Wolff Olins London has arrived

The fish have been fed and the coffee machine's frothing away inside our leafy new Bayswater home.

For us, it marks the start of an exciting new era, in a flexible space that has open ways of working and regular collaboration at its core. Think workshop, rather than shop window. For you, we hope that makes it something of a home away from home. Somewhere you'll want to come often, stay longer, and do more. 

You can now find us at:

31 St. Petersburgh Place London W2 4LA +44 (0) 203 655 9850

Getting here by tube is easy, with three tube stops close by: Bayswater (3 minute walk), Queensway (5 minutes) and Notting Hill Gate (8 minutes). While Paddington is just a 15 minute stroll away. We look forward to welcoming you soon.

The Last Kitchen Show

I work at Wolff Olins. You have seen our work over the years. Orange. NYC. EE. London 2012. Microsoft. Google us and you will find both a business and a philosophy. Do the best work of your life. Shift paradigms. Be radical. Make things better for people.

But ask anyone in our London office one of their top three reasons for working here and they will always say, quite simply: the food.

We have a kitchen. We call it a kitchen, not a cafeteria, not a restaurant. It feels like your kitchen at home on its best day. Bustling, noisy, sharing what’s up, cackling about your morning, hearing about the cool places someone has visited in Copenhagen, groaning at the latest GOT plot twist. Oh and Brexit. That was a dark day.

Did I mention the food? Shame not to, it runs like an enveloping chocolate sauce through our culture.

The menu gets posted first thing. Duck breast in plum sauce, Poached Salmon in an Asian broth, Crisp skinned Pork Belly, Tarte au Citron, Chocolate Sorbet. OMG the chocolate sorbet. Gastro pub choices on Friday with triple fried chips and an array of salads that would make Ottolenghi go back to the test kitchen, sobbing a little.

Emotions run high on Chicken Schnitzel day. The queue runs out into the front courtyard (that’s a long way) and people start rubbernecking and tutting if those in front start over-hovering their tongs over the coleslaw or picking out slices of avocado from the rest of the Tricolore salad. Anyone with meetings booked out of the office on that day smells a conspiracy.

Ever since the business was founded back in the sixties, feeding and nourishing people was an imperative that sat at its heart. Like our obsession with the work, only the best is good enough. Best ingredients, flavours, variety, delight. Right from those early days in Camden, we always had a big dining room table and a well-stocked fridge. Fast forward 50 years and we have a four-strong kitchen team, fruit and vegetables growing on our roof, a herb terrace and bees. The honey those bees produce tastes distinctively of elderflower. And people are seldom off sick.  

If that sounds like magic, let me introduce you to the incumbent Sorcerer.  Sam, our chef, ran the Wolseley kitchen before he came to us seven years ago, having paid his dues in the Steam and Curses New York food scene. He wanted to leave the long hours and dungeon-like environment of the professional kitchen, and was about to change careers – one with lots of natural light - when the Wolff Olins gig came along. And now, seven years later: “This is the longest I have been in any kitchen, any job really.” 

Sam fusses and tastes and checks until every flavour, every detail, drizzle of jus is perfect. But he isn’t cheffy. For him creating food is like giving people a big hug, which he and the rest of the kitchen team do every day.

How many businesses have a culture that would even entertain the idea of giving their people food affection rather than function? How many chic corporate buildings have a glamorous canteen matched with an uninspired limp-lettuce food offering that intentionally keeps people shackled to their desks with a sandwich? Imagine trying to get the board to sign off subsidized gourmet and an unspoken rule that you leave your laptops for an hour every day to recreate Babette’s Feast, and emerge nurtured, delighted and energised? Not many, if any. And that’s their problem.

This month, a new era in our story will be starting in West London. A new kitchen, new food imaginings. And it’s a new era for Sam and the kitchen team – Gilbert, David, Davide and Carmen - who will be staying here in King’s Cross and continuing to delight the new tenants. 

So time for one last play in the kitchen.  Sam and I came up with the perfect menu to delight our crew: Schnitzel (made the proper way with Veal, not Chicken), Roast Vegetable Lasagne, Tarte au Citron and Chocolate Sorbet. And the recipe for his Tarte au Citron is here for you to try in your own kitchen.

