My first year as MD at Just:: has gone past in a flash. As I sit here in my regular seat on the 06.44 train from Godalming, I can barely believe that it was nearly 12 months ago that I first walked through the doors of Just:: HQ in Putney.
On Thursday night I had the honour of accepting the PharmaTimes Communications Agency Team of the Year award on behalf of Just::
As I sat waiting for the winner to be announced, I had a sense of nervous anticipation and yet had a good feeling about it.
The PharmaTimes awards are unique in that you are judged on a two-hour team task – writing a pitch and presenting to a panel of clients.
For some people that probably sounds like a nightmare scenario – in a world where tens of thousands of pounds worth of fee time are ploughed into pitch research and finessing the ideas to within an inch of their lives. But for us, the format really played to our strengths.
At Just:: one of the things that makes us unique is that everyone in the company, from the newest graduate recruit to the MD, is trained in our idea generation process Just:: Invent. We firmly believe everyone has it in them to be creative, and by using the Invent techniques we give them the confidence to realise that potential. We use the techniques every day – for clients and potential clients, and for ourselves. So two hours to come up with a robust and creative pitch concept was right up our street.
I came away from the team challenge feeling great. The programme made sense, we presented cohesively, showing our workings from the visual boards we created during the process, and the judges were engaged.
So on Thursday night, in that 10 seconds before the winner was announced, I felt a sense of confidence – that we had done enough to convince the judges we were worthy winners.
As our name was called out, a huge smile broke out on my face and I had this immense sense of pride to be walking up there with the team to collect the award.
Pride not just at being winners, but of the fabulous work that everyone at Just:: does every day. To be able to share in that success makes all the hard work worth it.