SCABs

What a messy world we live in. By @MadDavison

By Mark Davison

 

What a messy world we live in.

 

Sitting on the tube home from Brixton today, I had a thought. Now granted this isn’t unusual (though the quality is always variable) but this one, unlike many was relevant to SCA, so I thought I would write it down.

 

I thought that we live in a messy world, and I don’t mean my kitchen. I mean that there is mess all around us, problems little and big, that are waiting to be solved. Some of them are solved easily. It would be nice if I didn’t have to get up so early to go to the gym in the morning. Simple, I’ll just pack my gym bag the night before. And some of them are more difficult.

 

But each mess is an opportunity. Marc has been talking a lot recently (yes I do listen to you Marc, even if I don’t take many notes) about wanting our year to be more entrepreneurial. He is looking for the ideapreneurs (erghhh jargon, gag) among us, those who are looking outside of the world of advertising, and looking to use creativity to solve problems. In fact he is looking for that from all of us. Every day the agency industry becomes less about traditional advertising, which I am told doesn’t work anyway (I think some of the companies that just spent millions on spots in the super bowl might disagree #alternativefacts), and more about solving problems using brands.

 

So this is my attempt at being more entrepreneurial. Not this scamp, this is just my reflections on recent events at SCA. No this is me setting out a goal for the end of the term, because if I tell everyone about it, then it will be fantastically embarrassing if I don’t follow through.

 

So I am going to start colleting more mess, and defining more problems. Every day I am going to make sure I add at least one more mess to my list before I go to sleep. And every week, I will pick at least two of my messes from the list, and start researching them, until I have a defined problem. Because as we were told in term one, a well defined problem, is half the way to an answer.

 

So with minimal fan fare, here are a few of my messes from today. If anyone has any thoughts on how I can define these problems better, let me know.

 

  • Wouldn’t it be nice if ready meals didn’t get all gross when you put them sideways in the fridge.
  • How could I help people who are reading on the tube with headphones on notice that someone who needs to sit down is standing in front of them.
  • Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone in the UK knew that Boris Johnson just voted against his own promise to give £350 million to the NHS like he promised on his bus.
  • Is there a better way to tell if the news on your Facebook feed is real or fake or just satirical?
  • How do I stop myself from turning off my alarm and not going for a run in the morning when I know I’m not going to do it later?

 

None of these are great messes granted, but hey, its just day one.

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