Join the mash-up revolution

The saying goes ‘write about what you know’ and I certainly know my subject when it comes to living the multi-dimensional work life. From my Saturday job as a teenager right through to today I’ve always enjoyed juggling more than one role; sometimes by default rather than design. In my last proper job at the back end of the ‘90s I ran so many disparate projects and businesses I invented my own job title ‘Special Projects Director’ to attempt to cover that breadth. Now, we’re more than a job title. Many of us have mash-up work lives, blending the day job with a side project, taking on more than one role at an organisation or just choosing to carve out a plural life that reflects our talents and desires.

I have packaged up all my experience and know-how into a brand new book ‘Mash-Up! How to Use Your Multiple Skills to Give You an Edge, Make Money and Be Happier’ - out today (out in US next month). In writing the book with my co-author David Sloly I’ve spoken to a bunch of interesting people: IDEO’s Tom Hulme who told me not only did the organisation encourage employees to be plural, but they relied on it; Phill Jupitus who told us about the unifier that sits at the heart of all he does; and Kevin Roberts, the multidimensional CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi.‘Mash-up!’ is your guidebook to a successful multiple work life. It shows you how to start going plural with a side project, through to reinventing yourself to add new strings to your bow and most importantly finding your ‘unifier’ - the theme or idea that unites all you do.

Not much is certain in this unpredictable world of work and business; but one thing is clear - those who can offer more than one skill, those who can pivot or reinvent themselves to reflect a changing business landscape, those who are adept at being multidimensional will prove to be more of an asset.

Want to know more?

• READ a free sample chapter
• WATCH a video ‘Time to ditch the job title?’
• BUY Amazon UK Amazon US (available in Kindle and regular version)

“What do I do? I just do ME!” Baratunde Thurston on mashing-up digital, storytelling and comedy

As our work lives go plural, with our work and passions blending together, we can’t be defined by a job title anymore. Whether we work for ourselves or for an organisation, many of us have carved out roles that reflect our broader talents, adding new strings to our bow and new side projects as we spot opportunities or choose to scratch a new itch.  This is a subject I explore in my new book ‘Mash-up!: How to Use Your Multiple Skills to Give You the Edge, Earn More Money and be Happier’.

Carving out a mashed-up life is not only about reflecting multi-dimensional talents and desires. It’s also about staying agile, embracing uncertainty and adapting to a rapidly changing - and chaotic - world of work and business. This agile tribe is what Fast Company magazine has billed ‘Generation Flux’: Generation Flux thrive on speed, change, experimentation, curiosity and intuition. It’s the story of my own business life where I mash-up different roles and projects, reinventing myself, adding new strings to my bow to create a more fulfilling, enterprising and authentic career. Fast Company profiled Baratunde Thurston, Director of Digital at the US satirical publication The Onion, a Harvard philosophy major turned consultant turned standup comedian and author of a new book How to Be Black. I first saw Baratunde at SXSW in 2009; this week I finally met up with him in London - in this video clip below he tells me how he’s succeeded in carving out a role that embraces digital, storytelling and comedy. How does Baratunde answer the much asked ‘What do you do?’ question? “I just do ME...!”

Collaborating To Transform An Idea Into A Book

At the back end of 2009, I set one of my goals to collaborate more - one area where I hadn’t anticipated collaboration though, was writing. Having already written a couple of books I was confident in my writing style and didn’t feel I needed anyone else. But then I started a collaboration with David Sloly, when our ideas collided to create Unplan Your Business in 2010. That led to our first co-written book ‘Zoom!’ in 2011; and yesterday we just submitted our manuscript for a new book ‘Mash-Up!’ that is out later in the year.

One of the benefits of collaborating on a book is that you can blend your respective ideas together to create a more powerful and valuable end product, incorporating thinking and themes that you just wouldn’t have included without the other’s input. But to be honest, the key benefit for me is simpler than all that: it’s more fun writing with someone else. After all writing is a solitary experience so it’s great to have someone to share the journey with. Collaborating has also forced me to be more structured in how I write. Although I am naturally ‘anti-process’, working with someone else has required a system - however agile - that is critical where we have just three months to transform an idea into a manuscript.

Below is a little film shot in my kitchen where David and I reflect on what it’s like writing together: on the three-stage writing process we have pioneered; on dealing with pressure; and how we turn a bunch of thoughts and words into - hopefully - an awesome book.

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!