Never put the quality of your life in the hands of your company
TEDx Sydney took place the weekend before last. It was thoroughly excellent.
The best known person to present from the world of media and marketing was Y&R Brands CEO Nigel Marsh, who had provocative things to say about work-life balance.
His key quotes:
“If society is to make any progress on this issue we need an honest debate. All the discussions about flexi-time or dress down Fridays or paternity leave, only serve to mask the core issue which is that certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family.
“It’s up to us as individuals to take control and responsibility for the type of lives that we want to lead. If you don’t design your life somebody else will design it for you and you may just not like their idea of balance. It’s particularly important that you never put the quality of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation. Commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you as they can get away with. It’s in their nature… even the good, well intentioned companies.”
Other presentations included Accessnow.org’s Brett Solomon on citizen journalism:
And Michael Kirby’s denounciation of Seven’s outing of politician David Campbell:
Tim Burrowes
Awesome stuff Nige.
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Great presentation some real ideas to get you thinking about where you’re at with life
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Thanks for the chat Nige. It’s all true. I wish I could do something about it.
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Great presentations all round, esp Nigel’s
I loved the Chaser boys paying him out for coming in on a Saturday to talk about work life balance.
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Brilliant!! Incredibly refreshing and so painfully practicle
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This is a really timely piece for me based on events of last night (and the wee hours of this morning).
I spent 6 hours in the Emergency room at Royal North Shore hospital with my 9 year old daughter who had some battery liquid spurt into her eye.
She is fine now (thank god) – but taking it easy – and was quite traumatic for all of us.
We were incredibly well looked after by a really impressive bunch of nurses and doctors and as I saw parents coping with some not great things I could not help but think how insignificant the issues we get so caught up in really are.
Last night I saw real people, doing real jobs and facing very real issues – it was a huge dose of perspective which I hope will not wear off too soon.
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Nigel Marsh’s speech at TedxSydney was inspirational and for anyone working in the advertising game it was certainly very good advice, some professions are not suited to being meaningfully engaged with a young family, ad agency work is one of them.
As an advertising professional myself, what struck me was the clarity of Nigel’s speech, hardly an UM or an AH in his speech, no slides or visual cues to focus on, just a speech that was thoroughly engaging.
Nigel, if you are reading this, I’d like to congratulate you on your speech, it was an engaging piece that really made me think about what’s important. Well done.
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Excellent speech Nigel. I know this vid has now reached Hong Kong where work-life balance is about as common as a Tourism Australia commercial loved by one and all.
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Great advice. Easy coming from an established brand exec at a major holding company but powerful advice nonetheless. Your life is meant to spend with those you love the most. Work is a piece of the puzzle.
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Good speech but it sounds like he’s in the wrong business. It’s not easy being really good at anything. Especially, these days in the cut throat Australian ad market. Guess the proof is in the billings.
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Yeah, Nigel’s speech was “interesting”, but if we all take the time to look outside of our little self-obsessed media world – and scroll down 2 videos – we can see an extremely important issue being intelligently debated by Michael Kirby.
The threat to secularism in this country is clear – though unbelievable that this is so. This is a key component of a modern and functioning democracy and constitution. Part of an “easy going, laid back and happy” country we seem so keen to promote in our wholesome international advertising.
And he’s quite right – shame on Channel 7 news – disgusting, puerile, embarrassing and dangerous infotainment at best.
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