If I’m completely honest, I’ve spent most of my life wrestling with the space between my personal and professional lives. If you’re reading this, you likely know me as part of the inEvidence team. Storytelling and advocacy are a huge part of what I do, but they’re also only part of my story.
Since finding my mum’s Gladys Knight records at age 5, music has been a constant for me. I’ve since spent over two decades as a music producer, amassing 100+ releases with my name attached, working with major labels like Warner Brothers as well as indie labels from the UK to Tokyo. I’ve increasingly become involved in building in-person communities: most notably co-organising WORKINONIT, a monthly music social event in Manchester, dedicated to fostering connection and creating a platform for emerging artists. Recently, I’ve also brought this approach to my hometown with events such as Beat Kitchen.
Photography is my other passion. I have been documenting Manchester’s music scene for a number of years, producing the occasional photo zine and providing images for independent magazines like SEEN. Whether you meet me at a video shoot, or cross paths with me while hiking around the Peak District, I’ll likely have my camera to hand. There are even a few inEvidence clients whose LinkedIn profile pics are my behind-the-scenes shots!
For the longest time, I considered these activities to be separate from my day-to-day career. The mental gap between a local Hip Hop event and interviewing the CEO of a financial services corporation seemed fairly considerable if I’m honest. The reality though, is that all these disciplines feed one another. So many of the lessons I’ve learnt in creating stories as part of inEvidence have impacted the way I approach my other interests. And vice versa.
So here are five things I’ve learned that I believe to be universally applicable, no matter what your discipline may be.
1. The experience is everything
If there was a single piece of advice that is applicable to all disciplines, all industries, all walks of life, it is this one.
Making people feel valued, welcome and included should be the cornerstone of your practice: whether you’re focusing on building an advocacy program, designing an event experience, or conducting an interview. Empathy, active listening, and building rapport are all skills that will not only enrich your personal capacity, but also the experience of the people you interact with every day.
It’s a particularly timely reminder in the age of AI, where so many touchpoints can be replaced with an automated workflow. The power of face-to-face, human interaction is still the most valuable tool we have at our disposal.
2. You are not the hero
Advocacy is about creating a platform and value for customers. Events are about creating experiences that engage and make people feel welcome. Music is about creating songs that resonate with people. Photography is about documentation (well, mine is at least!).
The point is that it’s not about you. Whether you call them subjects, advocates, customers, or something entirely different is irrelevant. It’s about THEM.
As Customer Advocacy professionals, we’re often the people in the background facilitating, supporting, and amplifying customers’ stories. As a photographer, my experience is exactly the same. I’m in the back of the room, making sure that I document my subjects to bring their stories to life. I’m not the hero of this story. And that’s a good thing.
3. Embracing fear is necessary
Despite what the ‘look at all the things I’ve done’ introduction might have you believe, I actually find self-promotion incredibly difficult. I’m a lifelong, card-carrying member of the brotherhood of introverts.
My first introduction to advocacy was joining inEvidence back in 2012. If you’d told me back then that I’d be regularly flying around the world meeting clients, managing video shoots, even interviewing the CEOs of major companies on camera… I probably would have found another job. At that time, I had neither the skills nor the confidence to approach them.
Over time, with mentorship, support, and regular immersion, these things have become normal parts of my role. Most are even things I now enjoy. They’re skills that spill over into my personal life too, helping me better manage stressful situations and even the occasional difficult personality at events!
The nerves don’t go away completely, especially when the pressure is on. But the knowledge that you’re capable comes with continually facing the challenges in front of you. Repetition is your friend.
4. Sometimes you have to admit you’re wrong
Or as I like to refer to it, not being ‘quite right’!
If you have a need to be constantly right, you will cut yourself off from the very possibility of being creative. Creative success almost universally comes after a repeated series of failures. ‘Talent’ for the majority of us – certainly myself – is nothing more than continually showing up and putting in the work over the course of years. The 10,000 hours hypothesis is very, very real.
I have failed spectacularly at many, many things over the years. I’ve pitched ideas at work that fell completely flat. I’ve had records rejected (sometimes brutally) by record labels more times than I can count. I have come home from photoshoots and been completely deflated by what I’ve captured. I have, to put it plainly, sucked at many things at many points in time.
Failure – and being honest about what went wrong – is one of the most valuable lessons we can learn. It’s where we find the resilience and humility that carry us through our life and work.
5. Creativity is for everyone
There’s some sort of weird social consensus that creativity is only for ‘artistes’: folks who unironically wear berets and can articulately debate postmodernist theory at the drop of a hat. This is, politely, a lie.
Everyone is creative.
Don’t believe me? Seth Godin will happily back me up. It’s also a belief that is woven into the fabric of inEvidence. Our view is quite simply that every employee is creative.
What that means is that everyone gets to have an input, not just the specialists amongst us (or the unabashed generalists in my case). It’s most often the case that the wider the pool, the more diverse the range of opinions, the greater the quality of the work.
That’s my list. What’s yours?
