"Brands increasingly don't want people to write about their work now." (Eliza Williams bonus episode)

0:00Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of the Daring Forever podcast. This is my opportunity to zoom in on a few standout moments from this week's interview, finding those moments that deserve a second look, and dig deeper in what makes them special. This week I spoke to Eliza Williams, who's the editor of Creative Review, a magazine bringing the creative community together since 1980. In our conversation we talked about what's behind the polished output to the messy middle Why the future of creative publishing matters The exclusivity of the art world And what it actually takes to build confidence in public This is an honest look at staying curious Staying honest and daring to keep asking the questions The episode published a few days ago was titled Dare to take the slow road into the industry And if you haven't checked out the full episode yet Let me share with you these four standout moments I was terrified.

1:19anyone would rock up to something and it would be okay. But I wasn't like somebody that was massively comfortable doing that. So it always took a bit of a deep breath to do it. And then in terms of the writing, I didn't really get a lot of people hating on me. But I think if you write for the Nationals or you're in a very high-profile art magazine and you're that established name, then there's a lot more pressure on you, I think.

1:43Radim Malinic:Eliza wasn't born confident, nor was you, nor was I. but in her 20s she walked into industry events feeling completely out of place and she's open about it even now the best part of the quote i would say is the and as you might have heard me before i like to say that you know imposter syndrome wasn't invented in the late 90s or it wasn't invented pre-2010 because we didn't have the words for it every i mean imposter syndrome existed every single generation and every generation thinks that anxiety is new and that everyone else has it figured out. What Eliza's doing here is basically saying we are all faking it.

2:21Radim Malinic:If you're early in your career and you feel terrified in whatever the room you're in, it doesn't mean that you're in the wrong industry. It doesn't mean that you're in the wrong place. It's just that's how it is. Confidence isn't something you need before you start. It is something you actually build by showing up scared and doing it anyway again and again and again until it feels natural. You're asking me about Coltrane. It just happened over time. There's certain things, in terms of writing, I think that happened quicker. I used to absolutely hate public speaking and I used to find it totally terrifying.

3:01And I really actively avoided doing it for quite a lot of my early career. Even though I'm quite an extrovert person, but it just interrelated me immensely. and I can't remember exactly what shifted with that but it was essentially just being forced to do it and then realising that actually it's not massively different to just speaking to people, it's just speaking to a lot of people at once. But if you go into it thinking of it like that, that you're not actually having to perform, you're just doing what you do. And by that point I'd interviewed lots of people. I think the key thing was learning how to ask people questions and have natural conversations and that way you got much more from people in interview terms.

3:44Radim Malinic:I admire what Eliza does because she's very good at finding the right questions for her guests and her podcast that she used to do in the past and producing the work that goes behind the scenes really so well. In some way, there's a masterclass hidden in that casual comment because for someone who used to hate public speaking, she actively and in fact she would actively avoid it. What changed for her wasn't a lack of confidence trick but it was a way of thinking. I believe the real insight here is that it goes beyond interviewing technique. It's about treating curiosity as a skill you can develop not just a personality trait.

4:25Radim Malinic:Prepared questions can get prepared answers. Natural conversations bring out a real story, the unexpected moments and the things people didn't know they would say. Whether you interview and network, you're not just trying to connect with someone at a dinner party. The key is to ask because you're genuinely curious, not just because it's a checkbox. I think everyone you talk to is interesting and you find there's interesting. So everyone you talk to will have something interesting to tell you and unexpected. But also in terms of the industry and the work and stuff like that, that a lot of the time, The things I love are getting to go behind the scenes, whether that be literally sometimes, but also just hearing about how things are made and the stories behind how things are done and when things go wrong, because they always do.

5:13And it's all that stuff, which I find really interesting. And in some ways, the polished end thing is the less interesting part, really. It's the whole getting there that's good.

5:21Radim Malinic:I believe this summarizes Eliza's editorial philosophy in just a few sentences. is. After decades of interviewing creatives, executives and everyone else in between, I think she realized something truly fascinating. Nobody is boring if you ask the right questions. The second part of this moment is what actually hits home for me. Because for anyone in creative fields, the polished work you show to the world is often the least interesting part. The mess, the mistakes, the version they got scrapped, the arguments with clients, that's where the real story is and it's a great reminder for anyone building a personal brand a portfolio even just telling their own career story don't just show the highlights because people connect so much more with the behind scenes chaos because that's where they see themselves i haven't noticed that brands they don't want people to write about stuff now we've had quite a few times where a major brand has done a rebrand and you'll hear about it from the studio and then you're saying well we'd like to write about it and the clients refusing.

6:25And I think some of that is a direct response to these sort of storms that have blown up, that they just don't want the hassle of being attacked. We've seen some of it's become political and all kinds of things. I think that's a real shame because the problem is then the industry, even amongst itself, is not documenting the good stuff that's happening. This was a fascinating insight because when you think twice about this

6:51Radim Malinic:moment you realize it's true because not that long ago we used to have a rebrand stories one a minute and what followed didn't exactly how would i say it it didn't exactly go to plan or didn't go swimmingly because in our current society with the loud trombone megaphone whatever you want to see and our social media voices be like today it can get really fun and it can get really nasty really quickly and we do give people option to express themselves of what we want to know about you know what they think about some of this but let's be honest the the surface level news have now turned into a debating club with people who sometimes haven't got a foggiest clue about the work about the process about what goes behind the scenes and this is really really i would say sobering insight to learn that brands will stop a press release go out because they don't want to be in the middle of a punch-up they just want to be brands doing their own thing and if you're a studio what you want is obviously PR coverage because you're really proud of what you did and the way you did it so when Eliza told me that she kind of thinks like actually it's a bit of a loss for the industry because the good work is no longer written about discussed or archived as if it never happened of course there might be a case study on a studio website so when you think about it the creative reviews value comes from documenting and putting the work in context so Eliza's moment here is the clear reminder that fear of criticism doesn't just protect brands but also keeps industry from learning and growing and if no one is willing to be written about then no one gets to learn what actually worked thank you for joining me on this bonus episode of the daring forever podcast i'm a big fan of what eliza and her team at creative review are doing with the magazine and the content and the future of publishing and i would like to encourage you to check out the full interview because there's so many amazing moments in there thank you again and i'll see you next week with the next episode

9:09Radim Malinic:If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design. Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle including an e-book and audio book to make the content accessible wherever you are and whatever you do. To get 10 % of your order, visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code PODCAST. Have a look around and start living daringly.