Cloak And Dagger

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

Catastrophic events can draw us together in the way no other life experience can. They define a point in time for capturing a collective awareness – concerning all who were directly involved – witnessing or alerted to the incident. These epic events, can influence the minds of an entire generation on a global scale. When they are so unusual or unexpected, they become deeply rooted in our collective psyche.

When previous generations are recalling significant life-changing events, the majority of people that witnessed the occasion, can vividly recollect intricate details from the time it occurred. Many will recall with clarity where they were the day Diana was fatally injured in a car accident, what they were doing when John Lennon, Malcolm Luther King or JFK were shot dead. There's other amazing events such as the moon landings, which captivated the world, but for the most part, harrowing events where people are dying, tend to stick in the memory with greater clarity. That's why millions can recall the 3000+ deaths resulting from the most terrifying attack on American soil since Pearl Harbour, which was specularly presented to the world on September 11, 2001.

We are all still living in the shadows cast from this major 2001 event. Consequently, a significant amount of change has occurred over the last 16 years as a result of this attack. We've not only been pushed to relinquish our freedoms, but as we grant even deeper surveillance into our private lives, we also pass more power over to those who we trust to keep us safe. We've had to adjust our ways of living, in order to manage life in an era of terror at the same time as coming to terms with the reality of such a surreal event occurring in the first place. Slowly, the realisation of the 2001 event and an understanding of the reality formed from it's consequences, are filtering through to the many who were affected by this global transformation.

Tapping The Source Of Information 
Global events, receive global coverage in the media. We've all been glued to our TV screens during past traumatic events and the information presented to us, has further helped to gel our opinions to the facts presented to us. However, as the freedom to share information via the world wide web, have allowed us to look much deeper into the official explanations for many of the life-changing events throughout the 20th century and into the 21st (especially the events mentioned above), we have been given an opportunity to rediscover history in a way that differs from the official record. The record that has been fed to us.

From the many hours of footage being recovered, distributed and new learnings shared online, there emerges a frightening realisation of a deceitful world ruled by an elite. On digestion of the new-found theories, facts and points of view, one could suggest a complete re-write of the 20th century altogether, one that has villains and their heinous crimes featured at the heart of every major story.

The only good thing that has come from 9/11, is the wake up call and realisation that all is not as it seems. Our persistent questioning of facts and search for the truth, has been the result of us opening our eyes, ears and minds. Little did so many of us realise way back in 2001, how significant 9/11 and building seven, would prove to be, for revealing the corruption and power the elite have over the masses. The historical stories we'd been fed via mainstream media, government, books and the eduction system, had up until quite recently, been the soul sources of our information. Why would we question these sources and how did we even know there were alternative stories to be found until the internet opened pandora's box? 

The Internet has given us a unique opportunity to share information freely with each other. We'd never before been provided such an expansive arena to debate alternative theories or a platform to speak up about our own findings. With a broad scope for discovery on the world wide web, we now have many multiple view points to digest, investigate/research plus opportunities to dispel lies on the quest for discovering truths. Human evolution and development is available for us all to grasp. If we are to maximise on this great instrument for learning, we need to keep sharing and we shouldn't be afraid to ask the big questions.

Alternative Realities

To get a gauge on reality from any perspective, questions always needs to be asked. And by questioning the what if's, it can lead us on to uncover the why's. This reasoning, can be applied to all major events. So, we can then ask the big questions like: 'What if the Apollo moon landings never actually happened?' How then would we feel if an epic event such as this was suspected to be a huge lie? How could something so major, be covered up for so long? And why would this be a benefit to those setting up the deception? And then, invariably, we uncover the justification. Usually this involves money, power or both.

Wether you believe the moon landings happened or not, is of less importance than the efforts put in to uncover our own version of events. On the surface (yes, pun intended), it appears that a deception of this magnitude would be impossible to implement. Surely, something on this grand scale could not be orchestrated and certainly not covered up for so long with so many contributing members at Nasa? Yet, if we are to research the evidence surrounding the moon landings, watch/listen to the footage and study the scientific facts, there actually appears to be a significant amount of questionable facts pointing to an alternative conclusion. When the evidence clearly doesn't stack up, we move to a new collective view of reality. 

The Tipping Point
When popular opinion switches from one narrative over to another, it can be called a tipping point. Usually, it takes something fundamentally powerful – be it a persuasive influence or un-refutable fact – to turn popular opinion. Watch 12 angry men for an example of how one man can change the opinions of the majority. Investigate Nasa's current viewpoint on the Van Allen belt to see how an important fact concerning radiation, could sway popular opinion. 

Everything an alternative perspective. It's all dependent on the standpoint of the individual. But if the reality is provided and portrayed by a group that controls how we receive the information, then a reality can be presented in a way that only a select few will want the masses to believe. It's true, the masses do need a steer, otherwise we are unable to collectively make the right choices. This is why we entrust governments to make the right decisions on our behalf.

The Enigma Of Truth

When supreme trust is put into the hands of a select few, the responsibilities of those holding power become so great, these controllers of destiny, become god-like in the way they can determine the outcomes of our lives. 

Alan Turing played the role of God for altering the outcome of WW2. The man who created a code-cracking computer, also had the supreme responsibility of guarding a secret so powerful, we would never have known about it, had the secret service not released it to the public many years after Alan's death. Alan was entrusted to steer the war. He was emotially equipped to make the decisions required for bringing an earlier end to the conflict. Cracking the Enigma code was not just a turning point in history, it ensured a foregone conclusion to the war, in favour of the British - but only if the secret was kept safe. 

It's standard government policy to keep secrets like these hidden until a time deemed safe enough for the general public to know of them. Generally, state secrets are only released after those most affected by it's consequences, are gone. It's horrendous to think that many people died when they could have been saved, but the deaths of many hundreds of thousand and millions, were consequently saved by bringing the war to an earlier close.

There has to be a strong pull for retaining such a powerful secret. In this instance, it was multi-faceted. There was the oath for King and country, punishable by death if treason was committed. But there was more powerfully, the knowledge that the end to conflict would come sooner and less lives would be lost. Decisions were made on the basis of having the lesser of two evils - and there would be pre-known losses along the way. This term has been coined as 'collateral damage'.

Story telling has been our way of highlighting the human condition, describing the constant battle of good versus evil and for capturing the spirit of what it means to be human beings. We all love a good story. We all like those best where, in the second act, man overcomes the adversary to bring a just end to a saga. I'd say that we all want to win out over evil - we all inherently want to do the right thing.

Handling the truth

Another film I'm reminded of, with sterling performances again, from Tom Cruise and Jack Nicolson, is 'A few good men'. There's a scene in the film, where, Tom's character, a lawyer, is putting Jack's army sergeant character up on the stand to be questioned. The truth comes out, when Jack highlights the very real need to do the wrong thing sometimes in order to protect the masses. Again, this boils down to collateral damage of a sorts and with the very powerful phrase 'You want the truth? You can't handle the truth', reality of the situation becomes clear. This scene and indeed the story, reminds us that terrible things are going on all around us. It's tough having to make decisions where someone will lose out, but it's for our own good not to know about these decisions if we'd rather it was someone else taking the hit. It's a parady of life for most Americans and why this film was such a success. Some things are on a need to know basis - but as this film clearly demonstrates, there is still a need for restraint and an element of transparency because how much collateral damage is really necessary? 

