Lessons Learnt – with WORKTECH’s Jeremy Myerson

In this series, Joanna Swash, Moneypenny’s Group CEO, chats to seasoned business people about the lessons they have learnt, and tips they can share, from their years of experience.

Here, Joanna chats to the delightfully optimistic Jeremy Myerson, Director of the WORKTECH Academy.

Tell us about WORKTECH.

Jeremy:

I set up the WORKTECH Conference in 2003 to talk about the future of work and the future of workplace.

We were tired of going to conferences about the future of work, and nobody was talking about the inter-relationship between physical space, how people behave and the kind of technology people use.

It was part of that compartmentalisation that we wanted to address because we felt that if we were going to move into new ways of working, then we need to look in a more holistic way.

WORKTECH as a conference is now in 25 cities around the world, and we have a WORKTECH academy which I lead and which MP is one of our global partners.

What we’re looking at is the future of work, and boy is that the big subject right now.

There’s no way to describe how this subject has moved.

From the arcane margins of professional life to the popular agenda item. And it’s all about new ways of working, and that’s where I think WORKTECH Academy and Moneypenny have this opportunity to influence companies to how they think about the future.

What’s the biggest you thing you might have made professionally, and what did you learn from it?

I’ve been somebody who’s set-up things in my career and I set-up a magazine called Design Week, which is a weekly magazine for the design industry.

I set it up in 1986 when the design industry was still booming and we had the ‘Top 100 design firms’.

This was a time when design firms were going public and it became a very valuable property.

My big mistake was, although I came up with the idea, I was already an employee of the company and I assumed they would look after me and I made rather naïve assumptions, like you do when you’re in your early thirties, and I wouldn’t make those assumptions again.

What would your favourite saying be? 

I always say: “Oh it’s going to be fine.” I’m an optimist. I kind of think that in professional life you’ve got to assume you’re going to come through things.

You’ve got to assume that things are going to turn out ok.

For much of my career I’ve met all kinds of people in all kinds of sectors, and I have always assumed the best and not been disappointed.