Under Construction
If you want to move to New York City, going for a job in construction isn’t a bad bet. There seems to be a never ending cycle of destruction and construction going on all over the city. We’re not talking a few road works here and there but huge sections being worked on simultaneously.
After four weeks working in the Hudson Street office and meeting a whole bunch of new people it’s a great reminder that your own path is always under construction. Seeing how others work is always fascinating. I have picked up a bunch of new tools and frameworks to work with and build on, plus realised a few bad habits that need tearing down and rebuilding. And chatting to people about their passion projects reminds you how exposing yourself to the things you enjoy most can often have unexpected benefits in the workplace.
Seeing first hand the decks and thinking that has been put into some of the pitches out here it’s a shame there isn’t a system for sharing all the thinking in the Havas network more easily. There’s so much common ground on some projects, plus the story Havas is looking to tell is so similar globally we could help each other do that as one. Perhaps it’s a global google docs account we can all grab slides from, videos of pitch winning presentations, sharing of prototypes, code snippets, guides to productive client workshop tools and techniques etc. I really enjoyed reading fellow Lofter Scott Galbraith’s post about some of the methods used in Buenos Aires. A global resource pool like this could be something worth building.
The lofts experience has been incredible, and have to say a big thank you to my coach Sami Viitamaki.
Hailing from Scandinavia — thankfully Finland, not Iceland (that would have been too painful for an Englishman after last week’s events in the football) — Sami is a digital and all-round business ninja (though he is a little brutal on his poor Mac keyboard!) One of my main take-aways has been Sami’s six innovation lenses framework. Sami used it in a ideation session to kick start the ideas to great effect. Read this article to find out more about them and his six marketing lenses applied to some of 2016’s Cannes Lions winners.
And below are some more of the NYC crew who made this experience freaking awesome.
So that’s the time in NYC done, it’s all gone very quickly but it’s been a blast.
Thank you to everyone who makes this program happen and good luck to the next lot of Lofters!