Now pass on the love. 

Sam’s Tart au Citron

One of Sam’s secrets to the perfect shortcrust: 50g of Bird’s Eye Custard Powder added to the flour. He freely admits he has no idea why it works. It just does.  Serves 10-12

Ingredients:

For the Sweet Pastry:

250g plain flour

125g unsalted butter

25g custard powder

1 egg

88g caster sugar 

For the filling:

6 eggs

4 egg yolks

175g caster sugar

4 lemons – zested and juiced

180g butter

First, make the pastry. In a food processor blitz the flour, custard powder, butter and caster sugar until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Don’t overwork or your pastry will end up heavy and leaden rather than light and crumbly. Add an egg and mix to and bring it altogether into a dough. Roll into a ball, wrap in clingfim and pop in the fridge for an hour to rest and firm up.

Put the oven on to 170C. 

Take pastry out of the fridge, roll to fit a 27cm loose-bottomed tart tin. Prick the base all over with a fork, then whisk an egg and paint the inside of the tart to coast it, then bake blind oven for 20 minutes. Set aside to cool while you make the filling.

Turn the oven to 100C

Put a saucepan half filled with water on to heat. Put all your filling ingredients except the butter into a heatproof bowl and then whisk constantly over the pan of simmering water until the mixture starts to turn pale and thicken. Once the whisk is leaving behind a trail in the mix, add the butter a little at a time and keep mixing until thick and glossy. Take off the heat and pour the filling into the pastry case.

Pop into the oven, and bake for anything from 30-50 minutes until it is still wobbling but not too loose. Keep checking from 30 minutes in and keep jigging the tart. Take out of the oven and cool.

When cool, you can dust with a heavy-ish layer of icing sugar and caramelise with a blowtorch. Serve with thickened cream or crème fraiche and fresh berries tossed in a little lemon juice and icing sugar to give them a gloss.

For more of Sam’s recipes, and a lot of her own, visit Rose’s food blog: the-coconut-asado.tumblr.com

Illustration by John Provencher

Rose Bentley is Global Head of Business Development at Wolff Olins. Follow her at @rosembentley

Hollywood and AI

What the advent of robotics means for our cultural world

In our innovation-obsessed society, there’s a lot of talk about automation, about robots, about the end of jobs and of supercomputers. This is the adoption of technology as corporate tools. Elon Musk has been in the news recently saying the same thing he said a few months ago, talking darkly about Terminator and the dangers of artificial intelligence. This is the science fiction of human disaster films.

  A year of robots

At the end of this month in London, the BFI will screen the showpiece to its Sci-fi season, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick’s masterpiece is probably the most iconic exploration of the human perils of developing artificial intelligence. It is a pertinent choice for this season, given the coverage afforded the issue in mainstream cinema.

The first half of 2014 welcomed Her and Transcendence. The coming months will see Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie. All, in different ways, explore our relationship with AI. The conventional understanding of Her is a romantic tale of a man who falls in love with his OS (although it’s more a rebirth or overcoming the monster story, if you subscribe to Booker’s schema); Transcendence is a cautionary tale about Kurzweil-esque Singularity; Ex Machina and Chappie appear to examine our uneasy relationship with superintelligence, collectively and individually (Blomkamp’s, naturally, looks at our propensity to segregate what we fear). 

Having more supercomputers in film is not interesting in itself. Rather, it is interesting that Hollywood insists on the anthropomorphosis of their robot protagonists, choosing implausible portrayals of otherwise plausible storylines.

  Are film robots made more human to warn us of the implications of AI, or to confuse us?

Moravec’s paradox asserts that when it comes to AI, the hard problems are easy and the easy problems hard. More specifically it states that, contrary to conventional assumptions about robotics and AI, “it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility.” In short, Google can now – extraordinarily- recognise pizzas, but C-3PO is still quite a way off, let alone Kubrick’s Hal or Spielberg’s David from AI.

It is understandable that films try to make machines seem more lifelike, more human. It allows us to look at man vs. machine, loneliness and segregation as part of a socio-technological discussion, of course very relevant to our lives today.

