Introducing: Improvisations on ...
Musings on connections between life, branding, communications, and everything in between
Hi friends, 😊 It’s been a while.
The initial break from this publication began with the intention of a month and quickly turned into more than a year. What happened? Life - in the most beautiful and energizing ways.
This series of pieces began in an effort to find my voice and while I realize that the relationship to my voice will forever evolve and change, I have been able to arrive at a larger theme that has taken over my thoughts and work: “Bringing artistic sensibilities into business.”
In the coming months, you will see the focus of this newsletter move from personal reflections to a stronger emphasis on business, branding, and communications – of course always still with a sprinkle of personal anecdotes. I would be delighted for you to continue accompanying me on this journey! If the topic and themes don’t serve you, let me know.
What does it mean to bring artistic sensibilities into business?
I firmly believe that we need to look outside our industries and knowledge areas to truly make a difference in the world. It might be the undergrad liberal arts education talking, but interdisciplinary discourse is crucial in building emotionally intelligent leaders and creating businesses that serve their communities. On LinkedIn, I started to post a weekly series of ‘Puppy School of Comms’ that is reflecting on the parallels between audience engagement/marketing and raising a puppy.
Thinking critically about the lessons from dog training and relating them to my work has opened new, invigorating ways to look at marketing concepts. Often, it’s simply a difference in language that can open new neural pathways or inspire a fun campaign.
In order to commit to and embrace this change, I am renaming the newsletter to ‘Improvisations on …’. My personal point of departure will always be the arts… for you it might be scientific inquiry, social justice, or sport. One of the biggest realizations of the last year was that bringing artistic sensibilities into business really means to actively seek out cross-disciplinary conversations in order to inform business practices.
The intention with the new direction is to share reflections and musings that, at times, might appear a bit left field but will inspire a new way to look at something that is all too familiar to you. And if it’s not a part of your daily life, you will learn about something new. I will determine the frequency (or lack thereof) in the coming months and let you know what I settle on.
A few updates from my work:
‘The Arts in Business’ will be coming back this year!
In the podcast, we will continue to focus on asking questions around how an arts practice can influence the course of one’s work or an entire business.
My consultancy .beyondcomms is going strong.
The consultancy focuses on brand strategy development and communications management. What I love about brand strategy is the all-encompassing nature of the approach that’s necessary. You need to look both inside and outside the business to develop a comprehensive and strong brand strategy. You need to have conversations across different verticals in order to really understand how to position a business in the best ways to bring meaning to their audience’s lives. Interdisciplinary conversations are a necessity.
Bringing the Arts into Businesses with the Irish Baroque Orchestra.
I started to work with the Irish Baroque Orchestra in Dublin in the role of Development Officer supporting on the development of corporate sponsorships and relationship with patrons. I am excited to undertake this work on a part-time basis to connect businesses to the incredible work the orchestra is doing.