Adding Another String To Your Bow

So my third book ‘Zoom!’ is now well and truly published; it’s on the bookshelves in UK stores and the first international orders are now being fulfilled. At the same time, I’m already working on book four, ‘Mash-Up’ (my second collaboration with David Sloly). So it’s that part of the journey where post-it notes are being stuck on the wall, interviews and research conducted, and evenings invested in editing and writing.

Of course, in this world you can’t *just* be an author anymore, you have to be a content creator (as well as a promoter of course). Content creation doesn’t stop with the manuscript, you have to think about the guest posts you’ll write for other sites, the video interviews you’ll grab so you have extra content, the stories you’ll reversion into manifestos and so on.

That multi-platform landscape is now where all marketing is played out and it’s something I evangelise to my business clients, ensuring that their message and content sweats, that they tell their story simultaneously across different platforms.

One of my own goals is to to become platform-agnostic in my business storytelling; to not stop at books, columns, blog posts or videos. So I’ve just started contributing to Monocle magazine’s new online radio channel Monocle 24, interviewing business pioneers for their show ‘The Entrepreneurs’. I’ve loved the quality of Monocle content since they launched the print title; now having contributed to the magazine it’s great to tell entrepreneurial stories for Monocle 24. Sure - this is not going to replace core business as the dominant activity, but it’s a natural by-product, another string to my bow. And on a personal note, conducting interviews takes me back twenty five years to when I started out, working on BBC local radio. One of my first interviews, back in November 1986 when I’d just left school, was with Billy Bragg (I’ve put it on YouTube here). The current series of interviews for Monocle includes Guy Kawasaki, Founder of Moo.com Richard Moross and French Radio London CEO Pascal Grierson. They’ll be featuring on ‘The Entrepreneurs’ show over the coming weeks, check the website here or follow me on Twitter for details on when they go live.

So have a think how the shifting content landscape can enable you to add another string to your bow. What additional talents or products can you offer the market? Have a think about those natural by-products. Can multiple platform opportunities act as a catalyst for your skills going ‘multi-media’ in 2012?

Stop thinking singular; start acting plural!

It's Not The Size Of Your Idea, It's Doing Something With It That Counts

A couple of themes converged for me recently: one) the potential of a side project, what you can do in your spare time if you put your mind to it; two) the importance of making an idea happen fast, rather than leave it gathering dust on a shelf.

So first, the side project. When I talk to some people about opportunities they can explore outside of their day job, they tell me they have no time. No time? Yep, they’re too busy watching TV or whatever. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want to develop your talents in a new area or try stuff out, you might need to make some sacrifices. Doing it ‘on the side’ is a perfect way of prototyping ideas or even shaping your next career move as Shane Mac remind us in this great little video. So when my wife and I said let’s create a manifesto of thoughts in words and doodles, we gave up TV for a week and created it on the side.

The result is ‘Little Twenty’, a seven page ebook that you can check out by clicking on the image below. We could have sat on that idea for weeks or months but instead we decided to just roll our sleeves up and get on with it, creating it.  The results aren’t perfect; our manifesto is hardly going to deliver a new book deal or change the world but it’s a nudge in the right direction. And we think it’s better doing *something* with an idea than nothing at all. I showed it to a publisher friend who made some smart suggestions about target audiences, niches and giving it more focus. And he’s right - it’s very much a work in progress, there are improvements to be made. But as I advocate in my new book ‘Zoom!’, it’s more important to make your ideas happen, fast, launch in beta, prototype. So, that’s what we’ve done with ‘Little Twenty’. We just put it up there, made it happen. It won’t change the world but it was fun to invest a few evenings creating something. And if it has two views or two thousand, the important part was that we did it. So it’s not how amazing your idea is, it’s doing something with it that counts.

Open publication - Free publishing - More change

Zoom! Ideas Surgery

This Saturday I’m running a Zoom! ‘Business Ideas Surgery’ at my local bookshop The Book Inn in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. If you're in London or Essex and you fancy a trip to Leigh, here is some stuff you may want to know:

• What’s an ideas surgery? It’s a one-to-one session where I will help bring clarity to your business idea, give it some ‘polish’ and add some insight. If you already have a strong idea but are unsure how to make it happen, I’ll suggest some steps and give you some tips.
• Who’s this aimed at? You may be someone with an existing small business or might want to monetise a hobby or passion as a side project. Maybe you’re a kitchen table entrepreneur or are tinkering away with an idea for a new product in your garden shed. Perhaps you just had a great idea down at the pub or maybe your existing business just needs an injection of new ideas.
• How much does it cost? Just the price of my book (£12.99). I’m offering a free 15 minute consultation to every customer who buys a copy of ‘Zoom!’ at the Book Inn. If you wanted to buy two or more copies, you get half an hour!
• Can I pre-book a slot? Sure, send an email to hello (at) iansanders (dot)com or you can just turn up.
• What is The Book Inn? The Book Inn is a great little independent bookshop. It has a cafe in the back of the shop serving teas, coffees and snacks. It’s opposite a library and in a great area of town with plenty of bars, cafes and shops.
• Where is The Book Inn? It’s at 49 Broadway West, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, SS9 2BX. There is some free parking (limited to one hour) outside. It’s a 5-10 minute walk from Leigh-on-Sea train station (45 minutes to London Fenchurch St via C2C). Map here http://g.co/maps/tjp49
• When is it? Saturday 26th November from 10am.

If you want some inspiration for your idea or just a kick-start, come say hello!

Zoom! Has Landed

I've always got great pleasure from taking a random idea and making it happen, and my new book 'Zoom! The Faster Way To Make Your Business Idea Happen' is a great example of that. The book came out in the UK on 1st November and it's great to finally see it on the shelves in the book shops. I've been so busy writing guest posts for other sites, this blog has been a bit quiet.

So if you missed them, here's a selection of what I've been writing:

1. 'Why Doing Is Better Than Thinking', for Management Today.
2. 'Making Your Business Idea Boxable' for Virgin.com.
3. 'From Napkin Idea To Business Start Up' for Worksnug.com.

5 ways to check out 'Zoom!'

My new book 'Zoom! The Faster Way To Make Your Business Idea Happen' is out on November 1st and here are a few resources I have created around it:

1. There's a free sample chapter you can read, download and share here
2. I have written a Change This manifesto 'How Unplanning Your Business Can Make It Happen Faster' that is available to read, download and share here
3. There's a Zoom Guys website with more about the book here
4. You can buy it on Amazon.co.uk here, Amazon.com and from all your usual online retailers. And in the UK find it in your local book shop.
5. There's a couple of videos up (with more to come) featured interview extracts from the book. Here's links to: Guy Kawasaki and Leon restaurants' John Vincent with their tips to faster ways to make your business idea happen. And there's a video trailer above.

Thanks!

Using Visual Storytelling To Break Through the Clutter

Like many connections I’ve made over the last few years I can’t pinpoint exactly how or when I became aware of ‘Marketoonist’ Tom Fishburne and his distinctive cartoons. I think we met briefly at a drinks party Todd Sattersten hosted at SXSW 2010; Tom also came along to my Unplan Your Business ‘core conversation’ I co-hosted with David Sloly in Austin that year. Then later that year Google Alerts told me about a Neil Perkin blogpost on Unplanning that referenced Tom and a cartoon he’d created called ‘Waterfall Planning’ off the back of my SXSW talk (that incidentally Neil had stumbled upon serendipitously). So yes, it was all pretty random.

Starting out doodling at Harvard Business School, today Tom sets his stall out simply: to “create cartoon campaigns that help businesses communicate”. I’ve always liked Tom’s work - just as Seth Godin’s blog posts consistently resonate; Tom’s pictures always seem to nail it. He is based in San Francisco but is in the UK this week because he’s just been speaking at The Do Lectures (whose founder David Hieatt, we happen to feature in the Unplan Your Business booklet). 

We met up in London yesterday and grabbed a quick chat on video on the power of visual communication to break through the content clutter. In the video below Tom also has some interesting thoughts on ideas generation: rather than thinking of your capacity to come up with ideas as a well that will one day run dry; think of it as a muscle, that so long as you’ll exercise it - ideas will keep flowing.

ZOOM: Guy Kawasaki on Prototyping

I've created a short series of videos of people featured in my new book "Zoom! The Faster Way To Make Your Business Idea Happen".

In the first video, Guy Kawasaki, author of 'Enlightenment: The Art Of Changing Hearts, Minds & Actions' and former chief evangelist of Apple offers his tips on faster ways to make your business idea happen. Guy explains Step One in making your business happen is to prototype: to get a product that is workable, to ship it and to get customer feedback:
“If you’re going to go into the cookie business, Step One is not to plan out five years of how many chocolate chip cookies you’re going to sell. Step One is to make a batch of cookies and see if people beyond your family will pay for it”.
Here's the video: