I recently had the pleasure of running into an incredible man recently who I’d first met about 15 years ago. Well I say met, he actually just sent me something.

Not another CV!

I was the Strategy Director at Mother and on a daily basis I would receive CV’s from bright young things who wanted to work at what was, and still is, a very creative business. But receiving CVs was always pretty disappointing. Of course you start with a sense of pride that somebody would want to come and work in your company, but very quickly this pride turns to disappointment when CV after CV has little or no effort put into it. They were just full of generic words with a scribbled name at the top. No thought, no care, no love - resulting in NO INTERVIEW AND NO JOB. But one day I was called to reception to pick up a package. It had been hand delivered, with my name spelt correctly. Bear in mind that this was pre-Amazon, so a package was a real gift (and not a daily example of my compulsion for buying rubbish I don’t need).

A puzzling approach

I opened it, only to find a jigsaw (remember those pre-device forms of Sunday afternoon entertainment?) that was carefully crafted. I’m intrigued. There weren’t so many pieces to it that it would take up my whole day, and not so few to treat me like a child. Just enough to make me stop what I was doing and intriguingly put together this mystery gift.

Talk about engaging...

When I’d completed it I burst out laughing. Somebody had just stopped me in my tracks, and for 15 minutes he not only made me read his CV he actually made me build it. Genius! Ironically the words on the CV were completely immaterial. In a world where your number one job is to find ways to stop and engage people (advertising), he’d done it better than any graduate I’d ever met. Which is probably why he now runs one of the fastest growing and creative startups in the UK that engages millions of kids globally. Great to see you again, Asi of LostMyName.

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