The real world does the opposite, and tries to make us more robotic. It does not take a particularly hard look to see that Apple is not about humanising technology, but automating humanity. Similarly, it isn’t the world’s information Google is organising to make accessible and useful, but us. We see the effects in the most mundane aspects of our lives in the real world, beautifully illustrated here by our homogenous, robotic, physical behaviours. We also see the effects in our personalised, predictable and hyperreal digital lives.

  How film reflects our world

In a fascinating book, the film critic James Hoberman shows how the aftermath of 9/11 saw a huge surge in popularity in films with high body counts “to capitalize on the nation’s new bellicosity”(although, interestingly, just two weeks after 9/11, President Bush urged Americans in an act of defiance to “get down to Disney World”, the utopian hyperreality). Black Hawk Down was rushed into cinemas early, Collateral Damage, We Were Soldiers, The Sum of All Fears and Attack of the Clones all came out in spring 2002, to greater success and marketing than envisaged. The political, social and corporate context at the time forced a response in culture (normally this happens the other way around); but the story of war is a more straightforward one to tell on screen.

One might wonder whether the current swathe of films examining AI is performing a similar function. Rather than reflect a wounded and angry country in the aftermath of a shocking attack, films – like us - are grappling with the more complex ramifications of the information age. In a post-Snowden, post-Wikileaks, post-Matrix era of Facebook and drone delivery, these films are trying to create powerful human stories instead of the mundane, everyday deference we show to automation. It may be less cinematic, but is no less significant.

Dan Gavshon Brady (@DanGB88) is a strategist at Wolff Olins, London.

What is design?

By Owen Hughes 

Last week Anne-Sophie Chabeau, a design student from ESAL in Belgium, emailed Wolff Olins and asked if we could help her with a project she's working on by defining design in one sentence. In the spirit of curiosity we opened the question up to the designers here and – despite the fact that we've all got more pressing things to do, like designing stuff – it sparked a bit of a debate. So we decided to open it up to Twitter too, with equally varied results.

Most designers have probably thought about this at one time or another. Maybe it's part of a bigger existential question, or maybe it's just because your mum's asked you one too many times what exactly it is that you do. Graphic design grand-daddy Saul Bass said 'Design is thinking made visual'. I think it's got to be much bigger than that. Richard van der Laken, director of the What Design Can Do conference says 'Well, everything is design. Except nature of course, although creationists might challenge me on that. Everything that man has touched is, in essence, designed.'

Which is why there isn't one answer –  because the field is so wide. For me, if design is about anything it's about trying to make life better – whether that's designing a wristband that helps you track your physical activity, a way–finding system that makes your journey easier, a film title sequence that makes your heart beat a bit faster or even jewellery that can save your life.

I believe that's where the heart of it is – design is making things better. Designers make this happen in a myriad of ways, but there are some practices that underpin it all: really understanding who we're designing for, challenging accepted wisdom, making creative leaps into the dark, making smart use of new materials and technology, reusing old materials and technology in new ways and staying true to a clear guiding thought at the core of it all.

Thank you to everyone who sent their design definitions to us. As few of the responses are below. 

Owen Hughes is a creative director at Wolff Olins London. Follow him at @OwenDHughes 

WO London looking for senior strategists

There’s no formula for game change 

Can you be a ground-breaking thinker, doer, leader and influencer day after day?

We're a highly ambitious business determined to help clients across all sectors better address the challenges and opportunities presented by today's turbulent world. We’re also one of the Sunday Times’ Top 100 Best Small Companies to work with.

We’re committed to transforming existing markets, creating new markets, to helping businesses and organisations responsibly grow. And the responsibility bit is important. We put positive social impact at the heart of what we do.

If you see yourself as a game- changer and have a brilliant mix of imagination, logic, resilience and a special talent to make things happen then we may be your perfect fit. If you feel that others - inside Wolff Olins or in client organisations of as many as 100,000 people would follow your lead, we would love to hear from you.

You may be from big business, from a start-up or you may run your own show. You need solid business know-how, true creative flair and an ability to not just re-define the purpose of an organization but to re-tune its culture, processes, products, services and end goals accordingly.

