Monday
I wake up exactly one minute before Classic FM pipes into the room at 6.10am. My first thought is how thoroughly glad I am to have banned my mobile from my bedside table – if you can't be far away from technology while you're asleep, you're in trouble.
By 7.15am I’m nodding sleepily at the regulars on the long-distance train from Lewes to London Victoria. I flick through the Metro, but it all feels pretty remote when you live in a small separatist community in the heart of the South Downs. At this point, my email reflex kicks in and I check if anything important has happened overnight. It hasn't. It's Monday morning. After an hour of frenzied slide-bashing on the laptop, I arrive at Victoria Station. Apparently Victoria Station wants me to like it on Facebook. On this occasion I decline.
After a quick catch-up with my superhuman PA, Lou it's straight into action. The day starts with an inspiring session with our strategy and innovation team. They're a diverse and challenging bunch and always capable of surprising me. A lovely way to start the week.
There's a pitch deck to review today, because there is a "y" in the day. It's in good shape, and everyone looks like they are still having fun, which is how it should be.
The afternoon includes a mentoring session with one of our best young planners. As ever this is life- affirming – these guys are doing work I could never have dreamed of. As usual I suspect that they are really mentoring me, and am reminded how much I get out of the process.
Tuesday
The working day starts with a catch-up with a long-standing client, to see how some new team members are bedding in, and check in on the state of the business. It's tough in a stagnant market, but the client feels like we are in it with them, helping them to find new ways of solving problems. This is the best kind of feedback, knowing that your teams are adding value to a business.
Next it's a catch-up with the other Carat chiefs, Jo Allan and Richard Sexton. As ever, the heart of the question is how to move faster, be more flexible and get the right people facing the right challenges.
The afternoon includes drop-ins on major projects with our sponsorship, evaluation and direct teams. It's amazing to see the incredible diversity of what we do nowadays. They are all grappling with the same question: what does great marketing look like in a convergent world?
Wednesday
First up is a coffee with Isobar CSO Patricia MacDonald. It's a privilege to have smart people with different perspectives in the building, and a joy that neither of us have cancelled on each other at the last minute. She immediately helps with two of my biggest problems of the week, and the time is unbelievably well spent. I'm delighted to have not wasted it farming emails instead.
After that, I go in to seven back-to-back half-hour meetings. Within that time I review a new forecasting methodology, learn about locations that maximize NFC interaction, absorb the latest programmatic trading case studies, plan a keynote speech at Google's Search Firestarters event, shape plans for growing our branded content capability, and get feedback on our new wave of leadership training. If there is a more varied and interesting job out there at the moment, I’d like to see it.
To confirm this, the time is then followed up by two great interviews with candidates from extraordinarily different backgrounds who never would have considered a media agency five years ago.
By the time I get home, my agenda involves dinner, telly and tidying up the debris of hyperactive children. I start watching a BBC4 documentary about Public Enemy. This is understandably over-ruled by something a bit more light-hearted as my wife Jo joins me. We definitely don’t have time to watch ads so it’s MyView all the way.
Thursday
The first day of the week that goes like clockwork – I don’t wake up until the alarm, put in five miles on the exercise bike, and don’t have a deck to write on the train. That means a decent immersion in my current book of choice, Nate Silver’s 'The Signal and the Noise'. I learn about earthquake forecasting. It makes the complexity of predicting marketing effectiveness look pretty trivial. I enjoy turning down the corner of the page. That’s one thing you can’t do on a Kindle.
A quarterly review with Google next. As ever, the guys are stimulating, professional and incredibly passionate about the company they work for. Not surprising given that they show us a Google project to bring wireless internet access to the whole world through stratospheric weather balloons. It's a reminder of how quickly convergence is accelerating, how quickly the world is globalizing, but also how much remains to be done.
The day ends with Soapbox, when the whole agency comes together to share updates, review our best work and introduce new starters. We have a "wall of work" that captures the best case studies in the agency, and this week we have five more to add. The objective is 30 great case studies for the year, so we will have a bit further to go.
Friday
I wake up at 6.10am. Then I go back to sleep. Friday is working from home day (some weeks.) They call it working remotely, but I couldn’t feel less remote – the day is filled with Skype chats with colleagues in the UK and the US, conference calls, and of course my regular diet of 300-plus emails in the day. Eventually, the kids interrupt the day and the media week is over. A week walking in the hills beckons.
Age: 34
Favourite media: Words with Friends
My biggest inspiration: My children
Dream job: Folk rock keyboard player
Not a lot of people know this about me... but I once went on holiday. It was a while ago now.
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