05 Jan An Announcement!

Back in July I spent a couple of weeks holidaying with my family. It was nothing special or flashy; a week in Devon with my parents and a week in Cornwall with my wife and kids.

We spent quality time on the beach rescuing my one year old from continuously face planting herself in the sand, dipping my wailing two year into the sea, and eating crunchy sandwiches with my five year old. You know, standard family staycation stuff.

But like many people do nowadays, I unplugged completely for a couple of weeks. Well, almost. The cornish (bless them) have largely yet to discover the delights of 3G, let alone 4G. So for the best part of ten days or so I had no emails and little in the way of Facebook or Twitter.

And something happened.

Over those two weeks I came to the realisation that my time is now.

Or, more accurately, now or never. Without the distractions of clients and colleagues, I had time to reflect on my professional life and what I want from my future.

I’ve been thinking about freelance work for at least two years, if not longer. I’m drawn to the opportunity to work with clients and people of my own choosing; to make my own decisions; to control my own destiny. I see opportunity.

But whenever I’ve given it consideration, my head has told me: “You have a young family. You cannot take the risk of giving up the security of permanent employment.” And my head was always right. But now, for a change, I’m following my heart.

And so I’m delighted to announce that, as of now, I am working as an independent consultant, offering digital and social media consultancy and training to agencies and in-house teams.

I’ll miss working alongside the talented and supportive members of a team that I built and developed at BOTTLE. Together we’ve done some great work that I’m extremely proud of. 16 awards in just three years is testament to the quality and creativity I’m used to. But all good things come to an end.

The time is right for me to set up independently.

I love talking strategy with marketers and business owners. I love the buzz of analysing digital communications programmes and devising creative strategies that improve them. And I love seeing my own experience and knowledge benefiting individuals and communications teams.

In short, I’m stupidly excited to start working with a wide variety of brands, organisations, agencies and people. And if you’re reading this and think that we could work together to achieve something great, then check out this brand spanking new website, and let’s talk!