Juggler Stories #2: Espree Devora

I’ve been so lucky in enjoying support from a great bunch of people who read my book 'Juggle!'. 12 months ago at South By South West 2009 Espree Devora saw a poster advertising the book; she got in touch with me just as I was leaving town, so we never actually met up. I was really pleased to hear the book resonated with her - so much so she sent 20 copies to her friends at Zappos - so finally, on Saturday we got to meet up, talk and hang out at SXSW 2010. LA-based Espree is founder of an action sports business Zex Sports and a classic entrepreneur, full of energy, ideas and ability. She is a great connector, adept at putting people together and making introductions. She invited me as her guest on board Tony Hsieh's 'Delivering Happiness' Bus later that evening and introduced me to a whole bunch of great people. Before we did that, I shot this video of her talking about juggling:


*if you can't see the video above, watch it on YouTube here

Jose and The Spicy Factor

I talk a lot in my business about the importance of having a point of difference in the marketplace. Whether you’re a freelancer, a corporate exec, a micro-business, an indie band or even a stand-up comedian, you have to work out how are you different from the competition?

Someone who shares that philosophy is Jose Castillo. Jose is based in Tennessee and I met him on his trip to London this week. Jose is a true juggler: he writes about new media, speaks to groups and conferences in the US and Europe, and consults with Fortune 500 companies and start-ups on the convergence of technology, marketing, and ideas. With his wife he also runs a co-working space http://sparkplaza.com/ in his native Johnson City.

What unites everything that Jose does? What he has billed the ‘spicy factor’. Through all his projects Jose strives to invest that wow factor clients are looking for: it’s about creating spicy projects. Recent spicy projects include pumping up 160,000 fans at the hottest race in NASCAR, leading panels on User Generated Content in Silicon Valley, starting up a company focused on generating new media business concepts, and launching a monthly Geek Dinner.

Here’s a 5 minute video I recorded with Jose on Floral Street, Covent Garden.



If the video doesn’t display properly above, you can see it on YouTube here

Me and Gary V: Part 1

Last Friday Gary Vaynerchuk and I took a ride from Heathrow to central London together. Gary had come to London from Hawaii (via LA) to speak at the Future Of Web Apps Conference. Having interviewed Gary in Paris last year (download the video free on iTunes here) and connected again in Texas at SXSW it was great to welcome him to London. I shot two videos with him; one about his new book ‘Crush It’ that I will post on October 20th and this one below.

For anyone who doesn’t know who ‘Gary V’ is, he’s the New York based wine entrepreneur who’s reinvented himself as a social media star. Having made his name presenting the daily wine tasting video blog Wine Library TV , Gary became an expert on social media and web 2.0 speaking at conferences around the world. His first book ‘Crush It: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion’ is out this month (part of a $1m multi-book deal), he now runs a consulting business Vaynermedia and has recently launched a wine club website and a food retail website GourmetLibrary.com. He’s a true juggler and he also has about 850,000 more followers on Twitter than me.

In the video Gary talks about:
- the importance of change in his life and business.
- his ‘layer cake’ notion where he juggles a lot of different business interests.
- how social media is changing the agenda for businesses; they can’t dictate to people anymore.
- staying flexible in business and the impossibility of the five year plan.




*If the video is not displaying correctly, you can watch it on YOU TUBE here

A Brand Juggle: From Ice Cream To Radio

I’m doing some ad hoc videos with people who interest me; those who have a good story to tell behind their business or career, people who juggle plurality in their working lives or who have reinvented themselves through their career. The first one is Giles Pearman.

Giles is Group Director Of Marketing at Global Radio, the UK’s largest commercial radio group that owns stations like Classic FM, Capital FM, XFM and Heart.

I met up with Giles last week in London’s Green Park to find out how he juggles his multiple brand portfolio and to discover how his passion drives all he does.

