Ring-fence that idea with good hoarding
The recent Readers’ Desks competition in The Drum threw up a few surprises for me: not least that so many creative types have remarkably tidy work spaces.
In all the time I’ve worked as a copywriter, a cd or freelancer, I have to admit my desk has always been nothing short of a disgrace, resembling the nano second directly after the stroppiest designer diva you’ve ever met has just had all fifty of their blood-sweat-and-tears ideas rejected by a very rude account handler – the creative big bang if you like.
Maybe it’s a result of being in a creative role, I’m not sure. One of my old bosses, Ian Feber over at The Black Hole, would possibly have something to say on the subject. With a desk space that was, and I’m guessing still is legendary, you’d need a JCB to remove the crap to get to his computer. But he would always assure you that he knew exactly where every single piece of crap was and how to get to it instantly.
Or, looking at some of the neat and tidy spots in the desk competition, maybe I’m just messy by nature.
But that scruffiness; that sink estate-like exclusion zone which no bin man dare tread, which hides a keyboard, a mouse and possibly a couple of rats has served me well.
For instance, the ‘useless’ Matchbox Mini (with fully open-able doors) blu-tacked onto to the top of my screen may have served to bring back fond-ish memories of bombing round the streets of Headingley and Hyde Park delivering double pepperonis to pissed-up students. But more importantly, it came in handy as the inspiration for a DM campaign for Hitachi Capital, highlighting a new way for employers and employees to run company cars.
A book of optical illusions which made an adequate monitor stand, but a far better irritating, should-have-long-been-shelved-obstruction, finally came into its own on a brief for a guerrilla campaign to sell city centre apartments in high rental areas.
Even a post-it note, that most transient stationery item, may have out-stayed its welcome on my screen, but six-months later, more than paid its desk rent by fuelling an idea. The little yellow square in question contained a comment about a particularly neurotic client from a somewhat stressed-out account exec at the time. Unprofessional I know, but the comment made me chuckle and so it stayed and ended up being the inspiration for a campaign offering corporate shooting days.
And it’s not just my desk space that’s all over the place; my mind is too. It upsets The Missus no end when at three-thirty in the morning I’ll start scribbling some random, surely-never-to-be-used thought in my pad. And she particularly loves the fact I can remember the rules to indoor bar skittles but not what time to pick my daughter up from her friend’s. But you never know; those rules may come in handy for a campaign soon.
It was a totally random piece of information that got me my first ever job when as a spotty, permed 16 year old, I was asked by the boss of Darley’s Frozen Foods in Leeds Market what three 17s were. Before he finished his words I pinged the answer, 51, straight back like some kind of gangly, gawky, walky, google page at 500 mbps with no other users online – not because I was good at mathmatics, but because I played darts at the time and knew my trebles.
I got the job there and then because I was a hoarder of ‘useless’ stuff.
I still am and whilst it fires some people into apoplexy, it helps enormously to fire up the synapses now and then – especially when there’s a brief with a short deadline somewhere amongst all that rubbish on your desk.
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What about you? Are you a hoarder or do you prefer order?