by Taazima Kala-Essack (@taazimakala) I don’t speak Latin, nor do I have any desire to learn what many may say is a dead language. However, for someone with a true obsession with modern-day vernacular and languages, this is a phrase I love more than a person really ought to… love Latin phrases. It’s embarrassing, really.
Of course, I’m choosing to ignore I first heard it some 15 years ago in a slightly too-wholesome family show by Warner Brothers (show name omitted for fear of judgement). Said show featured the phrase bandied about by spoilt rich kids in a nonsensical secret society amongst the Yale elite as they leapt off high rises in ballgowns and umbrellas; but I digress.
Ignite
In omnia paratus (“prepared in all things: ready for anything”) is one of those carpe diem turns of phrase that somehow manage to ignite a sense of fiery passion, even if only because it sounds so mystically foreign.
It’s about living for the moment in many ways, throwing caution to the wind and simply taking a leap of faith (or a slightly calculated risk, if that’s your fancy) as and when needed. An example of an arguably dead language or not, it has a very real bearing on all of us today — largely because of its notable lack of application, literally and figuratively so.
United in the strangest of circumstances only a global pandemic can bring, individuals, families and businesses now spend every waking day watching almost helplessly as covid-19 continues waging its own veritable war on the world. Reports are also coming in of cases of the bubonic plague and a potentially new pandemic of even greater respiratory distress challenges in China, and our news now resembles that horrid rowing scene from Ben-Hur. Enter the leaping with umbrellas, in the wholly proverbial sense of course.
Creative sectors
Creative sectors the world over are among the hardest hit (among, not singularly so) and markets such as Botswana that don’t manifest the creative sector’s potential as a veritable engine of the economym or at the very least commercialised and commoditised in the most sustainable of ways, are among the hardest of the hardest hit.
Communications budgets have been cut with a painful and blunt guillotine; the ability to hold physical engagements and activations feels near-obsolete; and people are reevaluating entire communications and marketing strategies for the foreseeable future. And yet filling our daily arsenal of vocabulary are “unprecedented times”, “new normal”, “business unusual” and “thinking outside the box”. Aren’t we tired of such tired perspectives? For a sector fighting for its existence, there has to be some greater and more-demonstrable proof in the proverbial pudding of our agility and ruthless will to survive and thrive than simply stating so.
Enough “new normal” and on with the show, I say — in omnia paratus. Communications consultancies in the UK have, for example, begun flirting with the idea of a four-day work week. Managed responsibly and with clear and well-articulated purpose, the results have been overwhelmingly positive, as the four-day week sees increased productivity balanced by greater peace of mind, mindfulness time and unwinding over the extra free day provided. Working from home, in fact across industries, equally sees opportunities to do more with less.
Productivity boost or drain
The jury remains out for many, locally, on whether working from home presents a productivity boost or a productivity drain and yet, once again, our friends across the oceans have been practicing this for years before the current pandemic, albeit with varied levels of success — yet success, nonetheless.
In his 2017 “Go Ahead, Tell Your Boss You Are Working From Home” TEDx Stanford talk, Nicholas Bloom unpacked more on a study conducted to gauge the effectiveness of working from home on productivity.
“Shattered”
Similarly, according to Forbes in May 2020, “Work life balance has been shattered for many, but savvy employees are putting the pieces back together in innovative and surprising ways. According to survey data compiled from 100 million data points across 30,000 users, …team members are making the most out of their home office.” Telephone calls are up 230%, email is up 57% and chat is up 9%, the study found.
While I’m not suggesting we continue to shut shop and send everyone home, there’s something to be said for demonstrating true agility and readiness for mobilising when the circumstances warrant it — ready for anything, nimble enough to make it work and committed enough to plan ahead, with innovation at the very core of all that we do, can do and should do.
A great example is that of Rwanda. The report, Creative Industries in Rwanda: Digital Paths to Global Markets, highlights a number of inspirational case studies on how small-, medium- and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) in Rwanda’s music and film sectors are selling digitally to a global market, finding new routes to consumers and overcoming challenges to show agility in action. According to the study, “The digital revolution has vastly expanded the frontiers of the creative industries, turning it into a sector that generates $2.25 trillion of revenues globally. This is comparable to the gross domestic product of Brazil or India.”
“Remarkable agility”
Further, the World Economic Forum notes: “Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, organisations around the globe have demonstrated remarkable agility, changing business models literally overnight: setting up remote-work arrangements; offshoring entire business processes to less-affected geographies; initiating multi-company cooperation to redeploy furloughed employees across sectors. In each situation, the urgency for results prevailed over traditional bureaucratic responses.”
The unity and humanity are without question. The world has, for the most part, come together in the most heartwarming of manners.
However, is this enough without any real action to safeguard our creative sector futures? How confidently can we say the same for our own markets as Rwanda or those in Europe and the US? Covid-19 or not, are we agile enough, determined enough and equipped enough?
Culture of strategic ‘doing’
As with anything, there’s room for improvement, no doubt, and we’re likely not too far off from changing our current reality and our ability to adapt better. Perhaps it’s just a more daring and action-led approach we need to inculcate: a culture of strategic ‘doing.’ If for no other reason than bravery and boldness stand to breed innovation, we need to get doing.
Survival of the fittest is very much in play and, verbomania aside, an in omnia paratus state of mind ought to feature much more on our daily tongues, our ways of thinking, and how we act to change the current status quo.
Grab an umbrella, and leap!
See also
- Columns | #NotSoOrdinary – Taazima Kala-Essak
- #OpenForBusiness — Radar
- #CoronavirusSA — Radar
- #CoronavirusSA – Special Section
Taazima Kala-Essack (@taazimakala) is lead consultant at Botswana’s oldest and largest PR consultancy and FCB Wired affiliate, Hotwire PRC. She draws inspiration for her regular Marklives.com column from her observations of brands and how and what they communicate. She has a firm “question everything” philosophy, believes in challenging the status quo and celebrating the #NotSoOrdinary.
This MarkLives #CoronavirusSA special section contains coverage of how the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its resultant disease, covid-19, is affecting the advertising, marketing and related industries in South Africa and other parts of Africa, and how we are responding. Updates may be sent to us via our contact form or the email address published on our Contact Us page. Opinion pieces/guest columns must be exclusive.
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