"Am I crazy?"

"Why would you do that for free?" the radio presenter asked Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, with incredulity. "Why on earth would people work on something without getting paid for it?" she persisted, failing to grasp the raison d'etre of Wikipedia as a community-owned and ran initiative.
But of course many of us do things we don't get paid for.

As we redefine what ‘work life’ looks like in 2011, the lines between ‘work’ and ‘not work’ are more blurred than ever. As people choose work/ life intergration over work/ life balance, many choose to mix up elements of their life in a continuous stream. One economic defintion of what constitues ‘work’ might be things we get paid for, but there are increasingly a bunch of things many of us do, without being monetised for each and every one of them.

In my own portfolio there are elements that are about revenues and elements that don't have a financial return. Together, they define me, stuff I feel passionate about and make happen irrespective of the financial model.

Last year there was a bunch of stuff I did that I didn't get paid for:

- wrote an e-book
- conducted video interviews with people like Dave Stewart
- went to SXSW Interactive in Texas (a big investment in time and money)
- wroteguest columns for Moo, Smarta, Business Matters, Management Today
- met a whole bunch of interesting folk
- mentored students about enterprise
- advised readers on taking the Leap
- blogged and tweeted

Sure, put all that together and it builds Ian Sanders' brand equity, makes me more sticky to clients, got me a publishing dea,l blah blah. But there was no hard measurable 'ROI'. Instead it was about carving out a worklife that sustains me mentally, emotionally and financially. Let's be clear: my motivation was passion not cash.

And some may still ask "Why on earth would you do all that if you don't get paid for it?" Okay so I might sound crazy to them, but to me this is just a reflection of who I am.

Mark Hillary on juggling

As a keen juggler I’m always keen to meet others who’ve carved out multi-dimensional work lives. Last week I met up with Mark Hillary. Mark is a writer, blogger, lecturer and consultant who writes on technology, outsourcing and politics. He also shares my passion for music.

Mark is making a change to his life to prove that you can be a location-independent juggler: he’s moving to São Paulo next month. But it will be business as usual, he’ll continue juggling his portfolio from there. Below is a brief chat with Mark that we recorded over coffee in Fernandez and Wells last week.

Mark explains that his biggest challenge in juggling is in maintaining relationships; whilst it’s easy to maintain them virtually through social media, it can be tough finding the time to meet up with people face to face.

Make A Job, Don't Take A Job: The Essence Of Enterprise

The world of work and business has changed radically. I’m writing this in a bar in Spitalfields East London which I have commandeered as my office for the morning. There’s loud music playing and I’m taking advantage of the wifi, running my business sprawled on a sofa. To those not familiar with this style of working, I may look like I’m at play. But I’m working; and this is how thousands of people work today. We have created our own micro businesses, monetising our talents, working for ourselves, running businesses our way.

This is Global Entrepreneurship Week, and when I think of business and enterprise, I don’t think about the office blocks of the City a stroll away from here, I don’t think about business tycoons on their private jets, I think about people like me, and you. Through the window I can see the red awnings of lines of market stalls at Old Spitalfields Market - to me, this is the perfect example of business at its most basic. A bunch of stall-holders have paid £10 for a table for the day. Some are selling handmade bags; others prints and photographs. Someone else is selling second hand books, another clothes and jewellery. They may not think of themselves as entrepreneurs but they are: they are selling their wares in the market. Some may fail, others will succeed.

What unites the coffee-shop entrepreneurs and the market traders is that we have all made jobs for ourselves: there is not a job description or appraisal form in sight. The theme of Global Entrepreneurship Week is ‘Make A Job, Don't Take A Job’ and that’s music to my ears. It’s what I’ve always done in my career, whether I’ve been self employed or not. Carving out a role that reflects my talents and desires, breaking the boundaries of a fixed job spec. I’ve always encouraged working for yourself; my first book is a guidebook for people taking the leap. You don’t need a bunch of qualifications or a business education to work for yourself, but you do need the right mindset;and it’s not for everyone. Working for yourself and setting up your own business is tough: there’s no switching off, it takes stacks of perseverance, commitment, energy and passion. So ‘Make A Job, Don't Take A Job’ is a good mantra for entrepreneurship so long as we recognise that not everyone has the self-belief and motivation to make their business idea happen. To help people believe in their ability we need to bust a few myths about business, taking it out of the boardroom, doing away with the jargon. And that market stall is a damn good place to start.

