So, our last post was about Christmas, so it feels a little backwards that we’re now looking at Halloween, but forgive us, we got a little bit Christmas crazy and we’re back in the present day!
With Halloween just around the corner, we’ve been talking about and watching all of our favourite Halloween movies. But we can take a lot more from a horror film than just ghouls, gore and an unlimited amount of fake blood. Communications’ professionals and their clients could learn a lot from the eerie films that we’ve learned to equally love and hate.
Hocus Pocus - a must watch at Halloween! Although it’s on the TV randomly throughout the year, it never gets old. For those of you who’ve never seen it, the story focuses on teenager Max Dennison, after he moves to Salem. He explores an abandoned house and hears countless stories about the coven of witches who once lived there and sucked the life out of children. They cast a spell which meant they were free to return whenever the black flame candle was lit on Halloween. Max chooses to ignore the horror stories and the warnings and brings the sassiest witches of all time back for a night of horror and magic.
The lesson here is a simple one; learn from history’s mistakes. Take note of previous company mistakes, as well as your own, and ensure that the same mistakes aren’t made twice. Max chose to ignore all the warnings and created chaos and a crisis that could have easily been avoided.
Speaking of crises, The Cabin in the Woods proves why it’s important to always have a crisis management plan. When a group of five college students find themselves at the mercy of powerful forces in an isolated cabin, they could have certainly benefited from having one in place. With no electricity or internet (which sounds scarier to me than any horror film) I imagine it would be quite hard for them to have activated such a plan, but luckily for us we have access to those means which can stop a crisis developing. The way to successfully navigate a crisis is to have a plan in place before it strikes. Those students should have totally anticipated that they would be trapped in the woods with some killer zombies...
Now, although it might not be a typical horror film, I personally can’t think of anything scarier than the Joker from Batman. I never thought I’d be advising people to take life advice from a homicidal clown, but here we are. He may have the wickedest mind in all of comic book land, but it’s also the most brilliant and he knows exactly what he’s doing.
In The Dark Knight he’s well known for saying ‘If you’re good at something, never do it for free’. If you’re good at something, you more than likely enjoy it, so why not get paid for doing something that you love? The chances are that you’ll produce better quality work if you enjoy what you do 8 to 10 hours a day. Never be afraid to charge for your time - nobody will, nor should they, expect you to do the work for free.
The best way to approach life, both in and out of work is to have fun with it. The Joker is always laughing and cracking jokes, albeit often at other people’s expense, but he’s always having too much fun to care that other people don’t ‘get’ him. Focus on yourself and your own company, and don’t worry about what others may or may not be doing around you.
Happy Halloween from The Works team, and remember... why so serious?
