Key notes

It really gets up my nose when some Charlie Big Potatoes from the creative industry blogs, tweets or posts about some exotic location they’re visiting. They disguise the mention of Antigua or Paris with a dubious link to some project or other, but they actually just want you to know they’re living it up abroad. And you’re not.

Well, it used to annoy me – but now, not so much. Because now, I’ve embraced gross hypocrisy in order to report that I’m delivering this piece from a rented apartment in Kissimmee, Florida. I’m here partly to do some writing, but mainly to have a holiday and show off.

Pretty vacancies

Redundancies, renegotiations, restructuring and rotten revenues. Tough times in the creative industry. Tough times everywhere. Sorry folks, but there’s no longer any room for passengers in this business. So here’s a thought: why don’t we take a very large magnifying glass to the recruitment consultancies? Set up to match talent with opportunities, creatives with employers, I think some of these outfits have now become more of a hindrance than an asset.

An offer you can refuse

In the age of social engagement, double opt-in emails and viral campaigns, some vintage marketing strategies are still as popular as ever, despite their venerable age.

Take ‘the offer’. When our hunter-gatherer ancestors first started trading goats for wheat, it was probably no more than 24 hours before someone muscled in on the action, offering Buy-One-Goat-Get-One-Goat-Free (BOGGOGF).