Claire Lycett is one of our newest Dolphin Outsourcing Specialists, so let’s get to know her better.
Listen to Christina Barker, Manager of Dolphin Outsourcing, interview Claire to learn more about her career history, what she can offer your business and what her favourite social media platforms are.
Alternatively, you can see this interview in full on our YouTube channel. If you prefer to read, you'll find our transcription of the interview below.
Christina
Hi everyone it's Christina Barker from Dolphin Outsourcing and today I have the lovely Claire Lycett with me today.
Claire
Hello.
Christina
So Claire is one of our newest members to the team and I'd love to do a bit of an introduction about Claire, and you can find out more about what she can do to help your business, how she can help you grow what she's like, what she can do for you and a little bit about her personally. So I'm going to go ahead and ask Claire a load of questions and see what answers we get. Claire, you ready? So tell us a bit about you and your career so far.
Claire
So I have quite a mixed career. I worked in customer service since I was 16. My dad had an optometry practice, and I used to work on Saturdays. Well, I used to go to school on Saturdays, and then the holidays I would always go in and help him. So I was kind of his Saturday girl, my dad's old fashioned, you know. I did a BA in classics at Birmingham University and I worked as an admin temp throughout the holidays when I was at Birmingham. After I graduated, I didn't really know what to do, because what do you do with a BA in classics? So I temped and did loads and loads of admin work for a complete variety of companies. I then started travelling, and after I started a master's in filmmaking at London Film School in London, and I worked at the Royal Opera House as an usher. I worked my way up to being an usher manager while I was there and then I did some freelance film work after I graduated. Then I fell in love and I got married and I moved to Oxford because London's very expensive and we couldn't afford to get a house. I started working for the Women's Institute at somewhere called Denman College, which is now very sadly closed. I worked there full time, I learnt how to make jam and I learnt how to crochet and I also met lots of women about whole variety I would say most of them were of a sort of a certain age, but amazing lives. I can remember one woman, she came up with her credit card number completely off the top of her head and the headmaster said, "wow, how do you know that", she went "Oh, I'm very good at numbers. I worked at Bletchley. I was like, oh. I have all these amazing stories! While I was there, I taught courses on film icons. So I covered Carry Grant and Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, among others. I loved doing that. I also started an online flower girl dress business with my best friend who sadly moved to Australia. We run it for two years, and we decided to close when she moved because she did all the making. I had my daughter and then went on maternity leave and I also took up, while I was on maternity leave, as I wasn't busy enough with a baby.
Christina
And everything else.
Claire
I know, I took up being vice-chair of my local maternity versus Partnership, which was quite an interesting place to be when I was pregnant with my son during the pandemic. As I couldn't, unfortunately, go back and while I was at Devin, I worked my way up to being a senior manager. So I was the administration and reception manager while I was there, and I couldn't, unfortunately, go back there full time and I wanted something that was a bit more chilled, so I started working in a GP practice which was, again, very interesting place to work during a pandemic. I left there and started working for dolphin after my second maternity leave.
Christina
So you know, a small bit of experience then, very varied, but it's really good. It's good to have a bit of variation because you can have that as your transferable skills. So it's always good. To get to know you a bit more personally what are your interests? What do you do in your spare time?
Claire
I make jam and crochet and an awful lot of washing. I'm joking. I love to write. I've always been a creative writer. I still have a lot of interest in photography. So it's helped by the fact that I actually have very photogenic children, so I do lots of photography of them. I volunteer for the MVP, as I said, which I love. And I do still love catching up on films, they have some Cary Grant films on BBC iPlayer so I sat there and watched My Favorite Wife at 5.30 in the morning when my son was awake, it was brilliant. I've volunteered to Contact the Elderly in the past because I do feel that loneliness in this country and it's something that we really need to combat. We put a pet tortoise called Achilles, we're not quite ready for a dog. Once I start a job, and once I get involved in something, I do throw myself into it quite wholeheartedly. So dauphins really exciting.
Christina
So on that note, then what do you do? What do you want to do for dolphin outsourcing, like on a day to day basis?
Claire
So I've just started at the moment and I'm still doing some training, but I'm hoping to be helping out with some basic admin needs. My background is in film, in media in anything visual. So that really is where my strengths lie. However, I also have an incredibly strong admin background. So what made me quite a good producer at film school was the fact that I had this very, very strong admin background. I really firmly believe that anybody these days, the equipment is so good, you've got smartphones, you can pick these up, and you can actually make fantastic films and fantastic promos. You can take pictures that I think are professional now with the right kind of filters. So I'm really passionate about helping people to make things that they're really proud of that look professional and look good that they've made themselves. So hopefully, I'll be able to help out with that. But I mean, I'm really I'm here to help with whatever.
