For a bit of each week I worked on contract at YouView, the revolutionary new IPTV platform being developed through a joint venture by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva. I was mainly there to write for the box UX (user experience), but also did a lot on the brand side, including the website and a script for the brand launch video. Although the contract itself has finished, I’m continuing to work with YouView in various ways on an ad hoc freelance basis. Watch out for the launch in 2012. It’s going to be big.

I co-founded Other in 1996 as a creatively focused agency that worked across all advertising and design disciplines. We made TV commercials, designed corporate identities, developed fundraising campaigns, named businesses, developed poster, press and radio campaigns and worked on internal communications. From the original two-man team, I helped build the business to a team of around 11, with a turnover of around £1m. I loved most of my time there, but In 2002 decided to return to my real forte – the creative work – as an independent.

Bit of a false start this, as shortly after joining Park I was invited to co-found a new agency, Other.

The only writer in a small but respected recruitment and employee communications agency (part of Publicis).

My first writing job. I beat about 1,500 others to one of two junior copywriter jobs at Barkers (the world's oldest advertising agency, know to many still as Charles Barker).

The task of pressing three or four pages of job description into a space the size of a fag packet (if you were lucky) proved a valuable 'writer's bootcamp'.

My very first published ad was for Our Price records (RIP). It bore the headline, 'A big noise in IT'. But things improved: I won my first award within six months, for an ad recruiting ex-Forces people into Pizza Hut managem