Things I need to stop doing before I go back to work

This time next week I’ll have finished my first day back at work. Admittedly I am only going in for one day next week and I probably won’t have the chance to do any proper work, but the week after it’s going to be For Real.

I’m feeling quite excited about it because I will get to talk to adults all day about lots of different things, make some important decisions (more important than, say, what to have for dinner), eat my lunch without making YUM YUM YUM noises, and go to the toilet with the door closed.

However, I am quite scared about going back and the reason is that over the last 8 and a half months I have developed some undesirable habits as a result of spending all day every day with a baby.

I am going to spend the next 6 days going cold turkey on the following so that my employers can expect great things from me:

Bursting into song

Unfortunately I’ve only just realised I’ve been doing this. God knows how long I’ve been doing it for, and with whom. They were obviously too polite to mention it.

I realised I was doing this on Sunday when I was walking down the road in Edinburgh with my partner and I said to him, ‘I’ve got La Cucaracha stuck in my head,’ and I proceeded to sing it in a Vic Reeves club singer stylee. I got from the billboards at Haymarket to the corner of Grove Street before I realised what I was doing.

A variation of this is when someone mentions something like, ‘It’s raining,’ I will sing a song about rain. Usually in a silly voice.

I fear that my daughter thinks this is the correct way to express oneself. I hope I haven’t done her any permanent damage.

Overindulgence in social media

Like I said in a previous post, for the stay at home mom, an iPhone is your direct connection to the outside world. You socialise with other mums on Facebook, you post desperate questions on forums in the middle of the night, you watch Twitter like a hawk to see if anything interesting is happening. Your iPhone gives you a sense that you are part of the rest of the world.  Whenever your baby is asleep, or happily playing, you sneak a peek at what’s happening out there.

When big news breaks out, like Margaret Thatcher dying, you wish you had colleagues to say, wow, Margaret Thatcher has died, to. Instead, you Tweet people, comment on their Facebook and blog posts, and pretend you are at your desk at work talking to human people.

Except you’re not really…  Nothing beats being out there in the world. I’ve got new insight into the importance of social media and the things that can be done with them – but I’m hoping that my reliance on them will decrease once I am out there again.

Incapacity to make conversation

‘So what have you been up to?’ is a question I don’t really like because I don’t really have a good answer. It’s not that I haven’t been doing anything, it’s just that looking after a baby is quite a subtle experience. It’s a bit like one of those long running northern European serials where nothing much seems to happen and then boom! the whole point they’re trying to make hits you and you feel very gratified for all the hours you’ve spent reading the subtitles and admiring their sweaters.

So when people ask me what I’ve been up to, I usually say, ‘Not much. Lucy can do this now, Lucy can nearly do that. We went to the park yesterday.’ I simultaneously feel triumphant and a bit foolish.

I’ve been getting used to in-depth mum conversations about sleep and poo and weaning and so on. And I can talk about what the big thing on Twitter is today. I can sometimes remember the details from a Guardian article I read on my phone. But the idea of making conversation with grown-ups not in a baby group setting slightly scares me… I will try and get some practice in between now and next week.

If you do happen to find yourself talking with me, don’t ask me what I’ve been up to, ask me what I’m going to do.

Goldfish-like attention span

Part of the conversation problem is the fact that when you are with a baby it’s hard to concentrate for very long on anything.  I had all sorts of plans for this blog while I was on maternity leave and you know how many articles I’ve written here since I’ve been off…

However, rather than the blog, the main casualty of this attention problem seems to be the threads of conversations. I have been in many chats where two or three hours later I will remember the thing that my friend and I started talking about before we were distracted by something and I want to phone them up and answer their question,  ask them what happened next, or get the number of their really great plumber or whatever it was we were talking about. It is quite frustrating.

Not finishing sentences

I don’t even have to be distracted by the baby to forget what

Not finishing anything

Training for the Rapha Women’s 100 (1)

So, as I said the other day, I’m planning to cycle 100K on July 7th. I’m going to have to be fit enough to do that so I’m following a diet and fitness regime that so far has involved no cycling, and eating rather a lot of chocolate.

