WARNING - LONG AND SELF-INVOLVED BLOG POST THAT INCLUDES FEELINGS AND NO SILLY VIDEOS ABOUT THE INTERNET OF THINGS
I've been at R/GA for about three months now. I've got to the end of my probationary period so I've just had what I can't help thinking of as my 'probationary hearing', which means getting lots of feedback from my colleagues.
As long-time readers of this blog will know I'm not very good with comments (I must be a nightmare to manage) so I was up all night thinking about it.
There was a gratifying number of positive thoughts from people. They seem to think that I'l be quite good at presenting and strategy and stuff (though they've not really seen me do it yet). But, obviously, I can't take any comfort from that because I have skin thinner than Bible paper and can only obsess about the bad stuff.
One point someone made was that I've never talked about R/GA on here or any other part of my 'public persence'. Which is, sort of, true, and made me wonder why not.
I think it's mostly because in every induction process I've had for a large company they've been mad keen to emphasise the strict prohibitions on breaking confidentiality or saying anything that might be seen as representing a corporate point of view. I've therefore been really cautious about blogging or tweeting about my proper jobs (as opposed to my hobby jobs). I did do it a bit at w+k, but that was before anyone really knew what was going on, I hardly did it at Nike - only really in retrospect, I hardly did it Ogilvy and haven't done it yet at R/GA. Until now.
But I think my feedbacker is right, I should. Blogging about what I'm doing is part of how I work and not doing it has been frustrating me recently. Also - it's probably part of the reason to hire me, it seems unfair to just switch it off. I once promised to never blog about planning/advertising again, I felt like I'd run out of things to say, but hey! I don't work in 'advertising' any more, maybe I'll find new things to say. We'll find out.
So, I'm going to blog more about work, while, obviously, respecting client confidentiality and emphasising these are my views, not R/GA's. Maybe I'll be guilty of oversharing rather than undersharing, maybe I already am. But sod it, I'm a blogger, that's what everyone thinks of me anyway.
A more depressing comment was that I often look bored or unengaged in meetings - going as far as being actually rude to people. I'll cop to this. It's a fair point and it's bad of me. I apologise.
My only possible excuse is that personal circumstances have been a bit shit recently and it's been hard to think that any meeting has been worth being in - in comparison with where I should be. But that's not the fault of anyone in the meeting and I shouldn't be taking it out on them.
It can't be just that though, I've had this before. I got this as w+k and I imagine I would have at Ogilvy. I have to accept it's probably true. I like to think it's a symptom of shyness rather than arrogance but that might be entirely self-serving, the line between the two is probably very thin.
So; two pledges right now. Share more. Be less rude.
And, in the spirit of the first pledge. How is R/GA?
Well, it's good. Due to aforsaid personal circumstances I've not engaged as much as I should have and I've not actually done that much I can talk about, but I've noticed the following things:
1. It's tremendous to be in a business with such a deep understanding of technology. It's a company that builds stuff rather than commissions stuff - that's a big and exciting change for me.
2. Everyone's nice. Everyone's smart. Everyone's younger than me. (This is simultaneously depressing and energising. It also gives the place an 'evening culture' which doesn't quiet fit with my earlyness agenda but I suppose that'll get smoothed out.)
3. We have a small but rather special planning department who I'm really enjoying getting to know.
4. Analytics! We've got proper analytics people and they know what they're talking about. I've wibbled on about data for so long without ever needing to justify my opinions to real-life data scientists - this is going to be good.
5. There's this inchoate ambition here to do much more and build much more than they're currently doing but it's not found a way to break the surface yet. I'm hoping I'll be able to help with that.
6. I've only got deeply involved with one client project so far, but it's a really interesting problem with really nice people. We're doing strategic stuff at the moment and it's really nice to flex those muscles again.
The only bad point? I've only been here three months and they've already spotted what a grumpy sod I am.
Anyway. That's a very long-winded way to say - look out for more blogging about work. Maybe I'll start doing weeknotes.