We work across all sectors – technology, finance, government, professional services, arts and non-profit and we hope you would be up for some sector experimentation too. Unusual mixes of experience and expertise is inherent to our approach.

Currently, we’re on the lookout for strategy team members at our most senior levels:

Strategy Director

Our strategy directors are outstanding leaders. They work alongside the CEOs of the world’s major organisations. They successfully manage the balance between social and commercial impact. They can think with crystal-clear simplicity but also manage extraordinary complexity and they run large multi-dimensional projects which span the full range of deliverables - from long-range envisioning through to the detail of web experiences and produce design. Most of all they have the stamina to work for months and often years taking a client on the journey of profound, market defining change. Most come to us with at least 9 years of hands-on experience.

Seniors

Our seniors are the drivers of our biggest projects. They are responsible for some of the most significant areas of our impact – conceiving new products and services, building new businesses, devising new revenue streams always with a view to giving more customers a better experience and an improved belief in the companies that serve them. Often they bring an injection of new knowledge to Wolff Olins – as experts in product innovation, culture change, digital experiences, emerging markets or sustainability. We welcome focused areas of knowledge, especially if it can be applied to the wealth of opportunities we take on. All our senior strategists are inventive, disciplined, inspiring and results focused. Most have at least 7 years of experience

Beyond the impact our strategists have on client projects, they each contribute a great deal to helping us grow as a business internally. There's all to play for in this respect. We have a highly entrepreneurial culture and we respond well to vision and initiative. We back people's ideas and help them grow...

If you are interested in being part of Wolff Olins, please send your CV and a covering letter outlining the kind of extra firepower you can bring our business to [email protected] - with Strategy Director or Senior Strategist in the header. Thank you!

A Work of Art That Works In Life

Here’s a film we just made about Little Sun - a work of art that works in life by bringing light to millions of people living without electricity.

Little Sun taps into the most abundant raw material in fast growth economies: the power of creative optimism. It is a raw material we think all brands need to learn to take advantage of.

We hope you can feel just a little of it in this clip. 

Little Sun Wolff Olins from Wolff Olins on Vimeo.

For more information please visit the Little Sun website.

Account Manager, London

Game change is at the heart of Wolff Olins’ work and our account management team is vital to making that change happen for clients.

We’re looking for an experienced (5+ years) Account Manager who is at the top of their game in their current role but looking for the kind of challenge that Wolff Olins will deliver.

We need someone who thrives on intellectual challenge. Someone who has the potential to transform businesses, not just deliver phases of work. Someone who proactively join the dots across an account, spots connections, is an arbiter of quality. Someone who intuitively understands and resolutely delivers value for clients, for WO and for the AM resource. And finally, someone who can balance the budget with the big picture. 

We have some of the most high profile, most complex clients and an ambitious, restless internal culture that never settles for second best. We need someone to match our optimism and ambition and develop as a role model for best practice client leadership.

If this sounds like you, please send your CV and a covering email to [email protected] with the subject AM 2013. 

Account Director, London

Game change is at the heart of Wolff Olins’ work and our account management team is vital to making that change happen for clients.

We’re looking for an experienced (10+ years) Account Director who is at the top of their game in their current role but looking for the kind of challenge that Wolff Olins will deliver.

We need someone who thrives on intellectual challenge. Someone who can inspire while being open to wonder and learning. Someone who is comfortable influencing the leaders of some very big organisations and who can work collaboratively with our strategists and designers to actively orchestrate and contribute to world-class work.

We have some of the most high profile, most complex clients and an ambitious, restless internal culture that never settles for second best. We need someone to match our optimism and ambition and act as a role model for best practice client leadership.

If this sounds like you, please send your CV and a covering email to [email protected] with the subject AD 2013. 

Appleshift: Armoury

By Sami Mallis

Last week Wolff Olins London were excited to welcome founders of Armoury London Clare Gibson and Jack Laurance to speak at our weekly Appleshift share. Since July 2011, the production company have built an impressive roster of clients including the BBC, Skype and Reebok.

