Ups and downs...

Welcome to my strange week! After riding high for a while, I had a couple of bad days. Friday was the worst as I barely got out of bed. On Tuesday I was just exhausted and had little energy or motivation to do anything, although I did manage a short walk and a shorter-than-usual stint at hospital radio.

All this has impacted on my work for Poached this week...

'My Altoids are changing and I'm okay with that'

We had a great session with Chris last week on how designers and writers work together. He took us through some creative concepts for an ad campaign, a magazine and a direct mail piece. Although I've worked in advertising before, it was good to get an insight into how the idea germinates and becomes, say, a poster or a radio ad.

All of the concepts that Chris took us through were good examples of putting the audience first. The Wrigley's ad was quirky and fun. It was designed to attract interest from a new audience, but the brand was still identifiable to existing customers. The magazine for the orchestra, again, had to retain its core audience by using a classic style, but also engage with new, younger fans who would value the more contemporary content.

A light grilling

That afternoon, we concentrated on interview techniques. We'd touched on this during the second week when Jeevan and I found out more about each other to write on our blog profiles. I found then that I enjoyed asking the questions much more than answering them. Jess ran through some really good tips, like making notes of keywords whilst recording an interview so it's easy to refer back to a particular section.

A part of me thinks I would be a good interviewer as I'd like to think I'm good with putting people at their ease and the conversation would flow freely. On the other hand, the other part of me thinks I might panic under the sheer weight of information given to me and I'd want to make sure I got it right.

I remembered that I had watched Frost/Nixon recently. It's an amazing film that I recommend to anyone. Not only is it compelling, but also you see David Frost honing his interviewing craft to gain his reputation as someone who can hold his own in the big league of political interviewers.

Jess set us the task of setting up an interview for a case study that will feature on the NHS Careers website. We had a couple of practice runs that went fairly well, but I'm not 100% confident of doing a good job. I did volunteer to call Jeevan at the weekend for us to go through an interview, but even the days inbetween Freaky Friday and Gloomy Tuesday were pretty grim for me.

Down, down, down...

All of which brings me back to the start of my entry. With regard to my depression in the past, if I've found something difficult, I've tended to hide or run away from it. After that comes the self-flagellation that I'm no good at seeing things through, everything's a struggle and I'll never get anywhere. I experienced some of that this week. I was behind with some of my work. Even now, I've yet to write my blog for Week 3 and there's always more stuff I can do on the charity website. The best solution was to actually tackle a bit of it, but the Nike-esque ethos of Just Do It was beyond me.

So here I am, up late the night before, trying to redress the balance of hardly doing any work over the last week. I know I shouldn't beat myself up about it but I'd be happier going in tomorrow with some work done. And you'll be pleased to know that I have no intention of giving this up!