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!

A Long Shot, Well Aimed

People ask me how I came to hang out with Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi and Saatchi on a rooftop in Paris, and how did I meet Dave Stewart? And the answer is, I asked. Getting face time with high profile and busy people is a long shot, but in these cases it was a long shot well aimed (admittedly, it also took much patience and perseverance). Often it’s worth taking a risk and reaching out to someone you want to meet whether it’s an author you really like or the boss of a company you’d love to work for.


Last week I was sitting with my friend Adrian in a bar in East London talking about his upcoming art exhibition. He was thinking how could he get his art show noticed, who should he invite to the private view? A couple of minutes later, two smartly dressed gentlemen walked into the bar; none other than Gilbert & George, big names in the art world. “You should invite those guys” I told him. Fifteen minutes later, a handwritten invitation was sitting on their doormat around the corner. 

In the end Gilbert and George couldn’t make it to Adrian’s Private View but it was worth taking that chance. 


So whether it’s grabbing a dream job, meeting your idol, or trying to get your next client, set your sights high and go for that long shot.

Celebrating making ideas happen

I've met lots of people in the last few weeks who’ve started their own business. Some came up with an idea for a new product or a service, and they made it happen. Others had a dream about quitting their jobs and setting up their own business. They too, made it happen. Each of the businesses has a different story but inevitably success was about being both talented and tenacious, and not giving up in the face of adversity. Like most of us in business, most of their journeys involved a bumpy ride.

But, they did it.

But of course, thousands of business ideas remain ideas. They never go beyond the chat in the pub, the scribble in the note pad, or the random conversation on a flight. For whatever reason(s), the owner of the idea doesn’t suceed in taking it to market.

There’s an obsession with measuring business success by financial indicators; of saying a new business is only successful if they’ve got a certain profit (how about ‘any’ profit?) or a majority percentage market share. But how about another metric? How about the fact that someone came up with a random idea, and that they turned it into reality? That they scribbled an idea on a beer mat in a pub three years ago, that they raised funding and now the resulting company is here today?

I think ‘did you make it happen?’ is a great metric and we should celebrate more the stories of those people who turned their ideas into reality.