Should We Disconnect Over the Holidays? Or Does Tech Just Make it Easier to Stay on Top of Things?

The holidays are meant to be an opportunity for many of us to disconnect and refuel - but that’s becoming ever harder to do. In this hyper-connected world, where even fridges are kitted out with cameras and Wi-Fi, it feels like we are ‘always on’ - so we wanted to know if it was still important for ad execs to disconnect or if technology was actually just making it easier for them to stay on top of things. LBB’s Addison Capper catches up with folk from Deutsch New York, BETC Paris, VCCPme and Jam3 to find out.

Let us know your festive connection plans via Twitter. 

Julien Leveque, Head of Activation Strategy, BETC Paris

Switching off takes courage and I am not that brave.

A family break is a warm and nice comfort zone when you are a child, but – and you know it – it’s a wild and vicious one when you reach 30+.

Some of us call it a trap.

Firstly, I need to go through the recipes that I did not have time to practice or even check earlier – especially I need to make the right foie gras and not disappoint my mother whom I promised to get it perfect (unlike last year and the one before that…).

My little sis needs to hear from the last cool tune I spotted, and I need to see how she is using Snapchat with this suspicious unicorn guy.

Also, I already know that I’ll be the guy in touch with Amazon on 23rd December to understand why the Echo for my father is not yet in my mailbox.

Finally – and this is not the funniest part – I’ve been named personal CTO of my entire family. Meaning I will need to upload, install and reconfigure more than four different mobile OS… and make sure that everyone of them keeps their pictures as they were before. Which will lead me to ask everyone their cloud passwords and find out that not one of them even know what a cloud is.

In the best case I will configure Echo for my father and explain to him that Alexa is not a real person.

I have no idea how I am supposed to do every bit of that without the help of Google and the support of my friends and dear colleagues through every Snapmailthings I can send and receive all vacation long.

And, most importantly, how am I supposed to sext with my wife while she has to get through the same digital messed up things in her family?

Trevor O’Brien, Chief Technology Officer, Deutsch NY

I can switch off and will this year because my family are coming over from Europe. I’ll check email twice a day, at lunch and at night—and other than someone calling me I can be found drinking mulled wine and eating Finnish smoked fish. I’ll be relaxing in a house deep in the woods, and will try to read something that has nothing to do with work. It doesn’t matter whether it’s email or slack— if you’re the sort of person that can’t stop checking then you won’t.

Gavin Hilton, Strategy Partner, VCCPme

Odd isn't it, that we've now taken the word 'connected' and made it about devices rather than people? I'll certainly be staying connected this Christmas. To my family and the people around me, not to the devices that enable me to work more efficiently for the rest of the year.

I was absolutely horrified to see that a certain DIY chain's top tip for making Christmas guests feel at home this year is to ensure that the first thing they see when they walk through your door is a lovingly framed picture – of your Wi-Fi password. Why don't they just Snap you from their sofa or Insta a pic of their turkey instead of going to the dreary bother of coming round to visit at all?

Sainsbury's has it right this year – the best present you can give the people who love you is your presence, not a constant view of the top of your head and the back of your iPhone.

And ironically, the fact is that disconnecting makes us better at our jobs. Being rested after a break makes us more efficient than being knackered from having been always on. Switching off the logic processing of our cortex allows our pre-conscious (perhaps aided by a small sherry) to dream.

A manic need to stay connected to work (unless you're saving lives, of course) is for the insecure, the inefficient and the ineluctably vain.

So have a wonderful, peaceful Christmas. But don't bother emailing me till January.

Greg Bolton, Creative Director, Jam3

It’s definitely harder and harder to disconnect at any time, even over the holidays, because technology is everywhere and it’s a passion for every single person at Jam3. But we think it’s important to stop the madness sometimes, and so ever since we opened our doors for business, we’ve always closed them for the holiday season. 

We’re explicit with our clients that we won’t do jobs that have to deliver on December 27th – or even January 2nd. That’s time for our whole crew to relax, recharge, be with family, catch up with friends, day drink, stay up late, sleep in, go to some crazy cabin off the grid – basically anything that isn’t work, or anything that looks like work. No Slack, no email, no “so sorry to bother you but…” texts, no calls, no nothing.

Especially for less established agencies, it can feel like the sky will fall if you don’t keep things moving for a whole week. But the reality is that sometimes if you don't have a week off, you’re just gonna have an off week. Let’s be honest, nobody’s getting anything done between the 25th and the 2nd anyway. Most clients book it off because they can. You can too, and you should. 

So from everyone at Jam3, Happy Holidays! If anyone’s looking for us, we’ll be back at it – rested, rejuvenated and raring to go – on January 3rd.