The Indiefield Blog

Ideas and thoughts about life, business and market research fieldwork in the UK.

Hire a Geek, Save Your Sanity

Step 1: Find a tech wizard - someone who speaks fluent Gmail, Outlook, and Excel like it's their first language.

Step 2: Bribe them (money, coffee, whatever works) to sit next to you for an hour while you flail through your workday.

Step 3: Beg, "How can I save an hour a day without losing my mind?"

Whatever you pay them, it's a bargain. You'll earn it back in saved time before the week's out. Bonus: no more yelling at spreadsheets.

Stop Guessing, Start Knowing

People have been messing up, figuring it out, and writing it down for centuries. Scientists cracked the code, economists saw the fallout, and historians - well, they've seen it all (twice).

So why on earth are we out here winging it? Skipping the manual, pretending facts are optional, and acting like history's a Netflix drama?

You're in marketing tech and don't know David Ogilvy, Lester Wunderman, or John Hegarty? That's like being a chef who’s never heard of salt.

If you're doing work that matters (and I hope you are), do your homework. You don't have to use it, but at least know it.

Success: It's Always a Bit Weird

People love to explain away success: "They went to Oxford," or "They didn't go to Oxford," or "They've got connections," or "They're nobodies, so no risk."

Basically, "They're special, and I'm not."

Newsflash: All success is special. That's the point. Nobody hands out trophies for breathing - it's universal.

The real trick? Stop whining about their special sauce and start noticing what ingredients you've already got. You might be closer to your own recipe than you think.

The Attention Economy: Spend Wisely

We're all money nerds - earning, spending, and obsessing over price tags. Companies? They're even worse, obsessing about commissions, margins, and cost of sales.

But while everyone's busy crunching numbers, there's a booming invisible economy we're ignoring: attention.

  • "Blasting my entire email list - what's that gonna cost me in annoyed subscribers?"
  • "Could a decent user manual save our customers (and us) hours of frustration?"
  • "If we don’t ask for permission to follow up, are we flushing trust down the drain?"

Attention is finite and ridiculously valuable. Its price tag only goes up. Spend it wisely.

Tribes: No Loopholes, Just Love

A tribe thrives when its members give, not just take. If everyone's hunting loopholes and trying to game the system, the whole thing crumbles.

Here's the deal: culture is bigger than management. A strong group lifts itself up; leadership follows. Same for society - government isn't the tribe, we are.

So stop waiting for a leader to fix it. The maths is simple: the more you give, the more everyone, including you, gets back.

The Price of Bad Poetry

Poetry is easy: call yourself a poet, grab a pencil, and voilà - bad poetry is born. Same goes for tweets, emails, Facebook posts, and songs. No barriers mean plenty of bad art.

But here's the twist: the flood of bad also brings more good. Sometimes, you don't need a gatekeeper - just the freedom to create (and let the audience sort the rest).

Why Didn't You Google It?

Sometimes info finds you, like a car recall. Other times, it's on you - like checking if hurricane season overlaps with your holiday. In today's world, ignorance isn't bliss; it's laziness.

Whether it's launching a marketing campaign, forwarding a sketchy email, or booking a trip, the rule is simple: before you act, look it up. No one's going to do it for you.

Fix It or Fling It

Stuck in a rut? Two ways out:

  1. Take something mediocre everyone tolerates and make it undeniably awesome.
  2. Identify the dead weight in your life (bad tools, habits, policies) and chuck it.

If something's unbetterable, stop clinging to it. Toss it, make space, and let something amazing take its place. Sometimes the best upgrade is a good purge.

Deadlines Are Lies

Deadlines aren't the goal. The real goal? Do great work, do it fast, and then do more of it.

If deadlines are the only thing pushing you, just move them up. This isn't assembly-line life, it's project world. More projects mean more chances to fail, learn, and make a difference. When it's you vs. the project, do more.

Spotting the Right Wow (this is not about Brad Pitt)

Do great ideas always have a wow factor? The real question is: What's "great", and who decides what's "wow"?

As one of my favourite ever films Moneyball shows, baseball scouts spent years chasing the wrong wow until statistics flipped the game and revealed what truly mattered.

The secret? Sharpen your radar, learn from failures, and spot the wow before the rest of the world catches up.