I saw a post from a well known content creator this week.
It went something along the lines of: in the age of ChatGPT writing everything for us, the most important thing you can do is continue to keep writing for yourself, and being able to write is the most important skill of the next decade.
And then I saw another post by another content creator, who lives closer to the work we do, who spoke about how between 9-10:30 every night, they sit in the corner of the room, phone off. Analog. Reading. Consuming. Learning.
IMO, the most important skill of the next decade will be reading, listening, understanding - to be able to discern truth from propaganda, to be able to look at multiple sources and draw our own conclusions, to be able to parse signal from noise, to be able to seek out additional sources of information, challenge them or let them challenge us. To be able to construct understanding from multiple inputs, not just accept what is fed to us.
In so many ways, that’s long been a large part of the role of the strategist.
Do we need more writers? Or do we need more readers?
Matthew
(ps. Stop me from writing! Let me read your work instead! I love it when our members take over the newsletter - if you’d like to be the editor for a week, let me know!)
Alex Morris is an independent Creative Brand & Comms Strategy Consultant, author of the excellent STRAT_SCRAPS newsletter, and gatherer of feedback on freelance strategy folk. His latest drop paints a picture of the relationship between those who hire, and those who deliver.
Tell us about freelance feedback - you’ve been doing it a couple of years now. what prompted the exercise initially?
As a mid-level strategist, I asked every Creative Director I worked with to complete a questionnaire about strategists. This became the ongoing “Creatives on Strategists” survey/report, though it needs updating.
The Freelancer feedback survey grew from the same thinking: strategists love discussing strategy work, and freelancers love sharing freelancing advice. I wanted to hear from the people whose opinion matters most.
Are there any key themes you’re seeing this year?
I don’t have the sample size necessary to call this a trend or theme with any certainty, but it seems like freelance needs are increasingly shifting from quick staffing coverage to contracted roles meant to be around for a longer span of time.
In theory this should help address the desire for freelancers to be more embedded in client orgs, and nice for freelancers to have a bit more long term stability.
One thing I want to see more of however is freelancers brought in as subject matter experts instead of as a solution for simply upping the bandwidth of a team. There is an opportunity for freelancers to offer more than their labor and for consulting to mean more than people who recommend layoffs.
One of the key themes seems to be that freelancers don’t “fit into” hirers’ culture, or “treat projects transactionally” - it seems like hirers might want us to seem more like we’re a part of their organisation, but maybe there’s not the same level of support and embracing freelancers as part of the team? Do you think there’s a tension in how freelancers live both inside and outside of an organisation?
This was one of the more interesting things to come from this exercise. Clients want both the “outsider thinking” a freelancer brings, but at the same time are looking for freelancers who can fit better into the existing ways of working.
The source of this tension is likely situational based on how freelancers are hired and when they are brought in. Project based work will inherently create situations where freelancers are disconnected from the culture of a team. This is exponentially more of an issue when freelancers are remote or otherwise physically apart from the rest of a team.
Furthermore, I think freelancers enjoy being able to set their own schedules and start to see independence as part of their identity.
This inherently clashes with the desire for more team cohesion.
There’s frustration that many strategists try and solve problems beyond the scope of the project or their remit - do freelance strategists need to stay in their box / the brief more?
While I am never going to argue that anyone should stay in their lane entirely, I do think how one steps out of their lane is crucial.
Often, freelancers will come in and recognize the parts of a process that are broken or causing issue. The mistake they make is assuming nobody else has identified these things. Most likely everyone knows the problem, and the fix is not as simple as it seems.
So much of the creative industry is delivering good work despite the process or barriers. Any time spent trying to solve for process related frictions is time the freelancer could have been putting towards the task they were hired for – delivered in a way that circumnavigates the issues rather than runs right into them, despite seeing them ahead of time, then demanding the whole process is overhauled.
What 1 or 2 things do you think we can learn from this, and what can both hirers and freelancers do to make for stronger relationships?
Freelancers are rarely given any sort of onboarding.
With a new FTE hire, the expectation is often that the first week be spent getting up to speed. As a freelancer, a week to get to know everyone and read up on historical material is the difference between being a part of the team who brings fresh thinking into the existing work flow vs being a stranger who calls out problems everyone is already aware of.
Clients: consider an onboarding period.
Freelancers: ask for one.
/////
A finally, a reminder to freelancers;
Your job is more about helping the people than it is the literal deliverable. Look at every part of the job through the lens of “how can I make this output AND this experience better?” And don’t confuse “the experience” with “the process.”
» Subscribe to here, or connect with Alex Morris in our community, or over on LinkedIn.
