Holden & Sons Lecture

Last Tuesday's lecture was presented by Peter Holden, founder of creative marketing company Holden & Sons (http://www.holdenandsons.com/). He talked about the nature and history of H&S, particularly emphasising the personal family-business approach which he believes to be important- he showed how their website reflects this, with a section for introducing each member of the team and their skills and interests. After showing examples of their work (adverts produced for various purposes), he began to explain his ideas and values behind it all- In a similar vein to the message of Robert Urquhart, he stated how innovation does not come from focus on one area. He pointed out that many significant developments and ideas in certain areas are often brought about by people in others. He described having ideas as seeing the same thing others see and thinking something different, an idea that applies well in particular to photography. A suggestion of his that's also quite relevant to me is to not "kill ideas too soon"- to try to investigate all possibilities, which is sometimes something I could probably benefit from trying harder with. Other ideas and advice of his I felt worth writing down:

• "Be distinctive"- Peter explained how "people buy people", and that the way you present yourself (from as literally as the way you dress to how you act) is important in being memorable and making an impression.
• "Be inquisitive"- "Learn to love questions, not answers". Maintaining interest is key to maintaining drive and motivation, as well as for generating ideas.
• "Be clever- don't be TOO clever"- Creativity and innovation are good, but don't go 'over people's heads'. 
• "STEAL! It's not where you take things from, it's where you take them to"- this idea reflects the notion that no one can truly be original now, but that's fine; take ideas and improve them.

The lecture was definitely insightful and further re-enforced ideas proposed by previous speakers from another perspective.