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Ta-dah! As promised, we’ve had a re-think about how and what we communicate with you; re-pitched our voice, so to speak. We hope the new look shows you more clearly who we are, what we can do, how we do it and why.

We strongly believe that perceptions of our identity are shaped by everything we say and do. If we want our true identity to shine through, we need to be willing to look closely at how we express ourselves. We need to have a look and see if the messages we’re sending match what people are seeing and hearing.

There is a great saying in NLP: “The meaning of my communication is the response I get”. This applies to businesses, brands and individuals equally.

Are you thinking about what your business is saying, and how you’re coming across? What responses are your brand messages getting? Having gone down this path ourselves, we’re looking for courageous SMEs and entrepreneurs to submit to an Active Voice Brand Reading. Forget Tarot cards! Forget tea leaves! Your brand messages reveal all.

Drop us a line for free insights!

This month’s exhibition of self portraits explores different perceptions of and relationships with self. Understanding the self has long fascinated philosophers, psychologists, artists and theologians. Many of us have worked out the value of maintaining a healthy relationship with ourselves; and that self awareness is the key to really connecting with others.



To enquire about forthcoming exhibitions or to submit artwork, please contact Angela.





At Active Voice, we’ve started a conversation to express our creativity. It’s a visual conversation about the many faces of love – a universal topic as wide and deep (or frivolous) as we choose to make it.

People are always talking about love. Who they love; what they love; the joys and vagaries of love; love’s mysteries; falling in and out of love; their love of shoes, chocolate, the ocean.

We invite voice readers to contribute. Create, draw, paint, write something about love; scan it and send it to Carly. We hope to gather together all this creative energy to produce a beautiful, inspiring book.






Stephen Lundin of Fish! Philosophy fame reminds us that our working lives are full of opportunities to make someone’s day. When you set an intention to make someone’s day, you’re focused on serving others, rather than what’s going on in your own busy head. Ironically, the act of serving others has quick returns. Usually the result is a feeling of deep satisfaction, usefulness and a sense of purpose. Self esteem is built through esteeming actions.

At Active Voice, we regularly commit to making someone’s day. Often it starts with the team. We actually schedule in time for acknowledging each other. It really can make your day when someone lets you know that they see you!

It’s equally important to acknowledge our clients by letting them know we care about them. We continue to invent new ways of expressing that. We believe the most important way we can be of service to our clients (and to anyone really) is to turn up, be present and participate in the relationship.

One survey shows that of all the reasons customers take their business elsewhere, supplier indifference is far and away the biggest. We can’t think of a stronger antedote to indifference, than striving to make someone’s day.











Recognising that from little things, big things grow, last issue we committed to a small action to reduce our environmental impact. The idea was to take a step on the path towards sustainability.

The first step we agreed to was taking our coffee mugs to our local cafe instead of ordering disposable takeaway cups. You’ll be pleased to know that so far, we’ve managed to save 150 paper cups and plastic lids from ending up in our rubbish bin. How did you go?

The next “little thing” we’re doing is changing the way we conduct internal meetings. Our definition of sustainability encompasses behaviour that sustains social, personal and environmental health. Working in an office can be so sedentary; our bodies often suffer from all the sitting.






We’re addressing this by having some meetings standing up in the office or sometimes having the meeting while we walk in the park. So now, for example, a Work in Progress meeting can be a WIP Around the Park. This works well with a small team. It could also work for one-to-one meetings.

If you’re willing to give it a go as well, we’d love to hear how you get on– or any other ideas you have for getting more movement into the office.

Having fun at work is really the lynchpin for everything else that matters to us. Having fun makes living our other values a pleasure. It also makes good, bottom line business sense to encourage fun at work. Here's a bunch of evidence for any scowling critics out there:

• 96% of execs (in a survey by Accountemps) believe people with a sense of humor do better in their jobs than those who have little or no sense of humour.

• Employees who take part in silly games think more creatively and develop more innovative solutions to problems. A Cornell University study found that people who'd just seen a funny movie increased their "creative flexibility."

• Employees with the Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, after viewing humorous training films and attending workshops, showed a 25% decrease in downtime and a 60% increase in job satisfaction.

• Twenty middle managers at Digital Equipment Corp. in Colorado Springs, increased their productivity by 15% and reduced their sick days by half...in the nine months following a workshop conducted by a humour consultant.


• An HR survey found that a majority of workers think their offices are too bleak.

We’re very sure we want the Active Voice office to be as far from “bleak” as we can get!

Got ideas for having fun at work? Drop us a line.

Source:enjoy-work.com/chiswick-park