In the video interview you’ll hear:
- how he made the career transition from marketing ice cream to radio.
- the importance of loving the brands he works on to go the extra mile.
- how he has to be ‘jack of all trades’ to understand the different touch points for the consumer.
- How marketing is understanding who your target audience is and super serving them.
- The importance of instinct and keeping his feet on the ground to ensure he preserves a real-life take on things.

Here’s the interview below (with Buckingham Palace and a few random pigeons in the background)*



*if you can’t see the video above, it’s on YouTube here

Think Reinvention

If you're looking for ways to reinvigorate your business or your career, Think Reinvention.

In this rapidly changing world reinvention is a powerful way to consolidate your strengths, keep fresh and stay ahead of the game. But reinvention is not about marketing hype; it’s about staying authentic - taking a look at your organisational, personal or brand strengths from a fresh perspective and repositioning your offering to maximise potential.

Here's my 90 second video on the subject:

Everything You Wanted To Know About My Book ‘Juggle!’

I've had a few questions recently about my latest book ‘Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life’ so have put together some FAQs:

1. What’s the book about? ‘Juggle!’ is about carving out work lives that reflect our multi-dimensional talents, of going beyond a single job title where the Work You becomes the Real You.
2. So it’s not about juggling balls or circus skills? Nope.
3. Does it feature anyone I might have heard of? It features contributions and anecdotes from a range of jugglers including @garyvee, @mikesouthon, @roxannedarling, Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts and Hollywood talent manager Melanie Greene.
4. How’s the book going to change my life? Good question. If you’re stuck in a rut in your career, this book will give you the courage and inspiration to re-craft your working life based on what you love and what you are passionate about. It’s not always about making choices about whether you quit your job to run an eBay business; you can juggle both at the same time. Juggling can make you happier and more fulfilled as well as more of an asset in the job market if you have more than one skill to offer.
5. What practical advice is in the book? There’s a whole section on tactics to improve your juggling from time management to staying fresh and stimulated.
6. Can I see a free preview? Sure, there’s a free sampler here
7. Is it a conventional ‘business book’? Not at all, it’s written in a really accessible way, no jargon, in short punchy chapters that you can deep in and out of. It’s an easy, but stimulating read!
8. So you say it’s great, but can I read some impartial reviews? Sure, there’s a review from @macala here and one from blogger Jon Knight here
9. Got anything I can listen to? Sure, there’s a podcast interview with @800ceoread here and a radio interview here.
10. Got anything I can watch? Yep, there’s video interviews with Gary Vaynerchuk, Kevin Roberts and Mike Southon here

11. Where can I buy it? All good bookstores (and crap ones too) and here on Amazon.com and here on Amazon.co.uk
12. So have you written anything else? Yes, my first book was ‘Leap! Ditch Your Job, Start Your Own Business & Set Yourself Free’

The Joys Of Book Signings

One of my first book signings was at SXSW in Austin Texas this year (above) where I sat at The Barnes & Noble booth next to Jeffrey Zeldman and some random people came and bought my book. Not that many came to buy a book, I had quite a few ask me about completely other books, I guess they thought that I worked there.

So I really appreciated writer Kelsey Timmerman’s very funny video on ‘Book Signing Vs Book Club’. Kelsey is author of ‘Where Am I Wearing’ A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes, and you can visit his website here. Here’s the video

Juggle Tapes on iTunes

'The Juggle Tapes’ is a series of videos featuring people in business that have been successful juggling different disciplines and roles in their working lives. The series explores how entrepreneurs put passion at the heart of what they do, to go beyond a job title to ensure their work identity reflects their personality. The series is now available as a free download at the iTunes music store by following this link http://tinyurl.com/itunesjuggle

The series includes: Martha Lane Fox, Mike Southon, Gary Vaynerchuk and Kevin Roberts.

Meet Pamela Slim

Yesterday I taped an interview at the SXSW festival with Pamela Slim. Pam is founder and author of 'Escape From Cubicle Nation' . I talked with her about her new book and also about how she manages to juggle being an entrepreneur, blogger, author and mother.

Pam on juggling:

"I like my kids to see me as Mom, as a woman, as a person who is fully engaged and active in life; that I love my work, that work doesn't have to be this awful thing you have to do to make money".