Need To Know Basis

There's a lot of secrecy going on in the world right now. There's a whole rivalry chess game being played out between the many different nations, all ensuring a high level of security to protect it's citizens - ensuring it's the other guys losing out when push comes to shove. It's this posturing for power that is causing such turmoil and war.

Back again quickly to The second Workd war, we can see one clear victor emerge from the rubble - America. But this victory has come at a cost. America is the champion and there will always be contenders to this crown. Complex factors, way beyond my knowledge of the events or indeed beyond most minds to comprehend, have come into play throughout history. The same battles for supremecy and power have played out before, similar cloak and dagger techniques and secrets, have carved out history. There's much to learn about the reasons why wars happen and looking deeper into these reasons, one can uncover some alarming truths which undermine the reality we've been fed. 

The focus today, is on USA, because the twin towers were detroyed 17 years ago today in a perceived terrorist attack on the world's dominant super power. America market themselves as the land of the brave, a country founded on the bill of rights. This constitution is the backbone of what America stand for. These beliefs have a very strong draw on it's people to uphold justice. So powerful is this draw, that Americans have become blindly attached to this idea that they are the good guys and that they have the tools for fairness and decency - giving them the right to govern the world - that they fail to see how false this really is. Regular Americans are decent people but are inadvertently to blame for their country's actions. But their country and the secret services, I believe, on the whole, are acting on behalf of the people to protect them from perceived threat. Unfortunately, with power, comes responsibility and a select few are wielding so much power, as to to undermine any good that may come from wanting to protect it's citizens.

It's A Frame

Having had so much time to look at many different pieces of evidence, watching countless videos and reading books by qualified experts in their fields, I'm now even more convinced of a secret organisation's role in the destruction of the twin towers. So many people are now waking up to the fact that 9/11 was an inside job. Not only has this concept been hard for anyone to take, but the evidence for how it was carried out points to something so fantastic, that many would fear accepting these things as bordering on lunacy. But, if we look at the past, we can see from Alan Turin's story, how deception was so important a factor for bringing an end to the war. Potentially, if we can find reasons behind Pearl Harbour, JFK, Vietnam - to mention a few from Americans perspective, then we may find a motive behind the 9/11 deception. 

Could it be that America's perceived threats were so high, that the controlling elite (deep state), deemed it necessary to fabricate a story so impactful, that it could rally the nation to protect itself for own sake? Were these attacks in some way, demonstrating the power that America's military hold? Could this posturing be a display to Russia and China, of how the technology for deception, destruction and illusion could fool the world? If one is to investigate the technology DARPA or seven the British military have been patenting and to some extent, trying out on Iraqis, it becomes evident that something so bizarre about the twin towers, can be easily explained. It's a display of strength, without breaking international law, which perhaps was intended to cause as little collateral damage as possible, all in the need to protect American citizens. 

Disclosure
Whatever we choose to believe about the ritual display of twin towers falling down and being vaporised into dust, being aware that nothing is as it seems will help us to keep our eyes open and ready for the next red flag event attempted.

Hiring Potential

AGENCY SPOTLIGHT

A serious flaw, lying at the very heart of recruitment, is fundamentally damaging the industry's abilities at finding employment for the many people looking for work.

This fact has certainly become apparent for me, living in the UK, as I struggle to find suitable roles within the multi-faceted graphic design industry. It seems that the people-focussed industry has lost it's connection to those it professes to serve. Human interactions are being dropped and technological job matching measures along with virtual communications are being used instead to replace traditional industry defining practices of working.

An Age Old Problem
Gone are the days when an agent would have the inside knowledge of the profession and roles it fills. Gone also is the initial face-to-face meeting for getting to know the applicant. Recruiters are getting younger and measured more on their technological abilities plus their social media skills. Experience and knowledge are now further down the list of requirements for sourcing applicants, because a CV bot can do a lot of the vetting for suitable matches instead. This has resulted in junior agents being put in charge of finding suitable positions including more senior complex roles, when they themselves are barely out of university. It's a recent phenomena. The last ten years have seen a lot of technological changes and this has been hugely bolstered by advances in technology, especially concerning mobile and online connectivity.

We're all on the look out for quicker-fix solutions and cost saving measures to gain an advantage. There's been a drive to find technological solutions for complex challenges in almost everything we do. Connections on the go, have enabled far greater accessibility to all kinds of information. Relying on high volumes of applicants to provide recruitment information and software to manage it all, has shifted focus on the data and away from the individuals looking for jobs.

Subscriptions based online software, like Job Adder – a venture capitalist's cash cow and entrepreneur's wet dream. These tools are being implemented across many of the sectors where once there existed niche and specialist requirements to function and this is where we've gone so wrong.

Recruitment software is available for anyone wishing to become an agent and the tools for reeling in job hunters are both inexpensive and easy to use. Previously, the agent would have spent a lot more time in finding the right people by talking with job seekers and the client alike to better establish where the right fit could be made. This investment of time allowed agents to fully understand what the client and applicant wanted but also to express what they needed. Now, a lot of this time can be 'saved' through software, which can quickly find applicant suitability ratios. The craft is being overlooked and in this sense, people are becoming little more than data.

Trawling for Talent
Yes, the net has widened significantly enough to fish for a much larger haul of talent, but it's become a number's game for the real talent to be found in such a huge, virtual pool. Whereas before say 2007, the majority of industry roles were advertised in specific and specialist places, they are now online, accessible to all. That makes the task of finding any quality from amongst the rusty shopping trolleys and weeds – dragged up from the polluted online channels – job aggregators like CV Library and Indeed, very slim indeed. And in this lottery of job searching, the chances of success will be determined by the metaphorical plucking of a bingo ball, unless the arm doing the plucking is weighed in favour of your own lucky number 7. If the recruiter has no experience, has never met you and relying increasingly more on statistics to place their candidates, it's going to be a tough ride. That's why we need some leverage to increase the odds of being hooked out.

It's Good To Talk
For someone like myself, who's been in full-time employment over the last 10 years, emerging to this modern day environment of self-promotion, with all the social media posturing and bolstering at the forefront of job hunting, it's been a real shock adjusting to the new landscape.

I always had a friendly, professional relationship with my agents and it was a mutually beneficial, two-way, money-making partnership. Alas, my much loved, work-providing agents, have all now moved on to greater things – like becoming yoga teachers. And so, dealing with the social media savvy (but socially inept) 25 year olds now playing at God, it's proven to be quite difficult finding much success from the business arena I so easily performed in as a contractor pre 2007.

No more first refusals on jobs for me – I’m lucky to get a poorly worded and curtly dismissive email from a nameless, faceless entity these days. In fact, simply getting a reply from an agent is the nicest thing to happen in the last three months and there's only been a few instances from my 2-3 job applications made every day, a very low returns percentage. Sure, I have been very lucky to be plucked out from the quagmire by a few rogue agents – blindly sifting for some gold, but they are quick to assess the likeliness of going further and the conversations usually go cold once they realise something affecting the match going any further, ie. a salary from the SME or start-up they are recruiting for is just a fraction of what my desired wage is. I've since learned not to mention money.

Don’t think about trying to compromise either. You've no position of power for any bargaining and no apologies are required from them why you're being removed from the list. The cruel reality is that they've discarded your application already and moved on to the next one before hanging up the phone. Agents blatantly fail at disguising their goal-focussed intentions and won't be interested in establishing future friendships unless there's another role you're being considered for. They'll waste little time on the niceties so they can get on with contacting the next applicants who may help them meet targets.

Deal or No Deal
So, what's happened to this people-first industry to make it so cut throat? Speaking with other friends/colleagues in the same boat and also with some decent agents who I know, it appears there are a few mitigating factors. High-volume, multi-channel job seeking aggregators and parasitic bedroom agents have generated so much noise, that it's become far too labour intensive to actually speak with anyone. Try ringing a recruiter (unless they are about to place you somewhere for a 20% kick-back fee) – they'll likely be in training, meetings, on holiday, on the phone, sick or away from their desk – for ever. They don't want to hear your rambles for 20 minutes – not when they can easily sift through 20+ CV's within that time (wasted) on the phone. And there’s only so much time in their day to find the right selection of candidates for a demanding client.

The relationship is only good while you are making agents some money. If you're helping them meet targets, they will be your friend. But the loyalty won't be there, because why just deal with a handful of people when you can now get greater reach by farming out a LinkedIn posting for a job position, for example? The agent doesn't even need to talk with the client much anymore either – an email of CVs sent with pretty pictures for a portfolio, will provide enough choice that the already busy client, who will lazily pluck one of the selections out of the bunch, without putting too much thought into their decision as perhaps they should have – likely because they believe the agent has already filtered them accordingly for the most suitable candidates.

It's easier to see why job hunting has become so tough. The recruitment agent isn’t totally to blame. The clients will be making deals with recruiters to get lower sourcing rates in exchange for exclusivity over a set time-frame. Some larger organisations will work in tandem with the recruitment agencies, often using their own HR ‘talent acquisition’ teams and so there’s an even greater urgency to find the right people before the client do.

To capitalise on even lower sourcing rates, the larger organisations are also securing deals with the major recruiters to manage their wider recruitment needs, which are putting a squeeze on the rates they charge for sourcing freelancers, in turn pushing down the freelance rates for contractors.

Because exclusivity deals stop other recruiters from being in the runnings with larger corporations, there’s even lower frequencies of higher-paid positions from the companies that can afford them and so far less well-paid roles to be found for experienced candidates to scrap over.

Tighter deals with bigger companies, means recruiters are themselves hiring younger, lower-paid agents to increase their profits. Lower rates means companies are having to take on younger, less experienced staff but also with lower pay expectations. Consequently, candidates like myself, who are used to being paid for their skill and experience are often being overlooked/priced/squeezed out from the runnings. The competition for these higher paid roles is fierce and likely the roles themselves will be more demanding as a result. Sure, it’s tough dropping down in salary for a job once well-paid, but the market dictates the rates, which have fallen considerably and noticeably so in the last 6 months. Stacking shelves is not an option. While a pay drop may mean less flashy holidays, it could also bring a better life/work balance and your pride is not a major factor when compared to the importance of retaining one's confidence and self-esteem by actually having a job! These traits are essential attributes for securing the next bread winner as well – nobody will want to hire you when you're depressed.

Baring Your Soul
It's one thing to be ignored when a crafted CV is sent out into the online ether – but to send a pdf of your hard work and get either no reply or informed you're not suitable with no explanation why – that's a soul eater. Explaining how great your achievements are to someone unknown, who's little idea about what it is you can do, in as brief an upbeat email as possible – all without flavouring the message with any 'tone' or bolshiness, is difficult to get right – but that's what I've been up against over recent months. A fruitless endeavour like this, is enough to dampen anyone’s confidence.

Luckily for me, I've managed to find some really good recruiters in amongst the charlatans, who have professionally given me the time of day to express my needs, divulge me expertise and even give me some work. Other than that, it's largely been my own hustling that's kept the wolf from the door.

And so, for anyone out there struggling for survival in this murky, over-farmed carp-pond, commonly known as the job market – here's a few pointers to consider when applying for roles and ideas for gaining an advantage in cyber space...

Be Bots Aware
Some of the laborious recruitment tasks are now being replaced with AI systems. You may not even be getting through to an agent because your CV isn't as good a match as the many others being picked up by the virtual agent’s selection parameters.

After an unsuccessful start in job seeking, I tried firing off my CV with a covering letter which included a reworked copy of the brief as the opening page. The text was adjusted accordingly to make it read as if I was making the statements for requirements. So instead of 'We are looking for blah blah' I replaced it with 'I am skilled/experienced/proficient in blah blah'. It was my first reply in six weeks and it came just a couple of days after my application was made. This was no coincidence.

Programs caller 'spider bots' are increasingly being utilised by agents to scan your CVs for buzz words which closely reflect the job brief. The closer you are to this brief, the more likely you are to be selected for the next stage. So using the same language, will make the match closer. This sly tactic has been a real revelation, helping me receive a steady influx of replies – mostly from what I term 'bedroom agents', but this method is a good way ‘in’ at the first stage and certainly gives us some hope that we're being seen and considered.

Keep it Simple
Make your CV idiot proof. Don't 'flower it up' too much as the agent will prefer to skim through in a few seconds to get an idea if you are a suitable match or not. A one pager is much better for them. Regardless of the many skills you wish to convey in your arsenal – very few of the agents are going to read through paragraphs of text and will instead be looking for key pointers and suitable skills which only match you to the job role - make it easy for them to spot.

Be Flexible
Carefully write your CV to include a bit of 'flex'. Increase your options by adding extra value to your offering. If you have additional skills which could be a valuable asset – list them, but be aware that too many skill options potentially makes you seem less of an 'expert' which is strangely off-putting for an agent and client looking for specific roles.

Be Honest
There's many new ways for software to check what qualifications you have and even ways to investigate where you've worked before. Never use anyone else's work examples as your own and be as honest as you can about what your input has been on a job.

Tailor It
Make sure the covering letter matches the brief requirements – and amend your CV too if necessary. This used to be something the agent would prepare. Creating an agent's profile version, more fitting for the brief, would be a useful method for getting cut-through with the client. Nowadays the agent will have access to many more applicants, so is likely caught up with assessing these candidates, to find the perfect match from their CV’s instead, so a little amendment made yourself could be worthwhile. Unfortunately, this tactic could backfire if you have multiple CVs floating around which contradict each other in some way, so if this is a tactic that could get you through the door – make a profile CV which reads as if a 3rd party assessed and prepared this profile for you.

Hold Something Back
Hook in the agent with the CV and an enthusiastic but fairly brief covering letter – requesting a chat on the phone before sending over the relevant work examples. Getting an agent on the phone – or better still, in person, is a sure way to make a connection with someone. Being a friendly voice/face, will get you a lot further along the chain than an email possibly will. If you can talk through the work examples too, you've made an even better opportunity for yourself, as people will generally remember your face or how you presented yourself. Understanding your capabilities a lot better will help them 'shoe-horn' you in to a company where you're maybe not the most perfect match on paper, but other attractive attributes you have (which would have been overlooked), can be put forward as a client consideration.

Bribery
No joke. If you get a chance to meet in person – take in some offerings. Gifts like food, drink, cut-price tickets or some referrals for a cool new restaurant/bar/film – anything to associate a good time or deal/freebie with your meeting/name can be offered. It's shamefully underhand but it works.

