What’s floating our boat lately
Some weeks in this job feel strategic and structured – colour-coded into tidy little project management boxes.
Other weeks feel… a little more eclectic.
Last week was one of the latter.
In the spirit of pulling back the curtain a little, here’s what’s currently floating our boat from the F&E dining table.
Flexible working isn’t a perk. It’s sanity preservation.
It’s been hotter than the surface of the sun in our corner of the world lately and there’s nothing like a forty-plus days to reimagine what constitutes “essential” work.
At the moment, flexible working at F&E is about being able to move between air-conditioning, shaded corners, school pickups, hydration breaks and the occasional existential spiral about climate change.
It’s about doing serious work without pretending we’re robots immune to the realities of Australian summers (or the AC unexpectedly conking out).
And frankly? Some of our best ideas arrive when the rigid edges of the day soften a little and work and life can sit side by side.
Instagram is teaching us geopolitics. And we’re not mad about it.
One of the unexpected delights floating around our algorithms lately is the rise of “Explain It Like I’m Five” style accounts tackling the genuinely big, complex, occasionally terrifying things happening globally.
Politics. International affairs. Economic shifts. Social movements.
Not oversimplified. Not patronising. Just humanised… and bloody funny.
Nobody wants to feel like a “thicky thicky dumb dumb” and these accounts remind us how powerful clarity can be when it’s done well, and how much people want to understand the world, but don’t want to wade through twenty-tab research rabbit holes to get there.
It also quietly reinforces something we bang on about constantly in our work: clarity is not dumbing down. It’s respect.
Conversations with interesting people (particularly women who have SEEN SOME THINGS)
One of the quiet privileges of storytelling work is the people who trust us with their experiences. Lately, we’ve been sitting in conversations with women of a certain age who have built businesses, raised families, navigated industries that didn’t always welcome them, and emerged with the kind of insight you just can’t Google.
Never fans of colouring inside the lines, these conversations inevitably drift. Life lessons. Moments of insight. Honest reflections. Big picture observations. The sort of wisdom that only arrives after years of showing up, adjusting course, and getting on with it, even when it hurts.
We leave those conversations feeling slightly steadier, slightly wiser, and always deeply grateful that our work brought us into contact with amazing people and front-row seats to their stories.
Feedback that lands in the softest, most meaningful places
In our industry, there’s the measurable feedback – clicks, engagement, reach, performance metrics. All important. All valid.
And then there’s the feedback that arrives quietly and hits you in the feels. The email that says, “You captured exactly what we were trying to say but didn’t know how.” The message from a client who feels seen. The colleague who says a piece of our work helped them see the world differently. Or the left-of-field feedback from someone who just stumbled on one of our productions and was brought to tears.
That’s the stuff that sticks.
It reminds us that storytelling isn’t decoration. It’s translation. It’s helping good work land.
AI is helping with life admin… and occasionally emotional support (we said what we said)
We’re not here for the “AI is replacing humans” narrative. But we are absolutely here for AI taking over the parts of life that feel like a low-grade administrative hostage situation.
Meal planning. Calendar wrangling. Plant saving tips. Drafting diplomatic messenger group responses when the brain (and patience) has left the building.
And, occasionally, being the world’s most patient sounding board and stand in therapist when you need to organise your thoughts or answer “Who am I” questions at 3:11am.
Used well, it frees up energy for the work that still needs humanity. Listening. Interpreting. Nuance. Asking better questions.
The things machines are still spectacularly bad at.
The slightly unhinged ambition that lives under (gestures wildly) all of this
Between drafts, deadlines and snack diplomacy, there is a recurring F&E conversation that surfaces at least once a week.
How can we tell more stories?
What if we could find someone to pay us to tell ALL THE STORIES of regional Australia?
It’s a big, audacious, occasionally ridiculous dream.
But then again, Frank & Earnest started around a kitchen table. So, we’ve learned not to underestimate where these kinds of conversations can lead.
The small things are the big things
So right now, what’s floating our boat isn’t one major project or headline achievement.
It’s the conversations.
The clarity moments.
The trust.
The learning.
The laughter.
The quiet reminders that storytelling is still, at its heart, about people.
And honestly? That feels like more than enough.
If you’re sitting on a story you think matters, or work you know deserves better words, let’s have it.
Bel & Peit