Lessons From A One Man Factory

I'm always keen on exploring non obvious places for stories that can inspire us in business. Before I met the musician Dave Stewart I did not see him as an obvious business role model but it’s clear his success as an entrepreneur provides lots of lessons in business. Dave describes his business as his very own ‘ideas factory’, and recently I spent an hour in the studio of another creative who turns raw materials into ideas: potter, Richard Baxter. Richard's an original sole trader; he’s never been on a payroll, instead monetising his talents to create pieces of pottery for nearly thirty years: “I’m going from a real raw material dug out of the ground ... through to totally finished material. I’m a one man industry”.


Here are five lessons from Richard's story for sole traders and micro entrepreneurs:

1. MOTIVATION. Richard told me he’s motivated by passion not money, and that has driven his success.
2. PUT THE HOURS IN. Malcolm Gladwell famously said you need to invest 10,000 hours to be good at something. Richard reckons he’s produced 90,000 thousand pieces of pottery over his career, which reminds us you can’t be an overnight expert.
3. MONETISE YOUR TALENTS. Richard’s story is a reminder of the real basics of what enterprise is all about. He takes raw materials (in this case clay) and turns them into functional pots and pieces of art that he makes a living from. And it doesn’t get much more basic than that.
4. PLOUGH A NICHE. In order to get a reputation and stand out from the crowd, you need to plough a niche. As the first in his field to go online with a website, Richard has really benefited from the web, using it as a shop window to win high-profile commissions from clients like BBC TV and Stella McCartney.
5. BE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL. Richard’s talents do not stop by the pottery wheel. He’s also an accomplished musician, playing in two bands The Famous Potatoes and Arcadian Driftwood. He gigs, teaches and also helps organise a local art festival. His work life is a reflection of his multi-dimensional talents and passions.

Here’s a brief video excerpt of me talking with Richard:

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)

It’s All About Choices

There was a ‘handyman’ at my house yesterday doing some maintenance, minor repairs, decorating – all those things that have accumulated at the bottom of my to-do list. Most of that I could have attempted myself but you have to make choices about what you do, and what you don’t do.

Because, of course, it’s all about Time.

In managing time it’s all about decisions. Whether to read that blog post, whether to click on that link. You get bombarded with hundreds of choices every day, so you have to be ruthless. No more so than online, where you can spend (or is it ‘waste’?) hours on places like Tweetdeck. And the thing is there’s no sure-fire way of knowing what’s going to yield value. That blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tweet could change your fortunes in an instant, open your mind to something new, give you a business opportunity. Or not.

Similarly if you – like me – are one of the growing number of one-person business units, then you need to make judgement calls all our lives. Do we configure that wifi network ourselves, or outsource to an IT expert? Do we design that presentation template or hire a designer? Write that copy or hand to a copywriter?

Each of those choices has a cost implication, but like my outsourcing to the handyman, I may be a few hundred pounds poorer, but I’m richer in time. And whether that’s time to work, to play with my kids, or just to chill, it really doesn’t matter.

I made the choice.

Rethinking Results & Productivity

Here’s a guest video post I did for my friends over at Red Cube Marketing; recorded last week at South By South West Interactive with my take on Results & Productivity.

Whether it’s in our jobs, in the social media space, or our roles as suppliers and consultants, success is not just about showing up. In the old days (whenever they were) career success was about turning up and sitting at your desk all day. With new trends such as ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) employees are giving the freedom to work when and how they wish; they are accountable on results. I’m trying to introduce that spirit into how I work as a business coach and marketing expert: not quantifying my value in man hours but instead in results. But to balance that, another takeaway I got from the festival is that we must not get obsessed by data and analytics; some things are easier to measure than others and too much analysis can kill creativity. Anyway here’s the video version:

If the video is not displaying above watch it on YouTube here 

RETHINKING BUSINESS

So as I reach the end of SXSW 2010 what's my takeaways from five days?

#1 Staying Authentic: whatever technological developments, whatever trends, new platforms or tools come along, (of course) success is about keeping it real. I was reminded of this many times in the last few days, not least by @garyvee in his keynote/ Q&Afest.