Jack’s previous role as a brand agency design director and Clare’s interest and experience in documentary film has instilled their brand work with an honest, human quality we rarely see in advertising. Their work, which ranges from big budget tv idents to beautifully crafted documentary shorts, shares a commonality in spirit and rich visual identity- each speaking of optimism, potential and wonder. The duo’s motto is “great agencies, great brands, great scripts.”

It's difficult to really do the work justice, so below are a few of our favorite examples:  

The worst football team in Britain

Deacon Blue- The Hipsters

  Sami Mallis works in Marketing at Wolff Olins London.

Retirement is overrated

By Melissa Andrada

What do you want to be doing when you turn 65? Live in South Florida? Move to a retirement village? Stay at your job?

For many people – including myself, retirement is a dated concept. We no longer follow the traditional path of graduate from uni, work at the same job for 40+ years, retire.

Getting and being old is a stigma. But it doesn’t have to be.

The Amazings is an education organisation that's flipping the stigma on its head.

We recently had the privilege of having Adil Abrar, one of their co-founders, talk about the future of retirement and why we should treat old people better. 

The Amazings believe that the over-50s are The Amazings. They empower them to teach and pass on their skills and knowledge with the community. The Amazings teach everything from gardening to public speaking to buying your first home.

Dan, Journalist from The Amazings on Vimeo.

If you’re based in London, check out their classes: http://www.theamazings.com/activities 

I’ll be taking class on plants and gardening for urban dwellers with the Amazing Mike (gardener and former tour manager) in March.

  Melissa Andrada (@themelissard) is a strategist at Wolff Olins London. She likes learning and thinking about using technology to do good. 

Making space at VOID

By Rosie Isbell 

Touching down in a wintry Düsseldorf we joined a host of international creatives from a cross section of the design community including architects, photographers and typographers at VOID 2013 earlier this month. The topic up for debate was the 'continuous unoccupied expanse' otherwise known as space. We embarked on a discovery of the topic with a weekend packed full of workshops and lectures. 

In a talk at the conference, Rejane Dal Bello, designer at Wolff Olins challenged us to 'stay foreign' by rethinking the way we experience the world around us.

Arriving in an unfamiliar space, our senses are bombarded with the new and different. The diversity of handwriting used on restaurant signage or the letter forms found in different languages, which Rejane captures on typography walks, provide a unique look at something that could so easily blend into the fabric of everyday. Harnessing and applying an inquisitive nature helps us look afresh, change perspectives and find innovative ways to solve design problems.

The rest of the Wolff Olins team (myself and Neil Cummings) concluded the first day with a look at the way leading brands create and own space in today's crowded landscape. The battle for space is fierce; brands need to:

1) create new territory by defining their role

2) signal change and own their space through experiences

3) and use innovation as the tool to grow and evolve as space comes under threat

We wrapped up the weekend with a day's workshop exploring ways to make a positive impact on spaces, inviting participants to re-think the purpose of neglected spots around the University campus. Some six hours, great ideas and thinking later, the students re-purposed rooms, greenhouses and outdoors spaces using water, lights, smoke machines and giant paper pinecones to bring their ideas to life.

From tangible places in real-world contexts to conceptual environments, the experience reaffirmed that space is there to be challenged, transformed and occupied.

Rosie Isbell is a designer at Wolff Olins London.

Twenty ways to grow

By Robert Jones

On Thursday 25 October Wolff Olins held its first brand summit, “How to Grow and change the game”- an event that welcomed twelve speakers from some of the UK’s most progressive brands and over sixty guests from great established brands and innovative start-ups.

The summit revealed a host of game-changing ways to spark growth. Here are my top twenty things I learned from the panelists at yesterday’s How to Grow event at Wolff Olins in London.

