How Tom Watson MP rediscovered his inner rebel

Tom Watson is the Labour MP for West Bromwich East and was a Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office until he resigned in 2009. Tom was the first MP to start a blog, he’s an active campaigner on digital media (he spoke out against the Digital Economy bill) and is one of the most prolific politicians on Twitter.

Tom recently read my book ‘Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life’ and has just posted a review on his blog (that you can read in full here). ‘Juggle!’ encourages readers to reframe their work lives around their passions, staying authentic to their dna. Tom reviewed his personal interests and political priorities and found they had been wedged apart by the conflicting demands of parliamentary life. So ‘Juggle!’ forced a rethink:

“I’m fascinated by the capacity of the Internet to change lives and bring down empires. I’ve had a lifelong love of video games since first spinning a 10p coin into a Space Invaders machine at the Silver Blades ice rink in Birmingham on a school trip. And the government – the one that I had been a minister in, were doing something crass to the digital world in a last minute stitch up with the Conservatives. In the spirit of the juggle I rebelled and focused on a policy area I enjoyed and believed in. Now I’m inundated with offers to talk and write about the policy area I love. So thanks Ian.  You helped me rediscover the inner rebel and life is good”

Thanks Tom. Rediscovering the inner rebel is always a good thing…

( picture of Tom Watson by Benjamin Ellis)

The Beauty Of A Tribe

Depending on what side of the Atlantic you call home, ‘Zappos’ may or may not be a household name to you, and the same goes for Tony Hsieh its CEO. This pioneering online retailer may not yet have reached European shores but it’s becoming well known as the business success story that grew to $1billion revenues in under ten years. Last year the company was acquired by Amazon in a deal worth $1.2billion. Tony has a book out - ‘Delivering Happiness: a path to profits, passion, and purpose’ (out in the US now/ out in the UK July) - where he tells the story of his entrepreneurial life, sharing insight into how he made Zappos so unique, and ultimately so successful.

I first saw Tony close-up at SXSW Interactive 2009 where he gave a keynote. I was impressed by how understated this successful entrepreneur was, standing on stage in jeans and t-shirt. Twelve months later it was great to be a – tenuous – guest (via my friend Espree Devora) on board Tony’s ‘Delivering Happiness’ bus one night travelling around Austin, Texas at SXSW 2010. What was clear from that evening was that Tony is a generous guy. We hadn’t properly met, yet here was the CEO of a $1B company personally fetching me BBQ food and letting me down a few vodkas at his on board bar. Reading his book you get a real sense of that spirit of generosity in hosting parties and bringing people together. He describes the loft apartment in San Francisco where he lived surrounded by friends, and his decision to buy the penthouse apartment so he could host huge parties. He wanted to create an environment where people could come together and hang out. Without realising it, he says, with his friends he had created and developed their very own tribe which was bringing stability and excitement to the group’s future. And that feeling is powerful as he explains in this excerpt from the book:

“The connectedness we felt was making all of us happier, and we realized that it was something that we had missed from our college days. I made a note to myself to make sure I never lost sight of the value of a tribe where people truly felt connected and cared about the well-being of one another”.

Of course, that spirit of togetherness is at the heart of Zappos; where he has created a strong and unique organisational culture that has become the brand’s USP and made it famous in entrepreneurial circles around the world.

I may not have labelled it as ‘culture’ at the time, but that same spirit has been evident in every successful business I have worked in, or with. That culture where you hang out with you co-workers out of the office, where you’d rather sit in the board room after hours drinking wine and playing ‘beat the intro’ than going home, where your work and non-work identies blur.

‘Delivering Happiness’ is a great story of Tony’s journey in creating and building Zappos, and of all the inevitable highs and lows along the way. Zappos’ success story may have different contributing factors but #1 is about that focus on organisational culture that resulted in great loyalty, productivity and customer service. And whether it’s about building a billion dollar business or transforming a school bus into a party bus for his friends, of course (of course!), it’s all about the people.  

Ten Things You Need To Know from Rework

I really enjoyed ‘Rework’ by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37signals. I found some similarities in my own book ‘Juggle!’ in the theme of rethinking work and business. I have already evangelised about ‘Rework’ on my Unplan Your Business blog so to give you some value, here are my Ten Things You Need To Know from Rework:

1. Ignore people who say you’re wrong.
2. Forget business planning, forget about the details early on. Scribble ideas with a marker pen not a fine pen!
3. Rethink success. You don’t have to build a big business, why not build a profitable, sustainable and comfortable business instead?
4. Scratch your own itch: design a product or a solution for something you need yourself.
5. Put everyone in your organisation on the front line from time to time. Don’t let people remain in their departmental silos.
6. Lo-fi works. You don’t need comlex gadgets or over-engineered solutions. look at the success of the Flipcam – very basic, does what it needs to with ‘no bells or whistles’.
7. What are the by-products of what your business does? Sell those by-products.
8. Meetings can be toxic. A one hour meeting with 10 people is not one hour lost, its ten hours. Have shorter more focused meetings. If it only takes 7 minutes, don’t waste 30 or 60 minutes.
9. Long lists don’t get done – focus on attainable goals for better productivity and morale.
10. Inspiration is perishable – if you want to do something, do it now (later, you won’t be pumped): so if you’re inspired on a Friday, do it on a weekend. When you’re high on inspiration you can do two weeks work in 24 hours.

 I really think Jason and David are on to something, seeking to redefine ‘business’ and ‘entrepreneurs’: 

“You don’t need an MBA, a fancy suit; just an idea, a touch of confidence and a push to get started”.

If you’ve had enough of the day job it might be time to take The Leap

When I quit my job in 2000 to set up my own business consultancy, I felt like a real pioneer. Now ten years later, the world seems to be full of the self-employed. Every town coffee shop is full of micro-entrepreneurs, freelancers and consultants with the tools of their trade: a skinny cappuccino, laptop, wifi connection and a bunch of ideas.


My book ‘Leap! Ditch Your Job, Start Your Own Business And Set Yourself Free’ is full of everything I’ve learned doing it for myself, by myself. ‘Leap!’ is your personal navigation guide for freelancers, start-ups and work at homers.

It’s awesome to hear from readers how the book is resonating with their own experiences. I recently heard from Pamela, a reader in Sydney Australia:

“I wanted to write to you and thank you for writing such a simple yet powerful book. I am a 40 year old IT professional and have spent the last 16 years of my life working for two multinational PC Companies and your book has changed my life! I instantly connected with your informal writing style and read your book and instinctively knew that this was my time to leap”. (thanks Pamela)

A key message in the book is about having the right attitude and mindset when you work for yourself; you can access the whole first section ‘Attitude’ here (totally free, no strings..). You can hear a review of the book by Mohammed Seedat on SmallBizPod here (review starts at 02:17).

And if you’d like to read a hard copy of the complete book, get it on Amazon.co.uk here and Amazon.com here.

If you're taking the Leap, let me know how you get on.

Navigate through the social media landscape

It’s fascinating how knowledge passes by word of mouth. When I joined Twitter in 2008, I was really lucky to have a hand-hold from my new friend Rachel Beer. Because there is no instruction manual, it was great to get an insight from someone who’d been using it for months already. Now one year on, increasingly people are asking me how to use Twitter: I’ve become the accidental expert. Whilst you still can’t be taught Twitter and social media, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s book ‘Trust Agents' is certainly a great navigation guide.


Okay, so I didn’t learn anything truly ‘wow’ from Trust Agents: there was no stage in reading it when my jaw dropped in astonishment. But of course a good book doesn’t need such dramatic impact to have value.

Trust Agents consolidates and articulates everything I’ve learnt in the last twelve months about this new space we inhabit and the new tools we have.

What’s the key takeaway? it’s about building relationships:‘never before has balance of business interaction and communication been so in favour of smaller, more personal interactions’

It’s consolidated everything I’ve learnt about relationship management, about networking online. About the importance of building ‘social capital’: that investment in relationships and collaboration is key, but that a ROI is not always instant or visible until way down the line. And how we use these digital tools to build personal brand equity and profile. But rather than selling to an audience, be their gatekeeper instead: ‘tell don’t sell’. All that resonates with what I’ve learnt at the social media coal face.

Of course, there are no rules. And in an experience where we make things up as we go along, we don’t always get things right. Like the time I rushed to get ‘great to meet you’ emails out after SXSW ’09 that one recipient said ‘thanks for the spam’. And I had to stop and think. (I learnt a lesson on that one).

So there’s no right and wrong but if you’re struggling and feeling your way around this new media space, not sure how best to optimise these tools for yourself and your business read Trust Agents.

And what you’ll learn is that whatever the tools and the opportunities of the digital age – of course – it’s all about real relationships. So make sure you get out in the real world enough!