Being a sensitive type and with a decent touch of dyslexia meant school wasn't much fun, but as I realised later in life it did have an upside. You could take things apart when I was a kid to see how they worked, so to compensate I learnt about the world in a practical way, much to my parents despair, I was not always so good at re building things:)
I love to see examples of intelligence and ingenuity, the ability to improvise, think outside the box, challenge the conventional and find elegant solutions, hope there is something of that in me.
So professionally I sum myself up as a creative problem solver with 34 years experience in shooting, directing and producing corporate media for a wide range of uses: including training, PR, marketing both internal and external and communications, culture change, speaker support, video-casts, public consultation and events. Clients included Thames Water, the NHS, Deloitte, VW, British Gas, Ray-Ban, Halifax, Bacardi etc.
I was a photographer prior to that so my "eye" is well developed and I shoot, direct and edit all my work. There is a lot of over charging for mediocre work in sectors that can't afford it and that does get my back up. I have run a virtual team with no overheads for a decade now and there is very little we can't deliver without all the fuss and via a single point of contact.
Culture change has always been one of the most rewarding areas of my work, takeovers, re structuring, relaunching even just re branding organisations have impacts on the workforce that management plans rarely account for.
Cultures break down, sides are formed, minds become fixed and soon you have a divorce on your hands. The biggest asset any organisation has is the sum of the experience of its workforce. Trust takes years to build and seconds to loose.
The more the communication and respect is lost between management and staff the less vital feedback from bottom to top happens till eventually everyone is guessing how the other one feels... and there lies a blame fuelled meltdown. Getting these two groups to hear and respect each other is such a rewarding side of my work.
Over recent years I have been offering my mainstream skills to sectors where I can make a positive difference through my work, for Skills for Care and the Social Housing sector for example, where I have created a visual language for people with a wide spectrum of learning disabilities.
After 18 months I have just launched what I believe is the first Suicide Prevention Tool Kit for people with learning disabilities, the feed back from the pilot has been better than I could ever have hoped for with unanimous support from both academics, clinical staff a professional carers. I am now trying to pull all this together so that my vision and dream for it being a nationally available resource can become a reality. This is my legacy job, the job where it is possible my efforts may save a life.
Also over the last 5 years I have also been developing 3D software that lets people access all relevant information around any project via a single intuitive interface, we can all point:) I going to market this year and has performed well at events like the Chelsea flower show and the Shambala Music festival where it was used by the Health and Safety team.
On a more personal note I have been practicing Tai Chi for a good few years and have always found a great deal of wisdom and common sense in Buddhism and mindfulness since my teenage years.
Being a "creative" has its Yin and Yang elements, as Spike Milligan said "we see things brighter than others but some things hurt more too". Empathy is a funny thing as it seems you glimpse a persons heart when perhaps others don't. It's definitely what makes the work I do these days so much more rewarding and hopefully why I am a sensitive director who can get people to speak from the hearts.
Mindfully yours
Jon
Twitter @ChiCustard or jon.bryant@btclick.com M 07831 832 439
No comments:
Post a Comment