Thank you

As most readers of my articles know, I have been writing them as part of LinkedIn’s Agency influencer competition over the past 5 months. 

I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has read one or more of the 23 articles I’ve published over this time, but most particularly, I’d like to say thank you to all those people who’ve encouraged me to keep writing, whether online or in person.  

The theme of the competition has been to “find your voice” and I certainly feel like it’s helped me to find mine. I feel the same is true for many of the other participants in the competition, with whom I now feel a strange sense of camaraderie, despite not knowing most of them personally: I don’t know if other participants feel the same?

When I look back at the experience, one of the main things that will stay with me is the number of people who’ve approached me to say that they’d love to write something themselves, but that they self-censor, either because they feel their point of view is not valuable enough to add to the debate, or because of the criticism they might face as a result of putting something out there.

It’s a shame.

Our industry can only be enriched by a larger number of voices sharing their point of view and debating the issues, rather than leaving it up to the relatively few who seem to hog the limelight all the time: You know who you are!

The LinkedIn competition ends early next week and I'm looking forward to taking a break, but in the back of my mind, I also know that I'm going to miss it: I think I might be addicted to writing articles now!

On that note, I’d like to congratulate all the participants who’ve found their voice over the past 5 months, and to encourage others to find theirs.

I'd also like to thank LinkedIn; this wouldn't have been possible without them: Thank you particularly, Helen Girdlestone and James Sneddon.

Over and out, and warmest regards to all,

Simon