ABOUT IAN FLORANCE

These sections of the site give more information on work in areas such as poetry and music. Hopefully this short autobiography shows how the two sides of the site - ONLYCONNECT and the arts - fit together.

Background and Education

I grew up in Croydon, Surrey and went to Whitgift School in South Croydon. I received a First class degree in English and Art History at Leeds University and took an MA course at Reading University on the relationship between literature and the arts in the early 20th century.

Tracy and I have been married 25 years ( at the time this site went live ) and live in Henley-on-Thames. Tracy works for Macmillan Children's Books and is a very gifted photographer.

Career

My first job was as a copywriter and then as a Promotions Manager at Macmillan Education. I organised direct mail campaigns and advertising both in the UK and for overseas companies.

I moved on to nfernelson, the major publisher of assessments, books and journals and then to Hamlyn. This taught me a lot about consumer promotions especially pr. Among my projects were a Barbara Cartland pop-up book on royal honey, Nanette Newman's Christmas Cookbook and the Victoria Principal beauty book. At one stage I worked as a publishers' reader, reporting on manuscripts in the fields of sport, music, social history and political history.

I moved back to nfernelson and worked in a variety of areas from clinical, book, journal and educational publishing and marketing planning to developing an international network of agents. As marketing director I tried to integrate direct sales, publicity, pr, customer service and order processing into a unified customer-facing group.

I then became Director of ASE, the consultancy specialising in psychological testing, training and consultancy in business.

I developed a professional and intellectual interest in the area of human psychology. I was publishers’ representative on the BPS (British Psychology Society) Test Standards Committee, a member of European working parties on testing, and secretary and past president of the European Test Publishers Group. I am company secretary of the Business Test Publishers Association.

I wa lucky enough to be offered a lot of training opportunities so I've attended courses at Henley, Ashridge, Chartridge and Insead Management colleges. I also enjoy training people and have run courses in copywriting, design, strategic marketing, brand development, personality theory, public relations practice  and intellectual capital management. .

I founded ONLYCONNECT in 2002 after leaving ASE.

Work Philosophy

These jobs gave me over 20 years experience as a manager. I learnt as much from my mistakes as my successes. Mostly I learnt a lot about people, how crucial they are to the success of any type of enterprise. I felt that any organisation has a tendency to become "cult-like": to treat people as cogs in a machine, rather than individuals with a huge and complex range of talents, beliefs, needs and motivations.

This experience informs the ideas behind ONLYCONNECT.

PEOPLE: I have 20 years experience of working in the application of psychology to business and have access to tools, suppliers and experts which can help in HR work. While I believe in the usefulness of measurement techniques and use them frequently in my work, I start from a humanist view of people informed by the work of Viktor Frankl and a number of other thinkers.

COMMUNICATION: Whether that’s planning strategic marketing, writing a brochure, giving internal or external presentations. One of my key skills is turning internal or technical language into a message which reaches its intended audience...and doing it quickly.

DIFFERENCE: We all work in mature markets, in a society where messages are drowned out by the volume of noise. To be heard you have to be different – but not for its own sake. What you say must reflect who you are and what you want to achieve.

FLEXIBILITY: I’ll do any job – from writing a business letter, running a large scale recruitment system, developing a 3 year plan, organising internal communications, giving training and presentations helping to develop and populate a web site or mentoring someone in marketing, where I can really make a difference. If I can’t do the job I’ll tell you – but I might know someone who can.

BUSINESS: is not hermetically sealed from the rest of life. It's part of it. It's personal and emotional as well as intellectual.

CREATIVITY: By which I don't mean the " mother statement" made when organisations claim to be creative or need creativity. I see no difference between creativity in the arts, in work or in our personal lives. That's why I find working in a range of different areas so interesting: take ideas from one area and apply them in another and you create something new.

Writing

I started writing poetry and prose when I was at primary school and haven't really stopped since. 

I've always grabbed time to write, read and study and I enjoy interdisciplinary thinking. Being a visiting tutor in Context Projects for final year Advertising Graphic Design students at Central St Martins College of Art and Design keeps me up to date with new international thinking on marketing, design, music and film. The students are challenging thinkers.

The rest of this section of the site gves examples of my own writing and other arts projects I've contributed to.