2010 July | Liri Andersson

Archive for July, 2010

You are what you dare to do!

Per tradition, a slightly less business focused post for a hot summer holiday day!

I learned how to dive in this lake at the age of 12.

(Lac Léman seen from Ouchy Switzerland)

I remember standing on my uncle’s boat looking down into the water and being so incredibly scared. I had never entered water head first. What if it hurt, what if I would dive right into a fish, or worse algae? But most of all I was scared of the unknown.

But I did it, I took a leap and into the water I went.

Why?

Because my uncle was on the boat, watching. I wanted him to think I was as capable and brave as my big brother, I wanted him to think as highly of me as I thought of him (the man had climbed Mount-Everest, he was popular, successful, funny). In short, I thought so highly of Francis impressing him was more important to me than the fear of diving.

The water was cold, and I’m not sure I really liked the feeling, but I grew 20 centimetres the day I dived into Lac Léman!

It’s not often in life you meet people that make you want to jump, despite your fears. These people are as rare in life as they are in business.

And everything rare is a collector’s item to someone. So I don’t collect art, I don’t collect jewellery, I collect people who challenge me, people who make me do things despite my fears, things that allow me to grow, and I especially collect people who allow themselves to be challenged, people who act despite their fear.

In my collection I have a Pastor from The Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem NYC (and his entire congregation), whose Sunday Sermon on the 24th of September a few years ago challenged conventional thinking and behaviour to the point that I found myself saying AMEN for the first time in my life (and not just once!)! Was a lot of what he asked the congregation to do scary to them? Absolutely, yet they were right behind him!

(The Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem NYC)

In my collection there is a young girl who left a life of comfort by not marrying a prominent Asian man, for whom she had moved to London for from a small village in India. A woman who broke a high profile engagement going against her family, religion, culture, tradition to start a new life where she would have no friends and no means of supporting herself. “why?” I asked her one-day “because I know I can feel more” was her answer. Was she scared! Absolutely! But she still did it.

In my collection is Jonathan MacDonald, my business partner, who challenged me to set up my own business despite the fact that I knew that, from having seen my dad and friends go through it, it would be one of the hardest things I would ever do. Scary? Most definitely! But here I am, less than a year later with this fluid world.

So sitting here by my childhood lake, looking at the boats I find myself thinking of, and celebrating those people whose existence remind me of being 12, standing on that boat on Lac Léman, where I despite my fear decide to dive!

I can’t wait for the people I yet have to meet, I can’t wait for the fear, and I can’t wait for the next time I have to dive because what comes after is a whole lot of growth!

Join me, and bring your collection of people, I would love to meet them because to me ‘you are who you meet, you are who you keep in your life, and you are what you dare to do’!

(This post is in celebration of Loretta Castorini Clark – the greatest collector item of them all – thank you!)

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2010: 07/18
CATEGORY: Thoughts
this fluid world
2 comments

If you can’t connect, reach for the bottle of wine!

I’ve just spent four days without Internet, and with hardly any mobile connection. Yes you read right, four days. And no, it was not due to a BT strike, and no I’m not describing a scene from a horror movie, nor is it a joke.

It’s simply life in a village in Tuscany.

People working in marketing and communications know that they’re not a representation of the majority of people they look to sell products to. Most of us are very well aware of the fact that we live in a tiny bubble called ‘media and advertising…in London’. Yet I wonder sometimes if we really do know, really do understand, as on a deep level, how a big chunk of the world lives?

I have the pleasure of working with Steve Gladdis at MediaCom (a fabulous person and also happens to be the best dressed man at the agency). A few years ago Steve came up with the idea of method planning. The concept is simple, if method acting refers to a series of techniques by which actors try to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters in an effort to develop lifelike performance. Method planning does the same thing, but with the output being a great media plan (of which Steve, may I add, is responsible for many).

(The lovely Steve Gladdis)

Well, I have just had a dose of ‘method living’!

Last week I arrived in Italy for the wedding of one of my oldest friends. It was in an amazing village situated in the rolling hills of Tuscany (3 hours drive from Pisa) surrounded by vineyards.

I had been in the hotel 2 minutes when I asked about wifi (of which there was none) and 5 minutes when I realised that not only did they not have international TV channels, but the ones they had were rendered useless by static. Thank God for my iPhone…but nope…no connection!

The next day my friend and I were sent on a mission to find candles. As we walked around in search of candles I realised that a hardware store and a fruit shop was the only retail experience the village had to offer. We proceeded to ask the locals, only to be greeted with the same apologetic phrase from everyone we asked, “Ahhh no we don’t have things like large candles here” (only in Italian of course – not an English word between the inhabitants of the stone village).

Have I just arrived in marketer’s hell I asked myself? No channels to advertise on (digital does not exist, and TV is impossible to see), and no shops to sell anything to anyone in? But more importantly no people who seem to care about the fact that they are living in a marcomms free zone!

I have to be honest, I spent the first 24 hours confused wondering what do people in a place like this do? How do they manage without the bare necessities?

And then I decided to get over myself and do a bit of method living. And I can tell you ‘they manage’ very well.

I joined them in cafes and I talked, I watched them make amazing wine, I looked at some of the most stunning views, I tasted the previously mentioned wine, I watched them hang and laugh, I basically saw them living life. I also saw their Yves Saint Laurent bags, and their designer glasses so they are also clearly able to shop. They are just not connected 24/7!

As I traveled home I started thinking… How to be relevant to these people? How to engage with them? And more importantly how to connect with them? And when I say them, I don’t mean just my new Italian friends, but anyone, anywhere with other things to do (I stopped myself from saying better things to do ) than staring at screens of different sizes.

Just to follow on the theme of method living…I think the best thing for me is to pour myself a glass of wine from the lovely bottle I brought back, in the hope that living it some more will give me an answer to my questions!!!