Like many of the musicians who have featured in the podcast over the past 12 months, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting, reassessment and strategising too.
It seems odd to recall how the first few weeks of the pandemic here in the UK were characterised by a sense of fear. That experience a year later feels like a distant memory. First year stuff.
Twelve months later the transition out of lockdown feels a whole lot more daunting. We’re all looking forward to life when it opens up, of course. But where will the work be?
As it happens thoughts, plans, and plotting throughout 2020 have helped me consolidate what Thoroughly Good is about.
Specifically, I’m talking about this blog, and the podcast, but more importantly how I see Thoroughly Good supporting the arts sector in the months and years to come.
This is the bold stuff. (I’ll flag right now that it doesn’t, as yet, involve launching the UK’s fourth classical music radio station.
Over the past eighteen months I’ve worked on a project which has challenged and sustained me in equal measure. It’s drawn on my musical knowledge, my digital content creation experience, and my coaching and mentoring work too. It’s fuelled my preference for looking at the bigger picture, spanning hands on experience gained in broadcasting, classical music and organisational dynamics, and my tendency to indulge in a spot of fantastical thinking.
Thoroughly Good has long been a marketing project. What I’ve ended up thinking over the past few months is that if the classical music is going to emerge looking a little a different from before, I’d like there to be a little Thoroughly Good ‘magic’ discernible in amongst that.
What that means in terms of tangible billable realness is, in all truth, down to you (if you’re someone with a need, or a budget, or an untapped audience). I know what I’d like to see, but only you know what the biggest challenge is you need help with now.
It might involve needing someone with passion, digital experience, and an unwavering belief in the classical music product (however it’s delivered to the consumer). You might need someone to consolidate desire to look at how to consolidate some of your digital gains from the past year. How do you make sure digital isn’t just something you relied on during the pandemic and is, going forward, something that is part of the every day?
Coming up with ideas to meet the needs of a wealth of groups and individuals in this moment is what I’m interested in talking further about.
Implementing those ideas is important, so too developing existing talented individuals and their mindsets. That’s what marks out Thoroughly Good our from the others in the post-pandemic Arts Consultancy ‘pen’. What you’ll get is honesty, dedication, passion, and authenticity. Useful?
I’m interested in bringing the guiding Thoroughly Good principles of discovery, awareness, and curiosity to the digital content strategies of the UK’s arts organisations that have inspired and sustained me over the past twenty years.
I don’t know exactly who needs what; only you do.
Email jon.jacob@thoroughlygood.me if you’d like to natter. Especially interested in meeting in pub gardens from Monday 12 April.