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Random Video Footage Of Yesterday's Core Conversation

'Getting Warmed Up' (If only I could get the title right)

'The Core Conversation' (evidence that it was interactive)

Going 'On Tour'

Next Thursday I jet off to Texas to the annual South By South West Festival, along with 149,999 other people who head to this Interactive, Film, Music festival. I’m off to the ‘Interactive’ festival (only 10,000 go to this bit). This is the blurb:

‘The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. Whether you are a hard-core geek, a dedicated content creator, a new media entrepreneur, or just someone who likes being around an extremely creative community, SXSW Interactive is for you!’

I’ll be doing a few things at SXSW.

1) I’m very excited to be co-presenting a ‘Core Conversation’ with Chicago-based accidental film-maker and life coach Melissa Pierce, entitled ‘Is the Planned Life Even Worth Living Anymore?'. We’ll be in Room 5C in the Austin Convention Center on Saturday March 14th from 5 - 6 pm. Our session is all about the importance of a non-plan: With ever-changing technologies and globalization, having long term plans for lives, careers and business seems futile. Is your best plan not to have one?

2) Then on Sunday March 15th at 3.55 I’ll be signing copies of my books ‘Leap!’ and ‘Juggle!’ at the SXSW bookstore Barnes & Noble.

3) I am also going to be doing some video blogging from the event, here at planetjuggle.

Ian in Bristol

How Mike Southon juggles beermats, a band and a column in the FT

Today’s Juggle Tapes interview is with Mike Southon. Mike is a business speaker and a leading authority on entrepreneurship and sales. He is an experienced entrepreneur with a weekly column in the weekend Financial Times. He’s founder of the Beermat Entrepreneur business network and has co-authored several bestselling books, including ‘The Beermat Entrepreneur’. He also plays in a band Mike Fabgere.

Mike talks about the philosophies at the heart of his success:

- How being a successful juggler is about being part of a team;
- How we manages his different identities;
- His belief about reinventing what you do every seven years .

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

How Martha Lane Fox Juggles Karaoke with M&S

This week’s ‘Juggle Tapes’ interview is with Martha Lane Fox. Martha is one of the UK’s best known entrepreneurs. She was a real icon of the dot com years having co-founded the travel website lastminute.com. She now juggles a business portfolio that includes running a karaoke business Lucky Voice (or as she prefers calling it, ‘a singing business’), being on the boards of Marks & Spencer and Channel 4 as well as having a charity foundation Antigone that provides funding to criminal justice charities. She juggles a portfolio that enables her to dip in and out of different interests, she talks about being excited by change and growth and – like everyone else in the series – says you should ‘only do stuff you are passionate about'.

Here are her thoughts on juggling:

‘You need to be brutal about what am I actually good at and what do I think will add something to the various things I’m doing’

‘it hadn’t been my plan to have a portfolio of interests quite so young … but things happen and you deal with them’

‘(Work and life) is knitted together; we’re lucky to have tools to live life in a more integrated way’

‘One of the great joys of having all these different things to do is that you can juggle them and you don’t really switch off’

‘By being across many different things you bring something a bit more interesting to each thing you’re doing’


WATCH THE INTERVIEW HERE

Introducing Harry Drnec

With 4 ‘Juggle Tapes’ in the can, we’ve been filming new ones.

Yesterday, I interviewed Harry Drnec. Harry Drnec is a marketing expert and entrepreneur who’s spent much of his career in the drinks industry. Born in Chicago, he started out as a US Air Force pilot in Vietnam before going to business school and embarking on a career in marketing. After working with brands including Budweiser and Gallo Wines he came to UK and in the ‘90s he made brands like Sol Beer and Snapple famous in the UK. Harry was then CEO of Red Bull UK, where be transformed a company that was losing money into a market leader. He is now Chairman of a carbonated drinks company; he’s involved in a technology start-up; he’s advising a car manufacturer; he’s on the board of several other companies; plus he has a farm in Suffolk that rears rare breed cattle and pigs. He’s a juggler and loving it!