#2 You Don't Have To Grow It Big: I've been evangelising this for a while, that you don't have to build a business big to be a success; you don't have to scale up your people or your reach the whole time, you can grow in other ways. So I loved @jasonfried's message from 'Rework' that instead of building it big, why not focus on building a business that is sustainable, profitable and comfortable. Yep yep.

#3 Reaching out to others: I put 'collaboration' as one of my themes for 2010 and a session here reminded me of the benefits of reaching out to the crowd. @jeffrey and @scottbelsky ran a session on crowdsourcing showing how businesses/ brands can tap into consumer insight and the intellectual capital of the crowd. We're used to outsourcing so much in business today, going out to the crowd is a great resource.

#4 Unplanning our businesses: Of course, my own theme for SXSW was 'Unplanning' your business but it was great to hear this from other speakers, not just @jasonfried but also @Ev who reminded us that 'whatever you assume when you start out (in business), you're wrong'. I'm not anti-planning, just evangelising that passion and vision are more powerful/valuable than a business plan (check out my Unplan blog).

#5 It's all about results: another drum I've been banging is that we need to rethink' work'; that 'work is a mindset, not a place you go'. So I loved the session on ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) led by @alevit that talked about the cultural change from workers being rewarded for 'just showing up' to instead getting rewarded for results. It creates some opportunities - and challenges - for freelancers and independent consultants to cease being paid by the day, but being paid by the outcome of what they do. That doesn't mean we need to get obsessed with data and analytics to look at ROI, but it's a much more realistic way of looking at productivity.

#6 Business doesn't have to be dull. These are tough times for business and we're having to work harder than ever. But as many speakers reminded us, we should not be total workaholics and we need to learn to 'switch off'. And from all the sessions, parties and connections SXSW reminds me that business can be fun. One SXSW moment sticks in my head; it was the evening I was lucky  (thanks for the invite @espreedevora )to be on Tony Hsieh's 'Delivering Happiness' bus, going around Austin - hip-hop playing, an on-board bar, a woman making balloons, and the senior management of Zappos and their friends having fun. No suits or traditional networking in sight.

#7 Rethink 'Business'. I think it's time we rethink what 'business' is. Someone - I think @jeffrey - said 'business is the mechanism for taking an idea from concept to delivery' and that's a good one. To some, SXSW interactive is about geeks, or technology, or creativity; to me - it's just about business. Not the business of Wall St, The City, your local Chamber Of Commerce or Business Link,not about suits, powerpoint presentations and business plans but THE BUSINESS OF YOU & ME. Doing it your way, your style and you don't need to give a damn about 'the rules' (whatever they are). I got a tweet today that my Unplan idea is 'dangerous rubbish' but I'm seeking to disrupt the assumptions of the status quo and show people you can be successful by doing it your own way. It's like what Tim Ferriss wrote to me in his book when I met him on a rooftop in Austin: 'here's to experimenting often and exploring the uncommon'.

Do you have a ‘WYT?’ person in your business or work life?

Many of us are working more autonomous than ever as one-person businesses, consultants, freelancers, work-at-homers. There is a whole new generation of workers used to being self sufficient in everything; juggling a sales role with doing the accounts. But however talented you are, and however well-tuned your instinct is, it’s essential to have someone else to bounce ideas off, to provide a reality check, or just to look over a proposal or important document.

I call them my ‘WYT?’-  ‘What d’You Think?’ - people. And I have a few of them: people who have good ideas, others who will provide a fresh perspective on a problem, my wife to be really honest with me about whether something is good enough or not. I have a WYT relationship with my friend/ associate Richard – he calls it a buddy system (and blogged about it here). But whatever you call it, make sure you identify people in your life who you can call upon as mentors, sounding boards or just a fresh pair of eyes and ears.

You may be adept at being multi-dimensional, but you can still benefit from a completely fresh perspective.

Link Roundup

I’ve contributed a few guest posts to other blogs recently.

Here’s my article for Careershifters ‘If Big Change Is Not For You, Try Juggling’. Careershifters is a website and community for anyone making a major career change, run by people who have done it.

Here’s my short video post for Ian Aspin’s ‘Really Good Thinking blog’ on the importance of making tough choices when you’re managing time.

And here’s my contribution to Cath Duncan’s ‘Mine Your Resources’ blog with my take on goal setting: “I have goals but I have no plan for the journey I will take to reach them…"

Collaborate!