Stay Confident
When the efforts from of all the job hunting are bringing no results, It can be really demoralising and demotivating, especially when there's rejection to deal with too. The job market is saturated with so many people in the same position as you and all are trying really hard to find a positive outcome. What we have to do is to keep looking at ways at improving our chances for success. Frustrating as it may seem at times, we need to treat the job hunt as a challenge and always look for opportunities or ways to get a CV to the top of the stack.

Stay positive and only write emails or job applications when you're feeling in an upbeat mood. If it were easy getting a great job, it wouldn't be as valuable to us, so bare that in mind. The harder you try, the greater the reward when it comes good!

Another Perspective
Put yourself in the agent's shoes for a moment. What do they want to see? Try writing the application text in a separate file, go away for a bit, then re-assess everything as if you were an agent. Bizarrely, your rushed reply, arrogance, frustration and irritation may come across in the 'flavour' of your writing and by looking at all this from a third person perspective, it can help you to see better ways of answering job applications via email etc.

Supply & Demand
Anyone can become a recruiter these days, it seems. There's certain skills that a good recruiter will have and potential to make a decent career out of it. There's a lot more people trying to make the big bucks, but it takes a lot of hard work to get there. The established recruiters will fair better than most at getting their clients on both sides, bigger and better paid roles. It's just someone else trying to make a living at the end of the day and they'll work to whatever means for optimising their income. There are some really good agents out there – find them and make them your friends.

The role of recruiter has evolved somewhat because the market has changed. Whereas in the past, there seemed to be more emphasis on finding a suitable job for an applicant, it now focuses a lot more on finding a perfect applicant for the job. It's a buyers market. When supply outstrips demand, there is always a drop in the value of the product as the competition increases. So, the agent will have a glut of product – ie. applicants, ready at their disposal. This doesn't mean you're not special anymore, just not as special compared to the many other people vying for attention all at the same time. Adjust your rates to stay competitive.

Selling Ice To The Eskimoos
In order to gain an agent's attention, we need to make them aware of how special we are. We require more time devoted by them to learn our powers and to explain the value we offer in greater detail. Firing off a CV and portfolio into the ether, without knowing anything about the person or recruitment agency it's going to, won't tell us how effective, connected or dedicated they are. Too many of us have been doing this for far too long. We need to address this issue and take some power back.

Become a better sales person and offer some scope, deals and viable solutions for employment which the agent will have difficulty ignoring. Consider lower rates for longer bookings or a drop in salaries in exchange for other perks. Offer free trial time/days as a freelancer or temp-perm options for full-time positions etc.

Stay Current
It's essential to keep the CV current and the portfolio updated regularly as this could negatively show the time out of work or positively where you've been contracting. Newer positions may add extra layers of diversity and suitability when applying for a multitude of roles.

Ultimately, you have to keep integrity at all times – and regardless if feels like you're banging your head against the wall, stay true to yourself, keep persevering and eventually, as I've discovered, the right opportunity will come............eventually.

Calling In The Creative Cavalry

A SHOT IN THE DARK

Creativity – as a marketable skill, is very difficult to define in terms of value. Great ideas, as I've previously posted, are very subjective to the individual and also largely specific for the market in which they apply. However, in terms of assessing business-related creativity, the only real way to measure success in a commercial realm, is to register a direct correlation between the work generated and the money rolling in from sales uplift.

Creating a marketing scheme, to increase the sales of a product, is in itself, a difficult concept. Luckily, every product will have its USP (unique selling point) to focus the big idea upon –  and it's how we, as creatives, bolster the USP through advertising, that we get a measurable sales uplift. Increase in sales revenue minus money spent on creativity, equals extra profits won. So if we take the previous sales as a comparison to work out the percentage of profits gained in relation to it, we can more clearly ascertain the value of the creative work.

This simple profits-as-a-percentage equation works well when valuing creative input but works effectively only when the product has already been established with the consumer. So identifying the USP becomes the definitive variable for measuring any sales increase where the creative has acted as catalyst for promoting it. Therefore, without a strong USP, no matter how inspirational or creative we get – when offering is poor, there will be no significant uplift in sales and therefore, no successful outcome from the creative endeavours. In marketing terms, this situation is more commonly termed as 'flogging a dead horse'. Making a decision to get involved with a client when we can see there's a problem with their product – essentially knowing the final outcome will bear no fruit – this is the creative's dilemma.

Rolling It In Glitter
We can tell when a business is in trouble because it's when they call in the creative 'guru' to dig them out of a hole. For a creative person like myself, this accolade can be as much a curse as it is a gift. When the work is working, we're the guru - but all too often, we're not seen that way at all. We market ourselves as a creative resource, not as magicians. Unfortunately, companies today are finding the global market a lot tougher to succeed in and for lack of inspiration, have become all too reliant on the creative silver bullet.

As far as the role of a creative individual goes, all the business management tend to know about our role, is that we're tasked with 'creating things'. Generally, this means making something marketable which they want to sell to make a healthy profit from. We basically make sh*t look good. We have enough sense to know when something is going to work or not and at times it may be staring us in the face, yet business leaders can be blinkered when it comes to the truth. They'd sooner deceive themselves than admit when it's clearly not the delivery which is lacking, but the actual product itself.

Charging Into Oblivion
Was it ego, mis-information or denial of the facts causing Custer to charge in the face of certain defeat? Likely all three factors played a part. It's been shown where bad decisions are made even by the most well informed – because we tend to distort the facts to suit the answer we need. So, as obvious as it may seem looking in from an outsiders perspective, when the data becomes the be-and-end-all measure for success, the duff product gathering dust can be overlooked entirely. Figures and charts will be the gauge of success and because this info comes from the company employees tasked with 'sales', it's in their interest to make targets look achievable. Creating the opportunities for these sales bods, are the new business arm of the business and it's these folk who have to create new prospects by 'jazzing-up' the offering. On the surface, everything looks good for the pending battle...

Answering The Call
As a contractor, you get an untainted impression every place you go. You gain a knack for sussing out a situation. So we can tell when the sales are failing at a new place of work. There's an atmosphere in the offices – an almost tangible nervousness hanging in the air which can be sliced through with a scalpel. Meeting with the new business team, you can feel the pressure of expectation and see the desperation written on their tired faces.

Barely masking strained smiles, their seagull eyes tell a different tale as they profess to tell us about taking 'a new direction', delivering a 'fresh' feel in their communications and how working closely with creatives, are seeking something 'amazing' to bring in the beans. There's never any specifics about what fresh or amazing feels or looks like – they have no clue. These are the sales Person's magic buzz words and the only way they can tell good from bad is by meeting their sales targets – or not. You know you're in for a ride and it's whether you want to take the money or take a hike, because going along with a role such as this, can make or break a creative's confidence.

Creative cavalry can be seen as the hero solution or just another reckless expense, further contributing to the company's demise. It can weigh heavily on the soul when unexpectedly, you're told the budget isn't there to keep using your services. They're breaking up with you and even the same language is used. Sure, it's their failure – not yours they say, but feels like it at the time. But this needn't be the way if the job is approached in the right way.

Something I've failed to address in the past, is where the requests for creativity have originated from. There's little point trying to please a sales representative who's down on their KPI's. Not unless, there's been a clear move for addressing the sales strategy. The business leaders need to be involved with the planning process from the top down. Because, if the same offering has been rolled out every time and received no sales – it doesn't matter how much glitter you cover the proverbial turd in, because the sales figures will be the same – insignificant at best – and it's no reflection on the creative work. We just need to lay the ground before we commence.

