Hello

hello – come in and make yourself at home

The Woodies have a blog. It’s a kind of collective. Not sure we’re about to start a revolution baby, but we might kindle a small debate or two and perhaps raise a smile. Anyway, rather than just blogging corporate Woodreed by fielding our top Woodie (as so many other companies seem to do in a thinly veiled attempt at impressing with their profundity), we wanted all our individual voices to be heard. An agency’s most valuable assets are its people after all. Everyone’s got something to say here and with us everyone’s ideas and opinions matter.

Each week someone different will be blogging. It's mostly about stuff that rocks our world as well as the flipside – the things that just don't cut it with us. We'll blog about inside and outside – inside this glorious industry where we work and outside in the real world.
It's a bit of an experiment, so go with us on this one.

Hope you enjoy.

Friday 27 July 2012

Step away from the keypad


Harvard Business Review carried a piece this week by Daniel Gelati about multi-tasking which certainly chimed.  Of course multi-tasking is now 'de rigueur' for almost everyone these days as smartphones, tablets, laptops, even now TVs, give us the option to do more things simultaneously in one minute than our forebears did in a week.


As with all modern advances this is a mixed blessing.  Woodreed, like many other businesses I'm sure, has unleashed enormous value, tangible and intangible, for ourselves and for our clients, from enabling remote working, especially for parents juggling childcare with work commitments.  The mere introduction of two PC monitors means I can now keep even more balls in the air than I ever could before - and believe me that's a lot.


But at what price - to ourselves and those we live and work with?

Unlike our capacity for love which is not reduced in any way the more it is spread amongst those closest to us, our capacity for multi-tasking means that we are giving less and less attention, consideration and care to each task we add to the mix.  A lot of the time this doesn't matter, we can do things on the hoof and with an eye on something else, but much of the time something, or someone, has to give.

Gelati describes the '"provisional conversation": a face-to-face discussion that falls apart as one or more participants default to checking their phones, only to restart as the handsets are put away.'

How many of us have been in meetings, either with clients, prospective clients, our boss or colleagues, where one, or shockingly many more, of the participants have one eye on their iPhones or Blackberries?  Where those who are supposed to be listening to you, engaging with you, simply giving you the courtesy of the time of day, are suddenly distracted by composing a quick response to some inbound email or text which cannot be ignored?  Or worse posting on Facebook? Not only is it just damn rude to those present but tell me the quality of the response isn't undermined too and wouldn't have been better for some calm reflection at a later time?  Are we really all so, so important and so pivotal that the world will stop turning if we don't respond in a nano-second?

So isn't it time we all stood up and were counted and showed each other a little more respect?  Why is it a sign of corporate status to come to a meeting with your phone/tablet and then give it a place at the table? Is mine bigger than yours, really? Come on let's make it unacceptable to turn up at a meeting and place your smartphone on the table - turn it off and put it away. When you are in a meeting - formal or informal turn the phone off, ignore the monitor screen, step away from the keyboard.

Tell your boss if they're disrespecting you by allowing themselves to be distracted. Or suggest an alternative time/place to meet if you can't quite bring yourself to be too direct. Gelati cites the junior consultant who suggested that "moving to an empty chair on the opposite side of the room gave the senior partner space to wrap up her email and slide over to me when she was ready to talk."

Let's work out ways to put a stop to the worse aspects of this, and let's challenge our own behaviour too - because of course we are all guilty of it.

To read David's piece in full click here Harvard Business Review

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Film can inspire and film can be dire

Woodreed has produced more films over the years than the proverbial heated comestibles and we've seen the media environment change out of all recognition. With the explosion in media channels the opportunities for audiences to view film have grown enormously.  Combine this with advances in technology which have significantly reduced the 'sit-down' cost of production and it's not surprising that film is enjoying something of a renaissance.


The new communications paradigm is to be discoverable everywhere your audience is, inside your business and out and film, done well, certainly helps achieve this. But the experience is not always painless, and the end result can fall short - in terms of creativity, quality, value, timings and, let's face it, just the overall experience. So we've taken a completely new approach to film making which thinks beyond and overcomes some of the frustrations we know clients can suffer.

It’s called WE.  It's very different and we think clients are going to like it.


Clients tell us they really enjoy getting involved with us when we're making films for them so the first thing we made sure is that WE is collaborative - the team at WE are upfront, available and transparent and client input is welcomed throughout.  


We've speeded up the process too.


WE combines the best strategic and creative minds with the best in technology and production to ensure great results - quickly and cost-effectively.
From experience we know the killer questions to ask to gain fast insight into the brief - insight we use to make sure our big ideas are solidly grounded in strategy and not delayed by deliberation.Technology that allows clients to view and comment on their film from any platform, any time, wherever they are. Technology that means initial ideas are presented at no extra cost as animatics to bring them to life right from the start.


WE sets out to be faster, more creative, more efficient - ahead of the rest.  


To be inspired visit WE think about film