Published on: 13th May 2020
9 weeks ago I met two friends for a few drinks and a quick snack at a foodhall in Manchester.
It was busy, and we packed into small bars. Now I find myself muttering "...social distancing!" at TV programmes when they show a crowd scene. The collective psyche has been changed massively over the last 8 weeks, and will probably continue to for the foreseeable future.
As someone whose job involves travelling the length and breadth of the country, meeting clients, pitching, scoping and having new business meetings, being confined to the house has been, to put it simply, peculiar.
Mid March, everything stopped. Meetings were cancelled, projects put on hold, and new business projects sidelined. Understandably so.
At Frank, we had conversations about how we deal with this, and our consensus was to help as best we could. This meant all new activity was put on hold, and we simply supported our clients. With the amount of communications being pushed digitally through the Covid-19 crisis, the studio has been busy, especially when added to ongoing projects.
Two months on and a new normal has emerged - our work with the NHS means that projects that were put on hold are now starting up again, repurposed with an emphasis on Covid-19, with clients needing to review their digital platforms as which are going to becoming increasingly their primary communications hubs.
This is of course all done remotely, which is strange, but necessary.
What will the future hold? Who knows? Personally I think some lessons learnt have shown that not all face-to-face meetings are essential, and this is recognised... but it’s also recognised that relationships between people are important and that everything isn’t done remotely in the future. I’ve missed meeting my clients for a coffee (although I haven’t missed the M6); the human element of business is very important.
All we can hope is that this crisis teaches us, moving forward, that we find a balance of responsibly sustaining all our organisations, and our business relationships.
Jason Burgess
Business Development Director