However, the weather has been frightful so I’ve not actually been able to go out for fear of falling off my bike. It’s very slippy out there.

(That’s my excuse at least. I did break my elbow falling off my bike a couple of years ago and I’d hate that to happen again.)

Instead, I am getting fit, strong and flexible by doing gyrotonics and also Bikram yoga.

Gyro is an exercise system that is taught one to one and involves lots of stretching and stuff attached to pulleys and weights. It’s based on ballet, pilates, swimming and yoga. I’m finding it really good for my alignment (getting rid of a dodgy hip in the process) and also building core strength.

Bikram yoga is something I did as a bit of a dare but have got hooked on. It’s a series of 26 yoga postures, done twice each. In a room heated to 40-odd degrees. It sounds mental and it isn’t the easiest class to get through but I strongly recommend it.

A Bikram studio opened near me and recently did a 20 days for 20 quid offer. My friend (who had a baby on the same day as me) persuaded me to go. Now we’re both addicted, we’ve been going for about 6 weeks and are about a stone lighter each and bendy as fuck.

I also make myself cycle over University Avenue when I go to Bikram. It’s a fairly steep hill (albeit short) so I do feel like I’m getting a bit of practice for my 100K route (tbc).

So whilst I’m not actually cycling much I do feel like I’m doing a bit of work to prepare myself for the challenge. I’m hoping April will be more clement weather-wise and I’ll get out on The Bike of Discovery at least once a week for some proper rides.

Rapha Women’s 100

I’ve decided to do the Rapha Women’s 100 on the 7th of July.

It’s a virtual event. There’s no ‘thing’ to register for, nowhere set that you have to go. The only organised aspect of it is knowing that other women will be riding 100 kilometres at the same time as you.

It’s therefore a social event. Participants are encouraged to tweet, Instagram, Facebook and blog about what they are doing on the day and during the run up to it.

I’ll do it because I would be anyway. I’m slowly getting my fitness and my body back after having a baby and I reckon I will be fit enough by the beginning of July. It’s good to have a target to train for.

It’s an interesting one because I think it will be quite popular despite it being something people just have to do themselves. There are a few sponsored participants who are blogging about it but on the whole it’s down to us to talk about it and feel part of it.

I like it because I wonder whether there could be many other ‘events’ like this that could work quite so well. Would it work as well, for example, if July 7th was ‘Go for a Run Day?’ Would runners run if it wasn’t a race? If the only challenge was the day and the distance? And choosing the route?

I like it that there’s no registration pack. No race number. No sponsorship money to collect, no Justgiving page. Just me, my bike and some friends. And the knowledge that out there, somewhere, other women will be doing the same.

Transferable skills I have gained whilst on maternity leave

Some of you might know (I might have mentioned it once or twice) that I had a baby in August. She’s lovely. I’m not going to blog about her because I’d bore you to tears. Suffice to say, this is one proud mummy.

No, today’s blog is about all the wonderful things I’ve learned looking after a baby, being a SAHM (stay at home mom), that I will take back to work with me in a couple of months.

I know, it’s amazing. Just when I thought my brain had passed the mushy point of no return thanks to baby talk and operating on 3 hours of broken sleep, there I was, actually thinking, this has been useful for me as a professional person. And as a strategist.

So here are a few skills and bits of knowledge I will take back to Equator with me…

Marketing to mothers

In the hospital I signed up for Bounty. I’ve wished I hadn’t ever since. I’ve been bombarded from day one with a blanket of offers I’m just not interested in. A half price Bumbo?

Some of these emails are irritating as they are about products I am not interested in – and some of them are just useless.

They try to be helpful, and are based around the age of your baby, or at least they are supposed to be. But they can have a negative rather than helpful impact.

For example, a friend of mine was most upset when an email to her from Boots parents club said ‘Now that your four month old is sleeping through the night…’ Her baby was still waking every two hours and she was tired of being told what her baby ‘should’ be doing rather than what was happening to her was perfectly normal and healthy.

