Meet Jeremy
From exhibition writer to content director, Jeremy Taylor has worn his fair share of hats since joining our team in 2010. These days, you’ll likely find him breaking new ground in his role as Strategy & Business Development Manager. Here, the funny guy talks spinning plates, his secret aspirations and the good old days.
What does a day in the life of Jeremy look like?
Get up, get dressed, get some food in the kids and the kids in some clothes and the kids to school. Start answering emails on the metro and also maybe check the hockey scores. Get to the office, get coffee, and work through the rest of my emails. If we’re in pitch mode, which we usually are, that pitch will be the number one priority today; if not, there are pitches on the horizon and conferences to go to and relationships to nourish with potential clients and partners. Maybe I need to put together a service offer for a new project; maybe I need to put together a presentation for a museum that’s interested in our services. On any given day I’ll probably interface with 15 to 20 different projects at different stages of development ... it’s spinning plates, really, and if it's a good day I won’t drop too many plates.
Jeremy and Creative Director Eric Demay at MuseumNext in Rotterdam.
The first time's always special. What was your first GSM project?
I was toiling away in obscurity as an independent playwright when Creative Director Geneviève Angio-Morneau called me and asked me to write some exhibition copy for Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology. Suddenly I was getting paid to watch the Indy movies and to write labels about the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, and Harrison Ford’s hat and whip. I was pretty instantly hooked.
Let's say you could trade jobs with anyone at GSM. Who would it be and why?
Does it have to be just one person? Maybe I could jump around a bit. First I’d trade with Maude Desjardins and go back to doing content development for a day; I definitely miss digging into the details from time to time. Then I’d switch with Nicolas St-Cyr and oversee the creative direction of a project for a day. Then I’d trade with Francois Bellehumeur, but only for a day, because man those GANTT charts and spreadsheets would do my head in. Then it would be fun to be Julien Roy for a while and mess around with sound equipment, which is what I assume he does all day, but then I better let him get back to it because I wouldn’t really know what I was doing. Then I’d be Fiona Ng for a few days and enjoy the weather in Singapore before taking over for Jason Shatilla in Dubai to prolong my time in the sun. Then I guess I’d come home and get back to work.
You're alone on a desert island with one GSM project. Which one, and why?
I will always hold a special place in my heart for Star Wars™ Identities. It was the first project I worked on from concept to opening, and that’s a pretty incredible feeling. Also, if we’re really going to be alone together on a desert island, it’s going to have to have some depth to it. I happen to know that SWID has 50,000 words in it — or 5 words per square foot! — so that should keep me busy for a while.
Jeremy and R2-D2 at the opening of Star Wars™ Identities in Montreal back in 2012.
