The Work From Home Crisis
Working from home is hard, but it’s a lot easier than it used to be. I should know, I’ve been working from home as an Independent Contractor to the advertising & public relations industries for 20 years.
I wasn’t always good at it but after 817 clients, I’ve learned what it takes to achieve my maximum performance on a consistent basis (if only by trial-&-error ruling out everything that does not work).
Some of you have just started working from home & you’re not that good at it yet. At first it was fun, but sheltering-in-place got old fast. Some of you are just now realizing what brats your (neighbor’s) kids are.
Every distraction breaks your concentration. You lose focus, your mind wanders. You make a coffee, unstack the dishwasher or fold some laundry. In no time it’s lunchtime & you’ve accomplished zilch.
And those Zoom meetings? They may be free but they’re not cheap. 8-10 folks earning $60-80k/year apiece on the call for an hour costs the company $5000. Most are an agenda-less abyss to be avoided.
Some ad agencies are producing their worst work ever, hence the hordes of “in these difficult times” & those cloying “we’re all in this together” ads. None of it will make their reel when the pandemic is over.
Clients preoccupied with operations are pumping the brakes on new campaigns. The consequent agency furloughs have caused websites to go dark, longstanding partnerships dissolving even as new ones form.
Quality control is an issue when your ideation pipeline is disrupted. Management supervision declines, accountability evaporates, productivity fluctuates. Repeatable results? Increasingly difficult to achieve.
Under such conditions, re-work is inevitable, fatigue sets in, confidence begins to wane, you second-guess yourself, team morale suffers, you turn on each other, success becomes elusive. Sound familiar?
As a short-form creative copywriter in a competitive marketplace where superior ideas sell at a premium & mediocre ideation is unmarketable at any price, I’ve learned that pure originality is the only currency.
It may take agencies months (or years) to realign themselves to this new reality, in this post-pandemic economy. Alternatively, for some, now might be an irresistible opportunity to exit the scene altogether.
Now might also be an opportune time to update your SME (Subject Matter Expert) or PMK (Person Most Knowledgeable) database. Many of us Lone Rangers are highly skilled at working from home & prefer it.
As individual contributors, sole practitioners & freelancers we thrive in isolation, we have mastered the self-control to produce at a consistently high level. Also, there’s a good chance we’re currently available.
Steve Cecil is a short-form copywriter & verbal branding professional specializing in 9-letter novels (product names & corporate identities) & 6-syllable sagas (taglines & slogans) at www.wherewords.com