Getting everywhere

1. Be a start-up – however old or young you are (EE, Dyson, Little Sun, GlaxoSmithKline)

2. Don’t chase the money, let the money find you (GlaxoSmithKline)

3. Take a hit on profit in the short term, to create long-term market growth (GlaxoSmithKline)

4. Be hated as well as loved – the deepest responses are created by brands that polarize opinion (Dyson, Little Sun)

5. Enjoy inventive competitors, but not mere copy-cats (Dyson, Little Sun)

6. Use tech to outsmart the counterfeiters (GlaxoSmithKline)

7. Change the model – whatever market you’re entering, do things very differently and (through design) much better (Dyson, Little Sun)

Becoming everyday

8. To earn a place in consumers’ daily lives, understand those lives (Faber, National Trust, Skype, Virgin Media)

9. Be canny about free – make sure there’s a strategic dose of free stuff in what you offer (Virgin Media, Skype, National Trust)

10. Use ‘social’ literally – events where you meet your consumers face-to-face (Faber)

11. Use ‘social’ virtually – the fastest way to learn about the good and the bad from your consumers (Virgin Media, National Trust, Skype)

12. Adopt the latest tech – but give consumers a choice to use the gadgets that work best for them (Skype, Faber)

13. If you have content, make it as widely available as you can (Faber, National Trust)

14. Stay restless (Faber, National Trust, Skype, Virgin Media)

Growing better

15. Go beyond the fashionable idea of ‘exchange’ (of goods or skills) and think about ‘giving’ (Impossible)

16. To get things done, match ‘bees’ (small, buzzy organisations) with ‘trees’ (big, rooted ones) (Young Foundation)

17. Offer your employees shared parental leave, to help both women and men climb the career ladder (Fawett Society)

18. And get more women at the top of your business (Fawcett Society)

19. Plan your business to operate within the ‘doughnut’ (maximizing social impact while minimizing environmental harm) (Oxfam)

20. Be optimistic (Fawcett Society, Impossible, Oxfam, Young Foundation)

Robert Jones is visiting professor at University of East Anglia and Head of New Thinking at Wolff Olins. 

Sharing the pie

By Rebecca Goodwin 

In our London office, one of the many ways we stay inspired is by finding learnings in the everyday. This week we held an ideas sharing session for the Pizza Pilgrims, a new Italian street food business. The founders, brothers Thom and James Elliot, sell pizzas from their van, which they brought back from the south of Italy.  For the time being, the van resides at Berwick Street Market, Soho. Before leaving Italy they spent six weeks driving across the country on a 'pizza pilgrimage' meeting with chefs, growers, and suppliers to learn the art of creating authentic pizzas.

Street food popularity has boomed in the past couple of years. Low overhead means food prices are comparatively low while the standard is high, appealing to those who want more than the average fast food meal. Customers are excited to frequent an alternative food locale that is not only tastier, but also personable, authentic, and tied to the local food culture. 

  Taking it a step further, the Pizza Pilgrims have developed their venture by incorporating social media heavily into the mix. By publicizing their latest location, getting feedback on recipes and even crowdsourcing ingredients through Twitter, they have already amassed a dedicated following. Utilizing social media in this way enables street food vendors to market and promote their products by reaching their target audience without spending vast sums.

Pop up restaurants like 9@TheDispensary and BUKHARA Pop-up also effectively use and rely on this technique to manage and attract huge crowds at short notice.Thom and James talked about digital hype as a new way for food sellers to engage with the consumer, transforming their experiences into memorable, social ones that are more meaningful than an ad. Social media allows the consumer to discover and participate with these small brands, allowing them to feel part of something exclusive and novel.

As they’re growing, how can Pizza Pilgrims expand while staying true to their roots? What can the Pizza Pilgrims learn from the likes of Meat Wagon and Pitt Cue, who both have made the transition successfully from food truck to permanent premises? While each brand is unique, street food vendors who have grown successfully share certain characteristics - they have remained authentic and true to the spirit of their brand throughout. Staying social is another key: Hunting down the location of your favorite slice or the perfect burger is half of the fun and a major part in the customer’s experience of the brand.

After sharing ideas to help the Elliot brothers point in a clearer direction for their future, they then pitched up their van outside our London office and fired up the oven for us to enjoy their tasty pizzas.

Rebecca Goodwin is a creative specialist at Wolff Olins London.

Blog: How To Grow

and change the game

   We are excited to announce 'how to grow (and change the game)' our one-day summit exploring game-changing new ways to spark commercial growth and growth for positive impact. 

Around 60 brand leaders are coming together at Wolff Olins in London on 25 October 2012, in a day that will be useful, spirited and fun.