I guess what I’m trying to say (I need to get back into the practice of writing) is that most marketing to mothers feels impersonal and opportunistic. It doesn’t feel like its aimed at me, more some 28 year old childless marketer’s idea of what is be interested in.

It feels like because we are a captive audience we can be treated like one.

I’m perfectly capable of googling the best Bumbo deal or finding out what my six month old developmental milestones should be. I don’t need a brand to do that for me and clog my inbox up with it.

I would like to be informed when there are sales on for things I’m genuinely interested in. Boden do this very well, by email and in social media. Their offers are genuine. They don’t send you stuff that you wouldn’t consider. They know you better. Of course, it does help that they’re a brand I want to hear from.

So brands who target parents, my advice to you is try to get to know your audience better. Work to tailor your communications to them, and do it early in your relationship with them. And use technology better. Stop sending emails they don’t open, like Fab.

The role and importance of community

When you’re awake at 3am feeding your baby you can feel like the only person in the world. It can be a lonely time – the loneliest you’ve ever been. But if you’ve got a mobile phone then suddenly you’re not alone because you can instantly connect with other people who are in exactly the same position as you.

There are spaces for communities – independent forums, forums created by brands, blogs, and communities on Facebook and even Twitter.

The learning here is that you can be very specific online about what people are doing and what situation they are in. The fact that much of it is done via mobile is also interesting. I do wonder what mothers used to do before smartphones. I guess the telly was better back then.

Anyway, I’ll be putting myself in my 3 am feeding shoes when I am thinking about users and what they’re really doing, what they really want, when they try to connect with others online.

Always in beta

When you’re looking after a baby – and a house – it’s always a work in progress. You’re always seeing something that could improve or be improved, and you’re always anticipating the next big development.

When we work on the web it’s the same. We should point out the imperfections of the current project. We should plan for lots of phases, even if the later phases are just sketched out. Then our clients can start to anticipate what’s likely to come and plan for it in a way that’s easier for them to manage.

Multitasking

My ability to do more than one thing has improved. Admittedly, my ability to forget what I am doing in a particular room has also improved.

—

So… Those are some things I’ve learned. And this is the first thing I’ve written in over 6 months. And it’s the first thing I’ve ever written with just my left thumb. I’m calling it progress, but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Mind the reality gap

I haven’t written in a while – I’ve been combining busy-ness with laziness for a few months.  But the article ‘Majority Report: Looking through the digital hype‘ by BBH’s Strategy Director Ed Booty, has jolted me into writing action.

It’s a good, thought-provoking piece on whether the so-called ‘digital revolution’ has really changed the way we live now.  Ed, a former St Luke’s colleague of mine, argues that although it’s very exciting witnessing the massive changes taking place in technology, people’s lives and needs aren’t really changing all that much.

While essentially this is true, I think the article misses out a lot of the subtleties that the ‘digital revolution’ in general and improvements in internet possibilities have brought us. I think that needs are being met by new technologies. They’re things that people adopt and take for granted.

Less than 10% of people may be using Twitter but there are a hell of a lot more people using technology to do ordinary stuff online like shopping, that they didn’t do before. As many as 80% of readers purchase books from Amazon for example.

Working as I do on both user experience and campaign strategy, the latter hasn’t really changed – you still frequently need a ‘big idea’, in effect you just have more channels to choose from.  However, a lot has changed.  When we talk about what’s possible now we can talk about creating wholly personalised online experiences for individuals.  The potential for tools for purchasing, selecting, comparing and understanding has improved so unbelievably radically in the last few years, the last couple of years…

People of ten years ago would not recognise the way we do retail or account management online.  They would be blown away by being able to browse Amazon on a touch-screen mobile or by the sheer number of applications that are now available, cheaply. They would be stunned that a mobile instant messaging service was being accused of bringing rioters together in real time. They would not believe that e-book readers were one of the biggest hits of Christmas 2011. I’ve gone from thinking iPads are a bit posey and not as good as laptops to thinking my life really won’t be complete until I have one.

So while we still watch the same shite on TV and drive the same stupid cars, we are doing quite a lot of things differently. The commenter on Ed’s article was correct when he said brands need to get about it now, understand how it works, occupy the space. Fail fast and become experts in everything. You have to keep up or you’ll not know what’s become so normal we take it for granted.

I hope I haven’t missed the point here. I’d be interested to know what people think about this.

Persona land

I haven’t written for ages, and this is because I have been in ‘persona-land’ as someone put it the other day.

Persona land is a beautiful place with many meaty challenges to get your teeth into. I love planning big websites (I wrote about doing the planning for Highlands and Islands Enterprise here) and I am currently working on a really big, exciting, challenging project that involves lots of personas, user journeys and lots of questions about where things go, what functionality is needed, and what approach should be taken with content.

Persona land is a bit more than personas but they are absolutely crucial to it – what is a country without its inhabitants? I like to create draft personas of pretty much every major type of user, think about their needs and goals, and think about the client’s needs and goals for them. Then it’s a case of grouping them and understanding which user journeys are to be taken and drawing some sketchy sitemaps and sometimes wireframes.

Making up personas is a strange business. You are creating works of fiction about reality. You are trying to put yourself in the shoes of lots of different kinds of people, and then thinking about what they have and don’t have in common.

Sometimes I spend quite a long time thinking about what their name should be or finding a picture of them, but I think this is a form of procrastination to do whilst some other part of my brain is processing all the information. It’s also due to the fact that it is sometimes very difficult to find photos – I pretty much leave stock photography alone and use google, but now that searches all the stock photos on your behalf, which is not what I want at all!

When I create personas I then have to share them with the team and with stakeholders. This is sometimes a bit like standing up in front of class to read a creative writing exercise. However, it’s essential to do this to get feedback – often there are needs and goals you have missed, or you become aware of the need for an additional persona type.

The main thing to do in this process is to not forget about the business problem that you are trying to solve. It’s not all about meeting user needs. You must ask why a new website is required, what the objectives are in terms of communications and commerce. It’s a case of balancing all this and doing the thinking up front and then testing, testing, testing as you go…

via

I have to go but here are a few articles on user experience and planning which I thought were quite useful.

Why is user experience getting a bad rap?

Bringing user centred design to the agile environment

5 principles of user centred design

Are propositions still important for digital strategy?

Preparing a training session on creative briefs, I came across this ancient piece of wisdom from 1993.  It’s a document about propositions.  Propositions are the single most important thing you want to say in a communications activity, and also known as the thing that will be carried into the ad (because we were always told that it was the only thing the creative would bother looking at.)

When I was learning to be a planner propositions were absolutely the most important thing we had to be good at.  Propositions are the distillation of the strategy, and should be based on an amazing insight.  (Insights are also apparently out of fashion these days.  That’s a topic for another blog post.)  When I was learning to be a planner a good proposition was a sexy, beautiful thing.  They’re really hard to do well.

Because a lot of digital stuff needs to say more than one thing (and perhaps because propositions are hard to write well) the proposition has dropped off the radar a bit.  Creative briefs have become less tied to insights and propositions and are often about the medium, and the creative discussion is more about the potential for technology.

This is good in some ways because it’s freed up the creative process, made it more fluid and collaborative and exciting.  The strategy is all about the objective, what we want from the activity, rather than the steps taken to get there.

It’s not so good because I feel like we’re moving away from thinking really hard about who we’re designing and creating for.  We need to think about what motivates our consumers, ensure we’re not creating for technology and creativity’s sake. Insights do bring us closer to our consumers’ needs, wants and goals, and help us to connect them to our clients.

It might be that the nature of insights and propositions have to change for the digital age, but I think we can learn from the past in terms of ensuring we keep thinking hard about what we are doing and why, be lateral and creative with insights, and work with our creatives to produce briefs that motivate them.