The Creative Pitch
Before diving straight in, consider putting in some caveats at the beginning of a contract. The business should have to answer a few questions and agree to some terms.

Some of the things to consider are these:

– Who's in charge
Find out who has ultimate say. Multiple stake holders involved in a creative idea, will all want to contribute their tuppenny bit's worth. This will make you go around in circles and crazy in the process.

– Ownership of the creative
You've been pulled in as the creative silver bullet – so there needs to be someone holding the gun. If there's no creative director to hand, make sure there's another director who can pull the trigger – otherwise, take the gun into your own hands and make it aware to everyone involved, that you know how to use it effectively.

– Attractive offer on price
If you're pulled in as a creative get-out-of-jail saviour, the money being outlaid needs to reflect in the quality of your offering. We always tend to throw money at solutions when we can't solve them ourselves easily. You'll know exactly how this feels. How many expensive guilty purchases have you splashed out for on Christmas eve as the shutters are coming down? Same thing goes for broken boiler or leaky toilet – we always pay above and beyond to make the issue go away. But if the gift is ill-matched, toilet still leaks or the heating fails on Christmas day – there will be resentment at the person who was once held up as being the hero. So put in a high offer at first, but bring down the price so they feel like you're a bargain at the price – that way, if the presentation isn't won or the sales figures barely budge – you may still be asked back again.

After the war has been fought, you, as the gun for hire, will be free to either stay on gallantly for the next battle if so requested, or ride on for another fight elsewhere, essentially unscathed, whether there's been a massacre at the hands of fate or a glorious victory against all the odds.

Work Has Stopped Working

THE DIVISION OF LABOUR

With all the technological advances we've made in the 21st century, the pocket computers offering global connectivity at a tap and tools for sharing with a wider world, it would appear we have advanced our methods of working to bring greater success in business. But in some ways, technology is actually holding us back and without making allowances for the right modern methods to function properly, we are becoming counter-productive in delivering solutions.

The structure of our working model seems to have changed little since the industrial revolution. We still mostly have an office 9-5 clock-in / clock-out, 5 day/40 hour week along with a departmentalised structure and hierarchy akin to that found in the industrialised era factory. For sure, the glass and steel office space may be open plan today and preach messages of collaboration from the walls, but there are great gulfs open between once very close relationship departments and cultural divides between the needs of the workers and wants of upper management. It's quite obvious to see where technology hasn't quite helped improve working practices in the way it should have. When the entire floor of people are visible at their desks and clearly accessible — the preferable modes of communication will be virtual and that brings a division where it needn't be. Colleagues may be merely feet away but may as well be on the other side of the planet when it comes to getting things done.

There's a certain mindset when using email and other forms of digital communication for work collaboration, which is completely different from making phone calls or meeting someone in person. Tasks that can be undertaken quickly and easily explained or actioned, can be mis-interpreted, over-complicated and deferred in the time it would have taken to complete them. Removal of the personal approach, can increase distance in relationships and form barriers for progress.

Confining the movement of ideas and collaborations of projects to the 8hr day, keeps us from realising full potential. The consequence: modern-day technology, paired with old fashioned working practices, is creating a glut of extra leg-work, generating a mass of useless output in the process, from which we're having to sift through, for anything of worth. It's two steps forward and one and a half steps back. Everyone seems run off their feet but in reality, they're not getting very far with their efforts.

What we are witnessing here, is the age of non-working work. And here's another couple of examples where we've created barriers for getting things done.

Compartmentalisation

If anyone has tried to sort an IT problem within a large organisation, they will have witnessed the issues behind modern day compartmentalisation in a workforce. Essentially, we can't get anything done, no matter how small, without first making everything quantifiable. What this means, is a job that would take a qualified person no more than 5 minutes to fix, feasibly takes many more times to do. In the first instance, it's 1-2x just to register the job using an online form, the same again to chase up the request with a phone call, another 2-3x answering emails in relation to further information requests and then another 30x or longer timeframe goes by before the fix is actually made.

The data collected in this way, can be cleverly manipulated to show how a high frequency of requests can justify many, many hours of work. But a lot of those hours have been created by the requests and the form filling themselves. Also, the measure of highly-skilled work and quick fixes, are not usually taken into consideration. So the relation of low-grade and in-effective work against actual work is realistically somewhere around 10:1 against. Pretty pie charts, graphs and infographics are generated for maximum effect. Rarely is this data put under the close scrutiny it deserves.

Companization

Splitting the workforce into separate factions, is not just a phenomena found in the white collar industry. For example, try dealing with any amenity supplier like the gas, electric or water board. You will first get through to a call centre. They in turn, will delegate to another area of the business that is outside of the call centre and at times, another business altogether. The call centre operative and engineer, will be working to their own measurable, independent KPI's – and that hinders company-wide collaboration. Unless the the call centre operative has experience in the field, they will also have very limited knowledge of the work they are booking in or of the many idiosyncrasies that can affect outcomes.

For example, you have a water bill that's suddenly increased 10x overnight. The computer generated letter gives no indication why this has happened. The call centre assistant has no explanation or immediate way to fix the issue but you spend an hour on the phone. Turns out, there could be a leak at the cause of this issue. So, a man comes to put signage up outside the property. Another guy comes to dig the hole, then another guy checks the leak. Another person fits a new stop cock and another guy fills the hole in. 

What's amazing in this real-life scenario, plus, as it turned out, extremely frustrating, in-efficient and time wasting, is that these individuals are all working for separate companies — not just within separate departments of one company, but completely removed from each other. So, when the issue doesn't get resolved as expected, the time and effort required to 'fix' the issue, becomes such a multiplier of time, above and beyond the actual time and effort initially required to deal with the problem, that we massively delay a successful outcome from happening. We then enter into a blame culture divide.

In this above example, the problem was with the water board, who had ill-fitted a new stop-cock to replace the ancient (and most likely, perfectly functioning one), before they updated their billing systems. After almost two months of multiple visits by various different individuals from different companies, with specialist equipment, who dug holes, filled, re-dug and filled, plus destroyed an ornamentally tiled Victorian front path, it was discovered that the original work carried out by the water board engineer, as part of their move to make water readings more accurate and billings 'more efficient', had been completed poorly – creating a leak – a problem that wasn't there. This created a knock-on tsunami of problems, along with multiple costs for work that needn't have been carried out, which are ultimately billed back to the consumer.

The potential problem had been flagged very early on by an engineer but as he worked for a 'separate firm', it was out of his remit to fix – he could only do what was allocated for him to work on. Where as self initiatives and common sense solutions would have prevailed in the past, they are now even frowned upon within an organisation. The engineers are booked by call centre operatives via a closed system – so neither the engineer, call centre operative, nor any other contributor along the chain, can easily relay their findings to the others – they have to complete a course of action, regardless of the glaring issues at the outset which they know will affect a successful outcome.

This modern-day inefficiency seems to frustrate the engineers at these companies just as much as it does the clients wanting a solution. Clearly, there's a disconnect between once collaborative members of an organisation where information could have rectified the issue a lot sooner and at much lower expense. But maybe there's a benefit to be had here. More work to fix a problem, means more work for the engineers and more work for the engineers, means more diplomats are required to deal with the disgruntled client and more admin staff who can organise the next batch of engineers to fix the problem.

