Client and Student Interviews
Hoopla facilitator and teacher Liam Brennan interviewed a diverse range of Hoopla clients and students to ask how they’ve applied improv into their work life and businesses. Here’s what they had to say.
Kate O’Connor: Advertising Creative
Liam: Why do you find ‘yes and’ useful and how do you apply it?
Kate: It’s easy to dismiss ideas. People are scared of looking silly, so if an idea isn’t immediately brilliant it’s easier to dismiss it. But by doing that you often miss out on the little nuggets of a good idea buried in a half-baked idea. Improv has taught me to persevere and find the hidden magic in something a bit weird, daft, unusual or obtuse. When me and my team sit down to talk about a project in its early stages, ‘yes and’ is the golden rule. That way we can explore a concept and really work out if it could be fleshed out into a fully-fledged ad campaign. It’s an art, not a science. Often a brilliant advert ends up being greater than the sum of the brains that dreamed it up.
I want to have fun at work – I’m going to be doing it for a bloody long time. Creativity is freedom, I suppose. It’s also connection – I really like people, they’re so interesting and weird. Figuring out how to communicate effectively is a really interesting challenge. Improv helped me in this regard as I have more faith in myself, particularly in meetings with clients or senior stakeholders. I have more confidence that whatever comes out of my mouth will make sense and be of value.