Hive Health

We moved from the Festival Hall to Regent Street in January 2008, October 2009 saw us get into Soho and now June 2012 see us hop again. This growth needs homing. Each time we bolt in space, resources and capacity to get us all set to achieve plan. This is our 3rd move and one that should see us chill for a year or or 5.

Way back when we were on Regent Street we dedicated a wall to the 2,000 sq. Ft we were moving into here in Soho. Asking the 12 of us to input. Well its that time again, except now there 53 or us around and about. We need a bigger wall!.

We are midst the legal stuff, on 7,200 sq. Ft about 200m or 4mins (cheers google)  from where we are now. 7.200sq ft is a big area. (Rural folk; 0.16 acre = enough to feed a vegetarian for a year, Greek; half an Olympic swimming pool, Devon; detention centre sized), so we are midst two hackathons to get everyone’s input in the features, fun and stuff our new home needs.

We kick off with a list of problems for the office to solve, and a list of assessment criteria for the ideas we are going to solve these problems with. Last night amidst Princi Pizza and tarts the ideas kicked off at great pace. Dozens of them. From the simple to the extravagant, to the coolish to the foolish, all up there for everyone to vote on.

With one exception all ideas are up for grabs. All of us early bees when looking around offices in the early days noticed one consistent feature. Every office we had visited which had housed an agency that had gone bust had a table foosball. Usually with one leg kicked off as a last rebellion prior to handing the keys in. This icon of misplaced budget and Toy-town business snuck up on us in every dusty, paper strewn depressing office. They are the early warning tremors for clear financial downfall and as such categorically they are banned – never never never.

Once we have got to a list following Mondays final session I will ping it up here to hopefully encourage you to input in the usual way.

Pinged this via twitter this morning. Clearly I am already a massive fan of Chris Brown’s Look at me now original (mid life crisis?). This parody was put together by some cats at UNM medical school asking for funds to support their student led clinics. On visiting UNM I loved the ‘What’s it like at medical school’ film on their site which failed to run for me. Surely this has to be switched with the Look at me now version injecting a healthy dose of fun, accessibility and spirit into the campus?

We have a pretty standard call for us all to go and get infront of our audiences as much as possible, heeding Paul Smith’s call to action for all of us creatives “go out and see the whites of their eyes”. If you ever doubted medics are human, accessible, and just like you and me – have a look at this. My highlight is the “Girl I cant tell whether you’d be winking or got mild ptosis” line. Genius.

Here is the original if you are not as cool as me, and if you fancy Friday afternoon with your Air Jordan’s on.

For those that are of a certain dustiness. If you didn’t recognise the style and 90′s theme running through the video.Shame on you. It’s been styled to be retro 90s. ” ‘Look at Me Now‘ is kind of like my very first hip hop, rap video,” Chris  Brown smiled when he sat down with MTV on Friday. “I wanted to complete just like old school, not truly old school however, like, back-in-the-day style.” Back in the day, for the 21-year-old, meant reviving 1990s staples such as “big baggy clothes” and “a lot of art, graffiti.” “I attempted to blend all of those components into one and make it enjoyable and exciting.

90s = retro. I am off to buy a red porsche.

Nat, Matt and I have spent much of the week working with local operating companies getting feedback as part of  pre-launch-launch-plan-development. It has been hectic, hands on and really interesting. Especially seeing different markets, cultures and ways of working and how these mash together in a big room.

As usual the pre meeting nerves are there, having spent hundreds of hours getting segments, multiple audience propositions and clinical stories up and straight,  the first rush of ‘customer’s into the room provide a valuable rush of flight of flight. When we settle, the third biologic response benefit kicks in – facilitate. A skill set that doesn’t come naturally to me but one I know I need to have at my level. Keeping energy high, capturing comments, shepherding discussions, mindful of quality. It has all been great fun.  The two days have been spent rushing from room to room, working with local markets on templates, multiple launch scenarios and the important decision on where to take a stand!

The biggest challenge we often face is to get local markets to work together. The  regional/global to local dynamic is an established and prevalent behavior. But it’s the side to side interaction that’s so valuable, the sharing  of conclusions and working,  co-create and solving and of course having the odd wrangle.

One vital lesson we learned, is that local teams are immensely valuable when it comes to challenging other local markets to be more ballsy. Traditionally the preserve of central functions, the niche’s we find ourselves pursuing are driving a new dynamic, and one that I really enjoyed seeing. Whether it be price, patient segment, base case clinical data, local to local challenges proved hugely useful. Tather than concentrate on the local teams working in isolation, focused on their positioning we found that having markets in the same room, with a remit to share with the roomies drives a better braver end product. Once permission to get involved prior to sharing with the wider central team and all was given, great gusto (Spain), heated discussion (Italy), and incisive rationality (France) all drive some really worthwhile debate.

PS sorry about the image this week. V poor.

Apparently a 2 minute advert during the coveted super bowl half time slot last week has caused some controversy in the states.

I was intrigued by the article in the Metro today, mainly because the legend that is Clint Eastwood stars in it. If you missed it this morning, I have attached.

What do you think? Clever half time themed advertising or cheesy politically charged nonsense?