We're Here To Help
Call centres are portrayed as the representatives of a company but in many cases are separate entities in themselves and also potentially representing a multitude of different companies all at the same time/place. 

As much as the voice on the other end of the line may sound up-beat and enthusiastic, these people are really not pleased to hear from you. The call centres are usually abroad in places where wages are low, like India, Egypt or Mexico for USA or in regions of the country where there's historically been high levels of unemployment – Liverpool, Glasgow or Sunderland for UK etc. The job options are limited and so a low-paid call centre is seen as a better option for them than relying on the low benefits they'd receive instead. They take calls all day long, with around 15 seconds break between each one. No matter how frustrated the customer gets, they are meant to stay composed throughout the call – which is recorded for 'training' purposes. These people are watched like hawks.

Their job is to deal with mostly angry people. With limited access to systems for rectifying issues properly, plus a strict set of rules to follow about conversing with the public, they have little scope for dealing with anything more than general tasks. They take a lot of flack from an increasingly frustrated public and that's why many last no more than a couple of years without suffering some kind of psychological damage before quitting. Fortunately for large organisations who allow in-effective systems to function as long as their profits are up, there's a large queue of unfortunate souls waiting in the wings for a job, no matter how depressing it is.

The training in these centres has become fairly standard across the board, because most large corporations now use the same in-house or out-sourced call centres, employing the same techniques for their front line defence. So the same strained voices can be heard and the same in-effective service can be repeated whether it's for managing your insurance, communications, entertainment or banking requirements.

Diminishing Returns
As much as a representative at any of these institutions tries to rectify a situation, the outcome is often insufficiently resolved. We can try the same approach with two, three, four or five customer services individuals and get varying answers or proposed solutions for a fix from each, but the matter is passed on to others outside of their remit. Whether those in the next link in the chain can rectify the problem or not, we can't accurately tell – as we never get access to them. We're completely reliant on the customer services team. It's because it takes so much time to repeat the request with two, three or many more different customer services individuals over a period of time, there's already a massive time drain for all concerned – regardless of whether we get a successful outcome – and that's why many settle for less than a satisfactory end result.

The customer relations departments are designed for a variety of different job roles. One of these roles is to give an illusion of care. If a disgruntled customer can be easily pacified by a customer services individual, then the company they represent can often get away with a poorer service. To resolve issues which are unmet, it will take perseverance and stubbornness to wear down the customer service individuals. At some point, they will register the collective hours everyone has invested to get a positive result and this figure will be measured against the time invested by the many who have given up trying after the first attempt. This equation, along with satisfaction surveys, will help the company decide on the importance for making improvements or not. It's very unlikely businesses will make improvements to services for the minority of complaints until they have significant numbers, so it's necessary for more people to invest more time standing their ground, which generates even more work for call centres, longer waits in phone queues and less enthusiasm for staff to help disgruntled customers.
  
What's The Solution?
There are many instances where technology can help us get things done. There are also many reasons to stay with a lo-tech options over technology based ones. People are much more collaborative when we build a relationship with them. Therefore it's important to address people in a way where they will want to help. So getting a name and speaking to them in a way you'd want to be spoken to yourself, is one way to cut down on time spent fixing problems. Otherwise, we're just bombarding someone unknown with emails.

Within your own place of employment, it can be possible to meet up for a coffee or a chat to better know a colleague. Unfortunately, for external collaborations or solution finding, the options for building relationships with customers are sometimes deliberately removed by the larger organisations, as a way to avoid empathy from developing. They'd sooner you got fed up repeating the same request and go away than them having to actually fix a tricky situation. So complaining more frequently, is the simplest way to voice your concerns — the more visible these complaints are in the public realm, the better. But complaining will ultimately wear us all down over time...

...so the alternative solution is to avoid institutions that have broken their companies up into multi-factions, who have based their call centres all around the world, (thus leaving us no option for a local fix), that have made so many cost-cutting measures, their product is never going to deliver on it's promise.

We need to recognise and spend more on quality so it can be championed once again. At the end of the day, we all have to decide what's really worth investing our time and money on. And for satisfaction in life, the same principles apply for the office workplace as it does for services provided. Reward the worthy and chastise the in-effective no matter how much time it takes. Eventually, things will improve, but only when it's clearly not working for anybody. 

Creating A Culture Of Change Culture

CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE

When a company observes a dip in trade, which continues over time along the same trajectory, ie. downwards – there's very likely something wrong with the offering at the heart of it. In these circumstances, it would be prudent for directors to take a good hard look at the reasons for a company's change in fortune and take some aversive action.

Being involved with and affected by the restructuring, culture changing programs rolled out in long-established companies previously worked at, I've become more adept at recognising how this downward trend and the implementations made are going to impact the employees, their effectiveness, overall production and company moral. The culture of change ideology, creates more often than not, a new culture where the once grounded employees are having to function in an uncomfortable environment. The aversive measures a company takes, can be more of a threat to the health of the organisation than the actual dip in sales. And the reasons why seemingly counter-productive decisions are being made, can stem from a top-down denial of the true causes for the downturn. It's important to initiate change – but change needs to be directed and it has to be effective – otherwise it's merely an upheaval.

At the heart of any business, making the key decisions, are company defining leaders. They are directors – steering through choppy waters to determine the fate of an organisation. They are market navigators and risk aversive specialists who understand what works in business. However, they can be out of touch with the very people who make the organisation tick and slow to accept when the product has become devalued in some way, – through market stagnation, saturation, trends, an increase in competition or other contributing factors.

Major global organisations like McDonalds and Starbucks, have had to change their offering to reflect cultural sensibilities, shifts and alterations, to stay current. They've learned to adapt, cut back where necessary and once again prosper in turbulent times. Howard Schultz, the Starbucks founder, has been praised for his ability to turn around a company's fortunes by first identifying the great attributes it has and equally, for admitting to the causes of it's failures. His passion for creating a brand that people want to be a part of and pay a premium for, relayed in his rags-to-riches story, is something regularly touted as inspiration for other flourishing or floundering organisations to follow. His very direct involvement with the company's trading practices, plus emotional attachment to it's success, have helped him steer Starbucks through problematic periods and this has been key for Starbucks to adapt and thrive.

Ray Croc is not around today to aid McDonalds in their rebranding initiatives, or to help them shed negative press connected to their products making people fat, but that's ok -– he needn't be. With environmental concerns being raised in connection with meat production, publicity for Veganism and elevated awareness about healthy food choices being made today, it's no big surprise why there's been a drop in customer footfall, but CEO Steve Easterbrook and his predecessor Don Thompson, have strived to retain McDonalds' defining characteristics. Retaining the classic range, while also extending their menu to include salads, lower calorie and deli options, plus improving the quality of their ingredients, raise awareness of the factors affecting weight gain/health, implementing environmental programs to help reduce waste, as well as making a savvy move to renovate stores and modernise packaging, all done to keep up with the competition.

What's apparent from these two huge, long-established companies, is that they acknowledge the positive attributes that define them. As founder Steve Jobs also witnessed, when he returned to an imminently bankrupt Apple in 1997, the essence of the brand had been compromised. He took the next ten years to re-define it, climaxing with an iPhone launch in 2007. The business was reminded of what Apple was about and thereafter, Steve Jobs' legacy has influenced his peers to continue improving upon the vision he'd created.

Baby Out With The Bathwater
Companies can be knee-jerk quick to find a solution to a problem of diminishing sales and blindly opt for a complete change in their offering when a refresh would suffice. All too often, they remove what's been working well along with what's not. I experienced this yesterday when I walked in, lamented on and left without buying a drink, or any food from a pub I'd once loved until experiencing the 'revamped' version of The Rose of Southfields. Rather than focus on their defining attributes – guest ales on tap, freshly prepared and high value gourmet fare, served within premium, spacious and tastefully decorated surroundings, the new management have taken an easy route to attract what they believe will attract more punters. So they have gotten rid of their quality offering and replaced the best things about the pub with cheaper, less-premium and mainstream options. They've lost the unique character of this establishment by trying to appeal to a wider audience, creating just another average pub, with no distinguishing features in the process.

Into A Spot Of Bother
Changing the culture of a company, is no easy task. In may ways, it's going to be simpler setting up again than to steer the doomed metaphorical tanker away from the looming rocks, but that's what many organisations are looking to do today. Long-established businesses have proven their ability to adapt by the very fact they are still around. Trying to conform with today's fickle consumers in an ever-shifting market place and without realising the importance for retaining a product's defining attributes (which have already kept them there in the market for so long), is sadly, something being witnessed across the board.

When consumer loyalty wanes in favour of shiny new and on the surface, better value options, there will be a drop-off period. However, fickle consumers still want to pay for quality which they will soon realise is lacking in the new product. Providing the original version is relatively unchanged, they will likely return. By all means, it makes sense to tweak the underlying production costs where possible, but pays to avoid compromising the integrity of the original offering. Consumers, realising their erroneous affair often return, with even greater loyalty, to where the true value lies.

Dancing Dads
Unless you're lucky enough to be a rock star, older guys should avoid donning the skinny jeans. In a similar vein, longer-established businesses, should tread carefully when using modern business approaches to measure their effectiveness within a modern-day environment.

Data analytics has been a key tool for assessing effectiveness and for measuring early successes at start-up companies. Data, when used correctly, is a useful tool. For anyone who's traded the markets, they will already understand how micro measurements are ok for seeking quick returns on an hourly trade, but they give no indication of the asset value or the direction of the market trend. To assess the true value of the commodities/shares, etc., there'll be a lot more comparables to consider and analysis made over longer time frames.

So data used to measure already established organisations, should also consider the longer time frames, which may be more difficult to do, with the limited access to data from a bygone era. So comparing old and new companies like-for-like, is like comparing chalk and cheese. What may work for assessing SME's – for example, those developing smart apps, will be completely different for a 30 year old public relations giant like the Brunswick Group, who are business consultants. Two different sectors, from a different era, dealing with very different products.

Metaphorically speaking, in a move to be seen as cutting-edge, mature demi-gods of industry, who once looked good busting moves on the dance floor before 1984, are now in an embarrassing attempt to impress the new kids on the block, wheezing around in their restrictive garments when they should have stuck with the appropriate loser-fitting denim they've traditionally been more comfortable in and figured out a better way to get noticed.

Business leaders dislike admitting when they are unsure of the right direction to take. Hubris has been at the root of all too many recessions. With falling figures and mounting pressure to modernise, this is where desperation creeps in and changes made for change's sake can diminish once great brands through lack of inspiration.

Let's hope the next few years see an increase in business-savvy leadership that doesn't leave the old leopards, wandering blindly around the wilderness in the dark.

Becoming iPhone Free

NOT SO SMART PHONES

Feeling like the technology has taken over your life? Find you have no memory, a low attention span and can't hold a conversation unless it's via email, messenger or snapchat etc. — then you're not alone. Thankfully, there's a new-old phone re-surfacing which is getting people talking again!

So, after a botched software update rendered my smart phone out of action, I regressed to utilising a not so smart Nokia 3310 and here's how the following days panned out...

Diary Of A Nokia 3310 User

Day 1 – Morning

It was the sunrise, waking me from sleep this morning. The alarm on my iPhone is usually the first thing I hear, but not today. I'd left it on charge, next to the bed. It's very early, but I'm not sure of the time, as the screen is still frozen with a progress bar at 99%.

I reach for my diddly Nokia 3310 which, even after a day being unplugged, has a full charge...how refreshing! I'm training with a friend today, so I fumble to the write messages section and txt confirmation of our 7am meet up. It takes some time to warm up as I recall the basic sms function on this thing. I already added his number to the address book last night after swapping over the SIM card from my now defunct iPhone. 

After a leisurely brekky, I'm outside with my bike on the corner, ready to go. No sign from my pal and no txt message either. I'm a bit early, so I wait patiently for my mate to appear. It can only be a few minutes, but like a dog waiting for an owner to return, I'm impatiently scanning every bike that stops at the traffic lights for a glimpse of him. I catch the eye of a girl standing outside the tube station and smile back. She's handing out Time Out magazine but there's few takers. I realise that I'm the only person acknowledging her presence, as folk are head down on a mission, many interacting with their phones as they go. So, I take the mag to keep me entertained and spot a couple of interesting bits I'd like to check out over the bank holiday. There's mostly ads in here these days — not a patch on the old paid-for edition of the mag, so five or so more minutes elapse before I put the mag back down again. 

I spot a ray of sun now coming up over the buildings opposite and move along the path so I can stand with my face in it. A cyclist, pulled up at the lights, comments on the lovely day ahead and we swap pleasantries. It's nice to be nice! Pulled from my reverie, I'm now questioning if this meet up is still happening at all. I pull out my Nokia and start to txt again, deciding almost immediately that it's too much hassle, so I call instead. Turns out, my friend has been here in Balham all along but been waiting for a porridge in Macky D's. I never received his messages because Nokia 3310 can't receive iMessages, Doh!

Having no clock on this retro phone, means I have lost all sense of time. I'm surprised that only five minutes have passed in total since I left home. I must have really power-scanned Time Out!

We're riding our bikes over to Regents Park and usually, while I'm travelling, I have something playing in my ears from the likes of Spotify, iTunes or podcasts etc. But not today! So crossing Clapham Common is peaceful on this occasion. As the sun's golden rays shone through the trees illuminating the blue sky up ahead, I muse how fortunate we are to have a beautiful Spring day off from work. 

At the park, my running mate has his iPhone in hand to keep a measure on the pace and timings around the track, but I'm more interested in watching the crow diligently picking up twigs and the duck sun bathing in the middle of the track. I'm finding my own rhythm without an app anyway!

After 25 sprints, It's time to head off — matey has a dental appointment in Borough. Google maps are opened but I have already visualised the route in my head and leading the way. Using the sun and river as direction markers, we detour along some back streets, where I discover the location of a quirky pub I'd not realised was so close to Southwark bridge, which I'd like to investigate some other time.

While I wait in a cafe, I read two newspapers from cover to cover in under five minutes. No wonder the newspapers are suffering — utter garbage! It's a nice cafe however, with decent menu and a high rating on trip advisor according to the framed certificate opposite me. I make some chit chat with the waitress and order a tea. It's only ten minutes passed and already I'm out of entertainment...or am I? Snake! Loved playing the 2 player version on my Nokia 6110 back in '98. 