Each week, we aim to profile a new member of the community, so you can get to learn a little more about your fellows. This week, we spoke to Emily Smith, independent Brand, Marketing & Business Strategy Consultant.
I’m a passionate and energetic brand & business strategist. I spent half my career to date working client side in FMCG and Consumer Goods in a variety of marketing roles, then switched to agency side for the second half - predominantly at Kantar Consulting (formerly Added Value) and C Space.
There, I specialised in brand strategy across a huge range of sectors including Automotive, Retail, Fashion, Beauty, Financial Services, Professional Services, Consumer Healthcare and Household Products although Food & Drink will always have my heart.
For the past two years I’ve been freelancing and putting my experience towards projects I’m extra passionate about - 3rd sector organisations, the booze categories (no judgement please!) and meaty brand strategy projects such as brand positioning and brand reinvention.
Outside work I’m usually training for some kind of race, swimming outdoors or going on adventures big and small with my family.
I don’t think I’ll ever beat the buzz of helping Land Rover reinvent themselves with a new global positioning (above and beyond), brand architecture and brand roll-out across the globe back in 2013.
The process was intense but fun with all the agencies collaborating to execute the new strategy, resulting in global sales +19% and the 3 biggest vehicle launches in their history off the back of it. With my Added Value team we ran countless workshops, consumer immersions and received a lot of ‘hairdryer treatment’ - if you get the Sir Alex Ferguson reference!
The longer I work in this field, the more convinced I become that it’s vital for businesses to make decisions, even if they’re not perfect, simply so they can move forward and avoid being left behind.
It’s easy to get lost in terminology, data and uncertainty and lots of clients seem to be struggling to get unstuck right now. The best clients I’ve worked with have really grasped that they need 3 simple things to move forwards: input from their customer/ consumer, a clear and focused strategy and the right people doing the right things to execute the plan.
That’s what I see as the primary role of people with a strategic mind or strategic role in these times; we can ask the right questions to help businesses prioritise and refocus on a small number of vital actions to move on past this stuck phase.
As the godfather of strategy once said: "the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do”.
Watch: I have been worryingly addicted to Celebrity Traitors - I think it was just joyous!
Eat: My latest food discovery is Riverford’s recipe for Harira soup - perfect for this time of year. It has all the carbs in it, plus harissa. Yum.
Read: I’m enjoying a book called A History of the World in 47 Borders by John Elledge. A surprisingly amusing explanation of our fascination with nation states, and how it wasn’t always that way.
» Connect with Emily on Linkedin or via the community
If you’d like to share a piece of work you’re proud of, something interesting you’ve seen, or get featured in the newsletter, drop me a note, or post in our community slack.
» Alice Gorrod on when the value is no longer in execution
» How would the arrival of aliens affect financial markets? Thanks Joel
» Dan Slee on rethinking social
» On flaws in expected utility theory & game theory - Thanks Nuno
» Don’t assume “positive intent”
» Intertapes - found cassettes from across the globe.
» Regularmaxxing - thanks Phillip
» on the pareto principle playing out in culture
» Ed Bass on Attention Hyperinflation
» Anyone heading to IdeasFest?
» Sabeena Lone’s guide to post-redundancy
A digest of recent gigs found and shared via our community - plus things from our friends and partners. Want to reach 4k+ strategists for your next project? Drop me a note.
[US] Social Analyst for brand measurement project at koala
https://bit.ly/3NQqGEW
[UK] [PERM] Head of Comms Design (Media Planning) at Initiative
https://bit.ly/4pXJxeR
[UK] [PERM] Group Director, Strategy at Initiative
https://bit.ly/4pXJxeR
[UK:London] Freelance Senior Strategist/Strategy Directors with solid healthcare, medical, or pharmaceutical experience via Craft
https://bit.ly/4t7q6TI
[NL] [PERM] Communications Planning Director via Frost Talent
https://bit.ly/4afk1wS
[US] Freelance Experiential Strategist with Beauty / Social / Influencer exp via Syndicatebleu
https://bit.ly/4t2bRz9
[US:NY/LA] Freelance Senior Strategist w/ exp on retail environment/experiential projects via Craft
https://bit.ly/4a0a1X1
[UK] Strategy Partner FTC at Saatchi & Saatchi
https://bit.ly/4kdD6D1
[US:NY] [PERM] SVP, Strategy Director with Corporate Branding Experience at Leo Burnett
https://bit.ly/3NH6nKe
[UK/EU] Facilitators needed at Jim Ralley
https://bit.ly/4behV1f
Keep up to date on our real-time posts here:
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That’s all for this week.
mk✌️
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