Harry was excellent company and we have recorded some great material on the benefits and challenges of going from a life doing one thing to a life juggling many. It should go live on Viddler in a few weeks.

Surviving in A Tough Climate

There’s a lot of pessimism out there about business and enterprise but as I have said before I believe there are also a lot of opportunities out there too.
If you can launch a new business or survive building one during a downturn, then that’s a good basis for future business success.

3 ever-so-obvious ingredients for success:

1) Focus on a niche; don’t try and be all things to all people.

2) Keep it lean; keep overhead to an absolute minimum.

3) Work bloody hard.

Watch the video

Juggle Tapes #1: Gary Vaynerchuk

Finally - finally! - I am pleased to launch my video series to accompany the new book 'Juggle!'.

‘The Juggle Tapes’ is a series of videos interviewing people in business who have been successful juggling different disciplines and roles in their working lives. They explores how entrepreneurs put passion at the heart of what they do, to go beyond a job title to ensure their work identity reflects their personality. Future episodes include Kevin Roberts, Martha Lane Fox and Mike Southon. These videos will inspire you and get you thinking!

The first interview is with Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vaynerchuk is co-owner and Director of Operations at Wine Library, a $50m wine retail business. He presents Wine Library TV, a daily wine-tasting video blog that has made him into an Internet celebrity with various appearances on US television. More recently, Gary has become known for his talents outside the wine world as a commentator on entrepreneurship, Web 2.0 and social networking. I went to Paris to interview Gary whilst he was there to speak at Le Web conference.

These videos will also be available as a podcast at iTunes music store. The release schedule for the next 3 is as follows:

Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi - 6th February

Martha Lane Fox, entrepreneur - 13th February

Mike Southon Financial Times columnist and entrepreneur - 20th February

Anyway enough of all that, here's me and Gary:

It's All About Ideas...

I do a lot of different things in running my business OHM (and in writing books) but one thing that unites everything is IDEAS: they are the lifeblood of my own business and what I offer clients.

As ever I have had a varied day today juggling lots of different stuff, a brainstorm for a new product development for one client; a meeting with a contact who may turn into a client in a couple of months time. So it’s been a day rich in ideas.

Lots of people ask me about being good at ideas. And this is what I know.

The best ideas are the ones you have instinctively.
The best ones are when you walk out of the client office, you’re buzzing with thoughts you need to scribble down as soon as you get to the car, taxi, tube, coffee shop. Those ones are worth a lot.
Sure you can brainstorm, get your team around the table and develop them, but I bet the best ones are the ones you have just like that!

Watch my video brain dump on ideas here.
(this video doesn't have the production values of my usual ones. No crew. No Script. No genius editing. Just me talking to a camcorder after a meeting this morning)

Gary Vaynerchuk in Paris

A huge thank you to Gary Vaynerchuk (and Matt at Wine Library) for his time in Paris yesterday joining me for a chat for the upcoming video series ‘The Juggle Tapes’. We had a great chat about executing against your DNA, about the wine business, juggling your passions, the importance of doing what you love and listening to your heart.

It was a whistle-stop trip on the 05:25 Eurostar for just over 3 hours in Paris to grab him before he flew back to NYC, but as he said, just the kind of thing you need to do if you really want to go for it. The receptionist at the hotel did look confused when I asked her to call up ‘le chamber de Monsieur Gary Vaynerchuk’, then I had to spell it (‘the thunder’ had not yet reached this part of Europe).

The video will be posted online in January together with the others already in the can, Kevin Roberts, Mike Southon and Martha Lane Fox.

Thanks as ever to Steve Mayatt, my partner in crime (well partner in video) for his Safe Pair Of Hands video, audio, stills and map reading skills.

With Gary V in Paris

This is me and Gary Vaynerchuk at Le Grand Hotel, Paris yesterday morning.

He 'aint about to punch me - we got on well, honest!

We'll put the video online in January..