FRESH MINDS #008
May 2025
We May-ed it! Spring is in full swing. Your vitamin D levels increase, breathing gets harder around parks and you get a kilogram of pollen blown into your eyes when you step outside. London spring is truly something special.
Lil update from us - we’re moving from a monthly newsletter model, to every two months (so the next edition will be in your inboxes in July). Since our first meet up in January, we’ve had lot’s of demand for more — but time flies.
So we’re rebalancing our efforts — you’ll still receive 6 instalments a year packed full of Junior POV’s and nuggets, but we’ll also be increasing the number of meet ups to help build our wicked FRESH MINDS community.
Speaking of which… London-based Juniors, our next meet up will be a (weather permitting…) park hangout the evening of 26th June. We’ll be sharing more info on our What’s App chat - come hang: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FSepniJGWVYL2WgJm0pH1X . (We are using this chat for updates on meet ups and prompts only, so minimal spam)
Now that you’re all up to date, let’s get to this month’s topics:
Should we be worried about a ‘potential death of daydreaming’?
Our thoughts on Duolingo’s choice to replace staff with AI
Should four day working weeks the future for our industry?
Happy reading & thanks as ever for supporting Juniors!
May your inbox be empty and (iced-)coffee cup full!
A&Z
“Daydreaming isn’t naive. It is radical clarity.“
You’ve probably heard the phrase: “Ideas thrive in the shower, not in the boardroom.” Some write it off as cliché. I don’t. As a strategist, I see daydreaming as a critical tool that is constantly undervalued because it doesn’t look like work from the outside. Still, I don’t buy the excuse that we’re “too busy” to daydream. Yes, modern life is relentlessly complex. Yes, our to-do lists reload faster than we can complete them. But complexity isn’t the problem. Our unwillingness to pause within it is. Like, blocking out short daydreaming sessions each week after ruthlessly prioritizing what truly demands action. And treating these moments as seriously as any other work meeting. In this world that gets more and more addicted to urgency, daydreaming isn’t naive. It is radical clarity. And that needs space. This space just doesn’t appear on its own, you have to protect it.
- Emma Revermann (Junior Strategist)
“I started keeping a notebook on my bedside table for ideas coming up before being kissed by Morpheus“
I’m lucky enough to have a good mental health, and not be threatened by overthinking as much as other juniors/people my age. So daydreaming remains a daily habit of mine, I started keeping a notebook on my bedside table for ideas coming up before being kissed by Morpheus. So far no career-breaking thought came if it, mostly giberrish, but one night maybe. And for generating daydreaming, I recommend taking a walk. Some articles online said it stimulate the brain. Probably does.
- Thomas Clement (Junior Strategist)
“Many customers may not hear about this decision“
Unfortunately, I think Duolingo won’t suffer too much from this decision. They deserve it but many customers may not hear about this decision, unlike us who are chronically online. Considering they managed to be profitable (700M$ profit I believe) without AI, they are greedy enough to take this reputation it, considering even a slight drop in users will be outright by this labor force cut. But could another company build a strong user base through AI-only contributors? Defiance in AI may prove this difficult in the future.
- Thomas Clement (Junior Strategist)
“Autonomy lifts both morale and output“
Off the back of a May book-ended with bank holidays, my first thought on a four-day week is a big fat yes - who wouldn’t want more long weekends? The collective vibe when a BH rolls around speaks for itself. But if we’re honest, the idea of it becoming the norm in our industry feels... optimistic. Global clients, last-minute RFPs, and the ever-urgent world of socials mean the pace rarely slows.
That said, I’m not here to be a Debby Downer. What we can push for and what we need is real flexibility. Creative work doesn’t thrive on a clock-in-clock-out schedule. We're adults. We know our deadlines. Let us own our time.
Flexible hours, remote-first setups, even work-from-anywhere weeks, these shouldn’t be niche perks reserved for ‘progressive agencies’. They should be standard. The data backs it up too (like CIPD 2023 research report): autonomy lifts both morale and output. If I can do my job with just Wi-Fi and a laptop, why not let me log in from a sunny balcony in the Med now and then? Or, as an early bird, start at 7 and make that blissfully empty 4pm spin class.
The 9-5 isn’t sacred. The work is. Give us the freedom to do it our way and watch us flourish.
- Georgia Kelly (Marketing & PR Exec)
“Freeing time to experience life is very beneficial to our industry“
I thrive for it. Would be a blessing and to resonate with the question above, freeing time to experience life is very beneficial to our industry. I believe my agency does its best work when we are having fun and not burdened by a dooming deadline. Burned-out people tend to not laugh at my briefs as much as a well-rested creative.
- Thomas Clement (Junior Strategist)
Resources & tips from our FRESH community:
If you don’t already follow the incredible Zoe Scaman, you must — her blog and weekly newsletters are addictively readable, packed full of nuggets into the future of fandoms, brands and entertainment
Thanks for supporting FRESH MINDS
Have some POVs to share? Check out the next month’s prompts HERE.
We’d love to hear your feedback: freshminds2024@gmail.com