Ok, it's enough after 10 more minutes, I'm becoming too distracted to play games by the smells and sounds of people eating all around me. I can see that everyone has a smart phone out either on the table in front of them or up in their hands whilst simultaneously eating. I find myself instinctively going to grab my own iPhone from my jeans, feeling the Nokia in it's place instead. 

After another 35 mins of clock watching, I txt my mate a short, definite message 'hngry gota eat!' Embarrassingly, he arrives just as my full English gut-buster turns up. He comments on my athlete's choice as he orders the poached eggs on granary. I agree, as my days of eating full English brekkies are long past. I realise I'm doing a lot more 'old skool' things today, as I pay using cash — no Apple Pay option plus I didn't bother with any credit cards today either. 

We lay in the park to digest the meal. The weather is glorious! My mind is free from thoughts and I snooze for a bit. I wake feeling a bit disorientated and chilly. The sun has dropped in power. My friend is sat upright next to me, tapping on his phone so I ask if it's late? It's not even midday. Time is so elastic — it's been a great, invigoratingly and productive morning! Don't think my pal caught any zzzz's...

Lunchtime

We're both trying to stay off the booze, which is difficult to do on a sunny day, hence planning some exercise instead. Feeling a bit knackered after cycling and sprints, we ditch the idea of a session at The Arch Climbing Centre and opt instead for a game of boule at a place I know in Kennington. We swap beer for pints of chilled juice with soda. It's a very thrilling match which he deserves to win, then head back closer to home for some early Thai dinner at our local pub. 

Evening

There's a considerable wait for food and, lacking in energy, I find our chat getting a bit laboured. It's the first time today that I really feel at a loss for my iPhone as I'm without any stimuli and watching my friend selfishly toying with his phone, twangs at my obvious smartphone addiction. The soda angostura isn't cutting it either and I'm observing the happy faces of guys coming in after work, as they receive a cold pint. Sorely tempted to join in....

Back indoors, I check my messages and emails on the computer. There's nothing interesting or important that I've missed. I call my girlfriend and it goes VM, so I leave a message — this must be the first time in 10 years that I've done this! I can barely keep my eyes open, so I silence the Nokia and jump into bed for a moment, but I'm totally gone to the world by 8.30! it's a very early night for me....

Day 2 - Morning

I naturally wake up again at 6. I've decided to leave the curtains and blinds open at night so I am woken as the sun comes up. The iPhone is now just a dead, blank screen. I txt my mate to say I'm blowing out another run today — gonna chill instead. I get the same message back instantaneously — serendipity! I reach for some books that have been gathering dust and surprise myself with a focussed 45 page blast. It's hunger that detracts me once again, so I get up to eat.

I have an idea for a blog post. Usually, I'd make notes on my iPhone but I've found a little note book and mini pen bought from Muji years ago, which I'm now going to use instead. Hang on — where's the iPad? There's a bit of charge on it which is handy considering I never really use it. I tap up my diary entries from bed with a cuppa. My Nokia rings asking for my work services and I'm able to negotiate terms very efficiently in the call rather than schlep out an email. Bob Hoskins pops up in my imagination 'It's good to talk'. 

Lunchtime

I head outside for a leisurely walk and opt for a little bit of lunch at a pub. I don't usually go in pubs on my own unless I've got a laptop or smart device to work on, so I'm very quickly bored and leave the old timers, who have mastered the art of hanging out in a pub solo, to sup their pints in peace.

I sit in the sun once again and watch the world go by for a bit. I have a strong urge to check my phone but I can easily see that it's got no messages or missed calls and so back in the pocket it goes. Again I'm bored, so I head back home to stream a couple of programs on the laptop. I read for a bit and check a few job boards. I can see how distracting the computer is because I can't just read or just watch a show or just do the one thing. I'm multi-tasking and it's making none of it any fun. I need to get outside in the fresh air again!

Apparently, nicotine stays in the body for a couple of hours after one cigarette, but for heavy smokers, it can take more than 8 hours before they get a crazy urge. I wonder if the time frames are similar for tech-addictions???

I head to the shop for groceries and on looking around me, can see a fair few in the queue are staring into screens. Am I feeling envious now, WTF? With nothing to read or listen to, it feels like an eternity getting to a self-serve till. I'm definitely having some kind of a come down, as I feel irritable and a bit manic without my iPhone fix.

When I get home, the iPhone is miraculously still on but now with an enthusiastic Hello message on the screen to greet me. I'd resigned my fate to at least a week of hi-fi tech abstinence, so I leave the sim in the Nokia and decide to only use the iPhone when I get a wifi signal instead. I'm kind of disappointed that it's working, if I'm honest.

So now i'm carrying two phones in my pocket and it's a bit cumbersome, plus, a couple of calls & texts come through that I don't recognise on the Nokia. But I'm in the sun eating my sarnie so away from distractions pretty much. I realise I've switched back to the posher granary, top-shelf sarnies — maybe there's a connection somewhere?

The Nokia rings and I end up picking up a marketing call plus then calling someone else back by mistake, which is a bit annoying. I fish my iPhone out and see that it's picked up a free WIFI signal, so I fire off a couple of iM replies, plus check my emails. Suddenly, I'm reminded of an invoice I have to send and another reminder about checking the progress of my insurance payout. 

Evening

Here I am an hour and 20 minutes on hold to Aviva and I haven't even spoke to anyone yet. By the time I'm done, 2 hours have passed and I'm no wiser about my insurance claim. I curse myself for giving in to the iPhone urge as those reminder notifications got me here. I switch it off and watch some comedy vids to elevate my spirits

Day 3 - Morning

I'm awake and reading again. But the iPad & iPhone are both within reach, charged and switched on. I can't help myself. I check my emails....all junk. I'm clearly a junkie too, lol! But hold on, a couple of words in this book I'm reading are beyond my vocabulary, so I look them up. I love my iPhone for the knowledge it can reward me with! I'm starting to miss it again.

I make and take a couple of calls and realise another failing of this Nokia – no speaker or hands-free option. So talking to British Gas becomes even more of a bore as I'm 100% tied in to this call. When I get off the phone, some whatsapp and messenger chats have come through on the iPhone – likely because I re-opened Pandorra's box yesterday afternoon. I type up a long sms reply on the iPhone, then get an error — the receiver only accepts SMS and there's no sim in the phone right now.

VIva La Revolution

So, that was it....barely 2 days really. I'm back in the matrix. But what have I learned to do differently? Arguably, the time I had at the beginning of this experiment, when I felt like a rebel sticking two fingers up to society ruled by their phones, was really great. It was truly liberating. I felt better connections with people. I was using my mind to figure out directions, estimate timings, remembering to do things that were important, ignoring the things that weren't and living in the moment. I realised I've got to slow down a bit more to enjoy some calm, peaceful me-time, be more comfortable in this solitude and ideally have some better chat for when I'm with friends.

Conclusion

Going forward, I'm going to try and reduce the time the iPhone's in my pocket, have more DND time or airplane mode and only use computers for email. I'll add caveats to my comms that say calling is best or that I'm not checking on mobile etc. And rather like the pack of antibiotics can save the embarrassment of lying about not wanting to get blasted on a Friday night, I will whip out the Nokia 3310 from time to time and say with a convincing sigh, that "the bleedin' phone is up the spout again", while secretly knowing I'm part of the minority who have broken the locks and become (temporarily) free from their techno-chains!