About

Let’s not talk about certain things (unless you really, really want to. In which case it’s cool with me):

Let’s not talk about the route I took to get to this point in my life.

Let’s not talk about the fact that I started freelancing for national, paid-for and subscription publications when I was 14 (great time to get into the game, no tax to pay).

Let’s not talk about honing my PR and ad-puff skills at a motoring editorial agency, writing for 3.5million people a week. Roughly. Let’s not talk about how I got to the highest point I felt I could, and left to start my own freelance editorial business (taking a couple of clients with me).

Let’s not talk about the fact that I still write a newspaper column for one of those clients over 10 years later (and still love every word of it).

Let’s not talk about time spent temping, supervising and team managing in a pressurised call centre environment, before being asked to set up a new one (from IT provision and team training upwards).

Let’s not talk about getting back into writing day in, day out as Press Assistant for a local Government Authority before jumping out of that job and into another (on the coast and for a lot more money).

Let’s not talk about heading out of that authority and back into the private sector, doing everything from business development and marketing consultancy through to being Creative Director on B2B and B2C publications.

And let’s not talk about leaving that job, ending up back in local Government again and winning a shed-load of awards for a small campaign called Embrace Life (after completing a complete rebrand of the business both internally and externally and establishing a respected position on the business’ strategic, tactical and political boards).

So what does that leave to talk about?

Let’s talk about the future. It’s much more interesting.

I believe in a few things. One is the philosophy I like to call ‘interacter’.

‘interacter’ is a dual pitch.

On one hand, you’ve got all of the different elements of the communications cloud (PR, marketing, advertising, branding and so on) coming together to form a synergistic whole and each interacting with the other.

On the other, you’ve got a philosophy of active involvement rather than passive acceptance. Do something. Try something. Experiment with something. As my friend Andrew Schiestel says – “Stand for something”.

Damn it, just give it a go. It you don’t try, you won’t discover something cool, something that’s never been discovered before, something that works where everything else has failed.

And the other thing I believe in is being a ‘metacommunicator’.

The most common question is ‘What’s a metacommunicator’?

You won’t believe how many times I’ve been asked that.

It’s one of the reasons why I use the term, it gets people talking.

But, under the questioning, is a serious point.

‘Meta’ means many things to many people. A physicist once tried to argue that, to him, metaphysics means putting things in order. So therefore ‘metacommunications’ must mean a concern with the order of things.

Like brand, strategy, tactics and evaluation then.

Someone tried to argue that it was a silly made up word that only a marketing person would use to describe themselves. I nodded and agreed. (However the word served its purpose, a conversation struck up.)

But to me, ‘metacommunications’ is something deep and profound.

It’s a philosophy of everything. Of press releases and viral films, great telephone manners and eye-popping graphics, of strategy and tactics, of the deeply theoretical and the hand-chafingly practical. Of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, E-commerce and the old fashioned face-to-face meeting.

It’s an indivisible communications philosophy that reaches deep into the communications cloud and pulls out the right thing at the right time. It’s, as one person put it, so ‘meta’. Exactly.

What does the future look like?

The immediate future looks like me finishing the two books that I’m planning. One will be released under Creative Commons, one will be put into the traditional publishing sphere. Both are new concepts and new ideas, things that no-one else is exploring (and believe me, I’ve asked).

Then there’s the new job. That’s the other thing I want to talk to you about. The job that sees me back in the private sector, working on not-for-profit clients working for the social good.

Making a difference. Doing something good and worthwhile. Not making money for the CEO or the shareholders. Improving the world around us.

And then there’s the move to Canada. That’s in the medium future. A medium future that sees me living and working in either Toronto or Vancouver. Somewhere near lots of water anyhow and with a thriving business and cultural scene.

Beyond that, I can’t say. I’m not a futurologist, I’m a metacommunicator, an interacter.

If you’ve liked what you’ve heard, get in touch and let’s interact; let’s throw some ideas around and try something new.

If you like what you’ve heard and think that we’d work well together, get in touch and ask for my phone number.

If you like what you’ve heard, think that we’d work well together and have an opening in Canada that you want someone like me to fill, get in touch and ask for my phone number, house number and inside leg measurement (or whatever else CIC wants these days).

So that’s me, in nut shell. What about you?