Christina
That's what we want. That's what we like, have you got any kind of courses coming up at the moment or anything that you might be interested in or something that you've completed recently?
Claire
I've found Trello really interesting. That's just a fascinating piece.
Christina
We do a lot of Trello at Dolphin. So yeah, you'll get used to that.
Claire
It’s absolutely brilliant. I think Future Learn is quite good and I'm looking at an illustrator course on my iPad because I just think if you can illustrate if you're good at drawing, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to advance further on to something like an iPad.
Yeah, a lot of people use that now, don't they? I really like to learn how to code, my husband's a programmer but I'm not 100% sure my brain is ready. I've built several websites, but I built them using templates. I love to learn to code properly. Yeah, it was sort of the same as me, I'd like to get into a bit more of that because I know very basic things and modifying stuff and building some websites, but more of a template type thing as well.
Christina
You've got to be a certain type of person to learn all the coding stuff, a bit geeky. So where do you see yourself being with Dolphin in 12 months from now?
Claire
So ideally, I'd like to be nicely bedded in as a pretty well functioning member of the team. It's quite an inspiring group to work with, a really interesting group of people. I'm really passionate about flexible working because having has young kids and having really been very sadly forced out of a job that I love because I had the temerity to have children, I think flexible working is something that I just think is so important for people with young children. So Dolphin has been a real find on that. I love to bring more visual elements to Dolphin. So I'd love to bring more filmmaking, more editing for clients. I think so much can be done using Visual Media, as people are now responding to it. You've only got to look at how successful TikTok is to see how well people respond to Visual Media. Half my friends, three-year-olds have sat there watching unboxing videos on YouTube, they're all going to grow up with that. I think that's very much a really useful string to the Dolphin bow. I think it's all about inspiring people and helping clients to get the best for them and get the best for their clients.
Christina
What makes you stand out from a crowd or what makes you different from somebody else?
Claire
I've got a really diverse background, and there's very little that I won't have a go at. I've worked as a filmmaker, I've worked in the call centre, and I’ve temped for a massive variety of businesses. So as a student I worked for a concrete floor beam manufacturing company chatting away to builders sort of every day. I've worked for the London Fashion museum. I've worked for green and black chocolate company, I've just worked from a variety I worked in mystery shops, I've set up businesses, I've created three websites. I've helped with social media promotion. So on the MVP, we've just broken 4k followers on our Facebook group, which is really exciting and terrific. I've written two books, I had one book that was nearly published. I've been really privileged, I've worked for the Royal Opera House where I was working alongside and chatting away with world-class opera singers and ballet dancers and I was doing that on a daily basis, and seeing all this amazing art being created. I just feel that all of these, and at the same time, I've been a senior manager, but I have also worked as a receptionist. So I've worked my way up, and I've done all sorts, and then I've gone back to being a receptionist after being a senior manager. It gives you so much perspective on the way that things work and the way that people work, and businesses work. So they've given me such a good understanding of what small, medium and large organisations and where their strengths and weaknesses are and where they could need help or, where they could do with more help or assistance. So, I think, what I'm trying to say is I have a very creative side, which I can apply to business and administrative work.
Christina
Yeah, very varied, but great for our clients or potential clients that we might have. What is your favourite social media platforms?
Claire
I'm quite old school, oh I do love me a bit of Facebook! It's just my age though, that’s the problem. My niece is like 'Not Facebook'. She's 12. I do quite like Instagram and I had a go at TikTok. I find TikTok really exciting because a lot of the video editing skills that I learned at Film School, which meant using these massive avid machines...
Christina
Now they make it easy, don’t they?
Claire
...They make it fun and easy, it's all at a touch. I mean, I look at the stuff that my niece is 12 and she comes up with this stuff and you're just like, whoa, that's incredible. You know, so I must admit, politics aside, I do think TikTok is absolutely incredible. I really do think so.
Christina
It is a good platform? Which one do you have the most experience in? Is it still Facebook or something different?
Claire
Probably Facebook, but I do have quite a lot of experience on Instagram as well. Facebook, really, it's only because of co-running the MVP Facebook page, I would say that's really sort of got me into the business side of Facebook. That's been really interesting.
If you would like to work with Claire, get in touch with us or get in touch with Claire. You can speak to her on LinkedIn and we'll see how we can help you in your business.
To listen to the full interview you can watch on our YouTube channel above or listen through our Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Anchor.
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