Our final instalment in our series of #tbt blogs is all about our founder and director, Ali Marsland. Here, she reflects on 10 years as a small business owner.
Where it all began
10 years ago, in February 2013, I was preparing to go to Cape Town for a month. I was living in Nottingham and had been working as a freelance communications manager since 2006. One of my motivations for going freelance in the first place was to be able to travel more, and I was enjoying being self-employed but almost all my work was being done in person at clients’ premises. I knew that a lot of the time I didn’t really need to be on-site to deliver the work and thought I should be able to combine work and travel.
I’d started outsourcing a little and the next step for me as I began to move from freelancing to running a business was to test whether it still worked remotely – not only from home but also on the other side of the world.
So, I’d made a few small practical changes and was getting ready to spend a month in Cape Town to test this location independent thing that I’d read about.
I didn’t have a specific 10-year plan but I did have visions of being able to work from anywhere in the world. (10 years later, I’m pleased to say I’ve achieved just that, visiting nine countries in 2022 and working from most of them.)
I flew to Cape Town for the first time on 6 March 2013 – and have been back at least once every year since then except for 2021 (thanks to Covid-19) and as this post goes live I’m there again.
Since that first exploratory trip, I’ve learnt that combining work and travel can be challenging at times – but I’ve also learnt lots of tricks to deal with those challenges. I’ve learnt a lot about myself too and about running a business, but if I could give myself any advice back in 2013, it would simply be to always trust your gut.
The next 10 years
Looking ahead to 2033, I hope to be at the helm of a thriving communications agency!
I love travelling and hope to continue to visit familiar places and explore more new ones. I hope that in 2033 I’ll have many more interesting experiences under my belt and will have learnt much more than I know now.
As for the comms world around us, technology is advancing so rapidly, we’ll all need to work hard to keep up. AI is already having an impact and it will be interesting to see how much it comes into day-to-day use both in general life and specifically in comms. I’m quite sure it won’t replace us entirely, but it will certainly make a difference.
I expect the ongoing challenge of doing lots with little will continue. In the 20 years that I’ve been in public sector comms it’s always been under-resourced; there’s always more to be done than there is resource available and I don’t see that changing much in the next decade. But I also expect that comms professionals will make use of AI, other technology and our own ingenuity to continue finding creative and efficient ways to be even more effective with the resource that is available.
I’m looking forward to seeing it all unfold.
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