As we reinvent our work lives, more of us are working very differently from our parents’ generation. Lots of us don’t work Monday to Friday in offices anymore, we work from home, from cafes, we work ‘on the road’. That’s all very liberating but it does create challenges for the work-at-homers, the solo-entrepreneurs, the freelancers and the self-employed: yep, it can get lonely.


It’s like Phill Jupitus said to me recently. As a one-man stand up comedy act, gigging could be a lonely business. But now he’s joined the cast of Hairspray he’s really enjoying being part of a team of around 50, comprising crew and cast. And being part of a team feels good.

But it’s not just the social benefit. Teaming up with others is essential for providing more klout on a project or offering. I’ve spent the last week or so meeting lots of new people talking collaboration, thinking about areas where we can team up to develop and implement new projects and ideas.

Have a think about collaboration that can give you that social and business reinvigoration:

- organise a Tweet-up with your social media friends, or arrange to meet up next time you visit their city (I had a lunch last week in Edinburgh with two women I’d met on Twitter; great meeting new people and transferring online relationships into face to face ones).

- Start a neighbourhood coffee club for people in your industry or for like minded souls in your locality

- Collaborate with someone on running a workshop or event

- Partner with someone with complementary skills on an idea or project

- Join a co-working space or membership club to hang out and work alongside others

Remember, collaboration doesn’t have to be about making money; it’s always stimulating meeting new people and working in a team is often more fun than doing it solo. You can be more productive and it can fuel better ideas and results.

Sarah Beeny On Juggling

Sarah Beeny might be best known to people in the UK as the presenter of the TV series ‘Property Ladder’ and ‘Property Snakes & Ladders’ but she’s also a successful entrepreneur.

Having launched her own building company and written a handful of books on property developing, she now juggles a broader portfolio including two online businesses. She launched the dating website mysinglefriend.com and more recently she set up a tepilo.com, a website where you can buy and sell your home for free.

Sarah also has four young children; so she got a lot of respect when she appeared at this month’s Social Media ’09 conference along with her baby son.

So Sarah was a great candidate for my Juggle Tapes series; I went to meet her a couple of weeks ago to talk about what drives her business ideas and how she juggles everything. Watch the video below:



*if the video above is not displayed properly, you can watch it on YouTube here

Change Your Scenery

A familiar story.


Burning the midnight oil trying to come up with that idea for your presentation. Trying to devise that wow strapline for your website. Working out the killer application for your new product.

And where do too many of us attempt these tasks? At the office, our desks at home, in board rooms.

Try changing your scenery. To a coffeeshop, a train carriage, the beach, a park bench.

You'll be amazed what a change in scenery can do, you just have to get out of the office.

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

How To Beat Stress

Here's my four tips to beat stress, from October's 'Esquire' magazine which are taken from my book 'Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life'.

Does The Work You = The Real You?

How important is authenticity in your working life?

Get Unplugged!

(this is an edited extract from my book 'Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life')

Because most of us can – and do – work anywhere, the challenge is in switching off totally. It’s absolutely crucial to be able to do that, to unplug your connections once in a while.

The trouble with our BlackBerries and iPhones is that they connect us with the lives we lead; these tools integrate both the business and personal sides of our lives. If you carry your iPhone around at the weekend, it’s difficult ‘not’ to check emails. Sure, I sometimes check emails and Twitter on weekends and holiday, but it’s when I choose to, I don’t want it in my face 24/7.

So you have to find time and space to dial it down. To switch off, shut down and get real.

When speaker and columnist Mike Southon travels overseas he tries to take his family with him; it gives him the opportunity to switch off after a speaking engagement and it’s also a good excuse to disappear upstairs to his room:

‘For me, family time is switch off time. All theatrical people know this – you’re on stage/ you’re off stage and you have different modes. You learn how to control it. If you’re ‘on stage’ all the time you end up with a heart attack. You switch in/ you switch off.’

But it’s not just creating time for thinking or for the family; it’s also the importance of creating ME time.

When you’re flat out juggling, sometimes you need that quiet moment to give you sanity. A lie-in, a soak in the bath, a pint of Guinness by yourself, a seafront cycle, reading that novel for ten minutes.

Beach Walks TV host Roxanne Darling finds it difficult to turn off her business brain. Even on vacation she still wants to read her feeds and spots business opportunities frequently. Same with me. When Mike Southon goes on holiday he finds he can relax straight away without thinking of work, ‘because nothing is that vital’; but he still checks mails to filter them before his return.