The day starts with a beginning: a keynote speech on a new brand launch that for the moment is still highly confidential.

Then the morning session looks at how to grow everywhere – how to reach new customers in new places. There’ll be practical workshops, followed by a live debate, with experts from large commercial organisations like GlaxoSmithKline and small start-ups like Little Sun, which is getting light to the billions who still live without electricity.

Lunch is by Michelin-starred chef Angela Hartnett.

After lunch, we’ll explore how to grow everyday – how to find a bigger role in people’s lives. We’ll be learning from familiar yet innovative players like National Trust and Faber and from newer businesses like Skype and Spotify who have already claimed a place in the lives of millions. Again, there’ll be a mixture of debate and practical workshops.

The days ends with a forum on how to grow better – how to build something that can last, avoiding the mistakes of the last decade. We’ll have campaigner and actress Lily Cole, social innovators the Young Foundation and a very special guest.

And during the day, we’ll all be collaborating to devise a launch a new social business, from scratch.

We’ll be streaming the day live, and creating a Vimeo channel with all the content.

This will be the most exciting, challenging and stimulating one-day event of the year, answering the most pressing question of the decade: how to grow.

Email us to register for the 25 October 2012 event at [email protected]

The torch pays its respects

The Olympic torch came past Wolff Olins' London headquarters yesterday morning as we lined the streets waving flags. Great to see people inspired to come outside and watch the spectacle – some were even barbecuing their breakfast. 

Photo via Nathan Williams

#GameChangers Breakfast

Last Wednesday members of London's business community gathered together at Wolff Olins Kings Cross office space to hear Google, Zopa and Zipcar talk about how the five behaviours identified in Wolff Olins' recent report manifest in their businesses. The lively breakfast produced rich learnings and 'how to's' for the audience to take back to their day to day roles. Better still, we think the discussion might have unearthed a sixth category of Game Changing behaviours .... keep checking back here for more info.

Check #Gamechangers tweets to understand more about the event.

Only Connect

            By Rose Bentley

Few of us have problems talking to new people at parties, meeting friends of friends or connecting to people with more than two degrees of separation on Facebook. So why are so many of us uncomfortable with doing this at work?

Networking is fundamental to our working lives: just as the lines between work and personal have become blurred, so are the lines between doing your day job and growing your business. Yet many of us hold back from getting out and doing it: a discomfort with coming across as salesy, a worry that we will say something stupid or, worse, ‘off brand’ with the company we work for.

Well, I can dispel all three myths: firstly networking is not about selling it’s about making connections: making friends and maybe eventually (or tomorrow) influencing them or being influenced by them. Secondly, if you are meeting someone for the first time, then they are also meeting you for the first time. We are all interesting if we are first interested. In other words, it’s not about you it’s about them. And finally, people are meeting you, not your business, and if you talk about what you do it’s best to talk about it in a way that feels natural to you, rather than recite the company’s elevator pitch (the quickest way to clear the room).  

Still worried? 

Why not start with who you know already and work from there: at a Wolff Olins workshop earlier this week I asked everyone to spend a few minutes writing down 10 people who could be useful contacts: not just potential clients, but people who might be great information providers, potential recruits or referees. It look most people less than 90 seconds to create their list, and another 5 minutes to think up good reasons to re-connect with them without feeling forced or uncomfortable.  

And as for meeting new people to add to your network – and conferences are usually ripe territory for this – there are some useful things to remember which should make the process painless.

Enjoy yourself

You really will get more out of it. If you go in with a card-collecting agenda it is likely to colour the way you behave and prevent you from making a connection with people. As long as you remember to pick up a delegate list you can afford to relax, as you can then always look people up later

  Listen and respond to what is being said

By concentrating too hard on what you are going to say next you could miss useful signals from those you are talking to.

  All connections are worthwhile 

Go with a positive mindset. The person in the coffee queue with you may not be a potential client now or ever, but they could be a valuable connection (as could you to them).

  Treat others as you would like to be treated 

If a conversation is really going nowhere, try bringing others into the group or introduce your companion to someone else before making a polite excuse to leave. 

People like to work with people they like. And it all starts with a conversation.  

    (Rose Bentley)

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