Martin MALii-Karlsson has put together a great list of creative networking events in London. I met Martin at the CIDA Creative Business Club (link in his post) a few months ago and we’ve kept in touch. He’s a charming guy with a really interesting take on creative business and he’s really getting into his stride with his blog - you should have a look at it.

And check out his events list - ‘networking’ is an awful word, conjuring up images of people in shiny suits pushing business cards at you - but having been to several of the events on his list, I can assure you they are usually a lot of fun and you can make some good contacts. The fact I know Martin is proof that they work!

Review your commitments is the penultimate post in my series on Time Management for Creative People on Business of Design Online.

The final post will appear this coming Friday - when the whole series will be available as a free e-book.

Thanks to everyone who braved the weather and made yesterday’s Enneagram breakfast discussion such good fun. These events depend on interesting, engaging people turning up and joining in with lots of questions and comments - which was exactly what happened.

Topics we covered included the role of individual personalities (client and agency) in the pitching process; using the Enneagram to understand and influence people who are very different to ourselves; locating brands and organisations on the Enneagram; and how the Enneagram helps me choose my shirts.

Special thanks to Rebecca Caroe who suggested we do an event together and did an excellent job of facilitating the discussion. I think it says a lot about Rebecca that she suggested the event the first time we met and was then very proactive in making it happen in record time. It was great fun working with her and I’d definitely recommend the experience.

Hmm, that’s given me a taste for this kind of thing, I’ll let you know if/when we do another one. Drop me an e-mail if that’s of interest.

Get Things Off Your Mind is the next post in my series on Time Management for Creative People on Business of Design Online.

If you’ve ever forgotten an important commitment, or wish you could keep better track of your to-do lists, have a look at the post - it introduces David Allen’s concept of ‘buckets’ to help you get things off your mind and focus on what you are doing in the present. After all, our brains have more interesting things to do than remember stuff.

Tonight is the launch reading for Magma Poetry issue 39, at The Troubadour near Earls Court.

If you love poetry, you’ll love it - and if you’ve never been to a contemporary poetry reading, it’s a great place to start. We have excellent headline poets in George Szirtes and Anna Woodford, and the reading will feature lots of other poets from the magazine - so with a wide range of readers there should be something to appeal to you. And The Troubadour is a great venue, invariably packed for Magma readings.

Magma is one of the best poetry magazines in the UK, always featuring major contemporary poets alongside new and up-and-coming writers. We take it in turns to edit the magazine (I edited Magma 34) - David Morphet has done a terrific job with this issue, which you can sample on the Magma website for free.

Let me know if you’re coming tonight, I’ll wear a red carnation or something so we can say hello.

UK readers - have a look at Channel 4, 10pm tonight - Exodus, a modern retelling of the Bible story, featuring a cast made up of the resident and immigrant community of Margate.

You may recall my interview with Ruth Kenley-Letts last summer, while Ruth was producing the film. I’ve not seen the film yet, but have heard great reports from people who saw a preview screening, so I’m really looking forward to it.

Get Things Done by Putting Them Off Till Tomorrow is the latest post in my series on Time Management for Creative People, for Business of Design Online.

‘Tomorrow’ has been humorously described as the greatest labour-saving device ever invented - but if you want to know how it can save you time and preserve your creativity (as well as your sanity), have a read of my post.

This post was inspired by Mark Forster’s work - I highly recommend his blog and his book Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management.

If you’re involved with pitches and new business for your agency, you may like to come along to a free breakfast event I’m running with Rebecca Caroe in central London at 8am on Thursday 22nd November.

I’ll be talking to Rebecca and taking questions from the audience about the Enneagram system of personality types, and how it can help agencies in a pitch situation, where the personal chemistry between agency and client team can be crucial to success.

If you followed my series on the Enneagram series of personality types for Successful Blog, then you’ll know I’ve been using the Enneagram for around 10 years, helping understand themselves and others better, and achieve their goals in sales, management, training, teamwork, negotiation and their personal and professional development.

Rebecca is a consultant specialising in business development, marketing and sales for PR, advertising, airect mail, and digital agencies. She’s very creative, focused and practical. We’ve had a lot of fun knocking ideas around between us and finding points of common interest. So I’m looking forward to a stimulating and enjoyable conversation on the 22nd - if you’re interested in joining us, please send me an e-mail.

Click this link to download more details of the event.

I’m very pleased to share with you this interview I recorded with Tina Brazil, People Director of the digital marketing agency Profero.

In 2006 Profero won a Special Award for Most Innovative Initiative at the Excellence in CPD Awards of the Institute for Practitioners in Advertising. (CPD = Continuous Professional Development.) If you remember my interview with Jill Fear, CPD Manager for the IPA you’ll know that Jill and her colleagues have high standards when it comes to professional development - so Profero have obviously been doing something special to win the award.

When I spoke to Tina, Profero had also just won a coveted Gold Cyber Lions Award at Cannes, for its Mini - Follow the White Rabbit campaign - the only UK agency to win Gold at Cannes this year.

In the interview, Tina spoke about why people development is so important to Profero and how they inspire ‘boundless creativity’ in everyone at the agency - not just the creative department.

Profero’s award-winning CPD initiative included the following elements:

• An ‘inspirational speaker’ series including Lord Puttnam, Greg Dyke, Neil Christie of wieden + kennedy
• A ‘lunchtime speakers’ series on practical industry topics
• Boundless creativity projects set for cross-disciplinary teams
• People skills training from Dawn Sillett
• A training intranet to act as an agency blog and raise awareness of available training options

For more details of the programme, you can download the Profero case study from the IPA website.

Profero

Profero is Europe and Asia’s leading independent full service digital marketing agency. Since it was founded in 1998 it has delivered over 5,000 effective and innovative campaigns for clients, more than any other agency of its kind. Profero specialises in advertising, web development, media buying and relationship marketing solutions. Its client base includes Mini, Astrazeneca, Western Union, Johnson and Johnson, Central Office of Information, Channel 4, Expedia.Over 200 imaginative people work as one team out of London, Hong Kong, Paris, Munich, Milan, Madrid, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney engaging clients with the world of digital communications by demonstrating its creative, connective and brand building capabilities.

Tina Brazil - People Director

Tina Brazil is responsible for ensuring Profero’s award winning people practices retain its talented team and attract untapped talent to the agency. This forms many guises from training and development, benefits, and maintaining Profero’s all-important culture by making sure people have fun along the way.

Tina started her career as a PA in Publishing before realising that she’d like to do her job in a more creative environment. After joining Redcell as a PA Tina moved to Profero as an Office Manager where evidence of the development culture can be seen with her appointment to the operational board as People Director.

Tina’s moto is: ‘It’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it!’

Click the icon below to listen to the interview.

 Interview with Tina Brazil: Download

If you’ve ever had one of those days where your to-do list is longer by the evening than it was in the morning, this post is for you: Avoid the ‘Sisyphus Effect’ of Endless To-do Lists. It’s the latest in my guest series on Time Management for Creative People at Business of Design Online.

Let’s face it, Sisyphus may have had a hard time of it but at least he didn’t have to deal with e-mail.