When the schedule has been really manic, Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi just unplugs for a few days and retreats to one of his homes. He doesn’t take long holidays; preferring to take snatches of time here and there to switch off.

For Roxanne and her partner, it has been their company goal to be much more conscious of when they are ‘on the client clock’ compared to when they are off-duty. Their white board system helps, as once the assigned tasks are done for the day, they feel better quitting:

‘We are building the muscle to discern what is truly urgent and what can actually be added to the list. I also really let how hard we work weigh in and matter in our lives. One of the big plusses is being able to just stop and go to a movie in the afternoon if the day is crap and we are feeling burned out. It's easy enough to point to the hours we've undoubtedly put in, so the muscle is learning to take a break and realize if a client calls and we are unavailable for two hours, it is not the end of the world’.

So, make sure you get unplugged once in a while.

Right, I’m off for a walk, and I’m leaving the iPhone behind....

Bits of advice...

I was interviewed for an online article recently, 'Are you putting your job before you?' which is live on the Nicole Williams website here.

I was also interviewed a while back for the News Of The World 'Fabulous' magazine about time management and how to maximise your time, that piece is here (or click on the images above).

Take A Zoo Day (But You Don't Have To Actually Go To The Zoo)

If you work for yourself or have enough flexibility in your working life, once in a while give yourself a treat; take a Zoo Day.

What's a Zoo Day? It's an impromptu day off.

Why 'Zoo'? Because one morning I was sitting having breakfast with my wife and kids and she said to me ' why don't we go to the zoo today?' and I said don't be so silly I'm far too busy for that. But then I thought, I had no meetings; yes I had some time critical stuff to do but that could be done in 2 hours so yes I could actually free up the day just like that. I realised what's the point of working for myself if I couldn't take some time off.

Having a Zoo Day is great to remind yourself of the benefits of doing your own thing, of taking a break from work pressures to get a breath of fresh air, to recharge your batteries, do something different. Of course, that gives your job or profession reinvigoration or some new ideas.

We did a Zoo Day yesterday; we went to the countryside for the day, for a walk and a pub lunch. Inevitably I sweated at the start and end of the day to make sure I got everything done and as a result I started this morning at 06.30 but I did get great value in return.

(But I never did actually make it to the zoo. Oh well, next time....)

Take Your Office Out Of The Office

When you’re busy juggling, different places can help reflect the multi-dimensional you. You’ll have your office, perhaps a workspace at home, favourite coffee shops where you do certain things and weekend places where you do others, a summerhouse at the end of the garden or a park bench.

When the coffee shop trend started up in the early ‘90s they were trying to create what was billed a ‘Third Place’ between work and home, a space that mixed social with work. Well forget Third Place, in 2009 it’s more like thirty three places. We are nomadic, working from airplanes, trains, wherever. There are no rules and no walls to where and how we work.

In the week I met him in Paris CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, Kevin Roberts’ schedule was taking in Mexico, Miami, Peru and Brussels. With his offices in New York and New Zealand and homes in New York, New Zealand, St. Tropez and Grasmere in the UK, this guy travels a heck of a lot. All contribute – in different ways – to making him an effective Juggler.

‘All of them connect past, present and future. All of them have work, play, friendship and family relevance. All of them are perfectly set up for me to be effective and efficient in terms of work. The different bases help me juggle because all of them are themed differently and are typical of their regions. They all have meaning and all serve to inspire me. New York is an abstract art driven Tribeca loft, Grasmere is a typical Lakeland cottage in National Park land. St. Tropez is a Provence villa, and New Zealand is an environmentally friendly sports complex’.

But you don’t need to have four homes around the world to be a good Juggler. You can create your own diversity through different spaces that energise and stimulate you, whether hotel rooms, cafes, workspaces or open spaces. These can reflect different sides of your personality. I have a mix of ‘zones’ - client offices, member clubs, coffee shops, workspaces - that I have available; each of which has played its own contribution as a space to juggle. Spaces for meeting, for thinking, for writing, for problem solving, each with their own source of inspiration.

So forget just one room with four walls, make your office a variety of environments that will help you get results in whatever you do, however you want to work...

[An excerpt from my book ‘Juggle! Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life’]