led. We can be truly crippled by fear, and consequently, unproductive. He talked about the three fears the first week:

1) Fear of seeming mad

2) Fear of sounding rude

3) Fear of being wrong

And adding a few of my own (if I may) there’s also…

4) Fear of seeming silly

5) Fear of sounding stupid

6) Fear of being misunderstood.

Personally, all these fears got the best of me at times when I was in a brainstorming session; especially when it was in my advertising job. I’d be sitting with a creative director, art directors, copywriters, and when I’d want to share my ideas, fear strikes. And that fear is because judgment does exist. Because my boss just might think that he’s over-paying me, or that my ideas aren’t ”all that” afterall. But can we suspend it this judgment? Would it be of any good? That’s another thing that Pierce talked about. That’s another thing that Pierce does which I find fascinating.

It’s very simple… he talks about suspending judgment. Suspending hierarchy. If just for a couple of hours. Whether within your groups, whether in a business, in a factory, whether parents and their children, a professor and a student, I believe when all hierarchy is being suspended -not thrown out the window for good- but merely put on hold for a few hours, a lot of good solutions can come out.

I asked Pierce before saying goodbye and goodluck, “Do you think we need a leader in our team? Do you think we would do our jobs better?” This question has been on my mind (and on my blog) for a couple of weeks now… He said something that made total sense: Mobility and Flexibility. Well, of course when he said it that way, it didn’t make sense at all, and it stirred up my reaction of “say what now?!” What he basically meant was that each one of us is a leader in their role. Flexibility of leadership, and therefore creativity of leadership. Each one of us is a leader in his/her own domain and field of experience, once crossing that territory, we suspend our leadership and make room for the person in charge of that particular domain to lead.

At the end of the day, If it weren’t for freedom of thinking, freedom of presenting thoughts, and the fearlessness of letting your imagination run wild, design thinking wouldn’t exist perhaps. Or maybe, the creative economy would be a dead economy, or not even a concept that is yet acknowledged.

So try it out… if you’re someone’s boss, someone’s parent, or if you’re a team leader, take a break. Genuinely and figuratively get off your chair, and prepare to be amazed by what others have to say…

P.S. And have fun while you do it! We did…

Honeymoon phase is over!

Last Friday’s class had SO much information, I felt that we’re sooo back in the game! Corrine was on a roll, Catherine was on a roll, and by the time the morning coffee had kicked in, we were discussing advertising, business plans, and marketing, marketing, marketing…

Corrine said something rather interesting about business plans (before handing in our marks) that I could totally relate to, thinking to myself “Dang! Why didn’t WE think of that while working on the business plan?!” It was something about strategy. Ah, that word is like an aphrodisiac to advertising love-making. Ew, did that even make sense? Well, in general, that word is definitely a turn-on in advertising world!!! I just think, at the end of the day, it all boils down to strategy, doesn’t it? An advertising campaign, a chess game, or war, it all comes down to strategy; a well-thought one of course. (Not like so many wars we are unfortunately witness to)

Our business plan wasn’t specific about our strategy. Sure, we mentioned that we were going to use facebook, wordpress and twitter; that we were going to use any free medium possible to promote Temptation, but did we strategize that? Perhaps not; not as much as we could have. It got me thinking about Temptation’s strategy. We should have a more detailed strategy in terms of penetrating the market, and I am ON IT!

What I did this week is write write write more recipes and material for the website…. and I’m also doing some research on how to work on a simple strategy for Temptation to starting making money for the upcoming two months! And basically working on a timeline for the upcoming two months. Who needs to do what and what needs to be done for Temptation!

I never thought I would say this…

a. because it is SUCH a cliché and

b. I just didn’t think it were possible

But…… TIME FLIES BY! I can’t believe we’re approaching the end of February, and before we know it, we have two months left and byebye Temptation! Oh it just breaks my heart! But thinking present moment awareness, we need to raise the bar. Higher and higher! Sure, we got a good mark, (and did I mention JUST HOW HAPPY I am to have received such a good mark?! A reeeeeeeeeally good mark?! I’M THRILLED!) But it just seems that we need to work only harder every week, and that’s fine. The amount of work is fine when you see results, when you find appreciation, and when you love what you do…

So reality has hit. We’re on a tight timeline.

Reality has hit, the honeymoon phase is over. We were in la la land, loving every step of the way, complimenting each other on the smallest details, loving this, loving that. Now, it’s reality! I don’t know why my similes are so men-related, or commitment-related, but it just makes sense! Think about it, we have COMMITTED to this, the group, ourselves, the course and our BUSINESS! Our baby! It is something we vowed to honour and respect, and most importantly, it is something that we vowed to give our absolute BEST. So yes, every team has their issues, every team has their ups and downs, but this is real life… It is time we admit to that, and get more action done!

J

A note from the editor…

I feel that we picked up the pace this week… thank God! We are definitely more on track now than we’ve been the past two months which is great. What I did was I sent an email to members of the group, with details on what each one of us should be doing for Temptation this week. We were all to meet at the library, but instead of sitting there for a few hours and talk about what we need to do and what we should do, we were going to go out and do it! Harry and AC (marketing and finance departments) went and talked to restaurants to pitch our idea for group outings. I were to work on more content for the website, and Alice was going to work on some design changes for the website. I wanted to see action, I wanted to accomplish. And that’s exactly what we did this week and it feels great!

I gathered all the content from the contributing writers, edited that content and wrote more content of my own. I also started working on a timeline for the next two months. I feel that I perhaps defined each one’s role and what they should be doing, and we actually started doing.

Go Temptation! Go Team!

J