Hopefully it’s because I am keen to develop my skills and knowledge, and not just in marketing and business which will help us and our customers, I also love random trivia and creativity which may seem to be less useful in the workplace, but useful generally in life and as a source of creative inspiration for future marketing campaigns.

For example, over the last few weeks the following has helped me think or given me ideas:

• Party Skills – the most amazing immersive theatre production has been running as part of the Manchester International Festival 2017 and I urge you to check it out if you can. I won’t give too much away as to not spoil it for anyone who is planning on going to see it, but from start to finish it is one of the most creative pieces I have seen in a long time. My take away highlights include DIY cocktails, home-made survival tactics, napkin folding (I think I will always remember how to create a heart from a serviette now), how amazing those recycled bottles looked (one on the list to try soon) and finally that you are never too old to grow out of a party bag.
• Head banging – I’m not known for my love of music that would warrant this type of dancing so was completely taken away when I learnt in the last couple of days that long continue periods of this activity can cause muscle build up in your neck. It makes perfect sense, so why didn’t I know it already, and what use is that information now? Probably no use at all now, but you never know. That piece of information is now stored away in the garage of my mind for future.
• Top Tips – I’m one of those who used to love those columns in magazines where readers would write in with handy suggestions for a household issues. Those now seem to have been replaced with videos that have started to appear on my Facebook news feed, thanks to the Share button from one of my online friends. I watch them in fascination – many seem pointless but you never know when that information might come in handy – and from a recent clip, I’ll now look at a pool noodle in a different way.

You may now be thinking so what, and you’d be right. Those examples would fit into the frivolous category, but the principles have been the same with what I have taken away from for the last couple of months whilst attending a weekly business training programme. I can honestly say that in every session I have come away with at least one piece of information or planning tool or new source of knowledge that I hadn’t considered before or just didn’t know about it. It has also helped enormously with validation of what I do know, and how I have been conducting my business and work with our customers.

You can be assured that at Marketing Doris we continually work in this way, with an open mind and a thirst for development. We share new initiatives with our customers with the hope that they will too take at least one thing away… and I so hope we can incorporate a party bag into a campaign soon!