“Look people in the eye when you talk to them!”

That’s what I was told when I was growing up. This is what we do when we talk to others and we want to connect with them, and to reassure them that we are listening. Building this connection with clients is essential, as we help them to develop briefs for their projects.

But of course, now the question is: how can we still connect if we are all dispersed? And, what does this mean for our briefing work and proven methodologies?

We are all the same people, and we have the same passion (and persistence!) for uncovering relevant and responsive answers and design solutions. But, as a team, we have to adapt our workflow to the future world, albeit one which has arrived more suddenly than predicted. Our briefing process is structured around planned observation and engagement sessions, and the digital world offers wonderful possibilities for these to happen.

On a recent Monday morning, we shared how we are relishing this opportunity to broaden our techniques; embracing a myriad of digital platforms that allow us to connect to a much wider and varied audience, and an abundance of tools to enrich our existing briefing toolkit. We also shared and reflected on the some of the exclusively digital briefing work that we have undertaken, since recent measures came into force.

What came out of our sharing session was an appetite for renewal, and an acknowledgement that although physically apart, we have never been closer. And that we can still look at each other in the eye when we talk!