Making sure your side projects fit your unifier

I’ve blogged about the importance of side projects before. You might have identified a project you’d like to work on but it doesn't fit in your 9-5. Or perhaps you’re just not getting fulfilment in the day job, and you need to explore your curiosity on the side. So you develop a side project or two.

I have a number of active side projects right now; so active that they’re blended in to the 9-5, rather than be strictly after hours. But they’re still ‘on the side’. My key criterion for adding a side project is whether it fits my unifier. What’s a unifier? It’s the theme that unites all you do. When you do more than one thing in your professional life, it’s important to have a unifier so you can easily communicate all you do simply (there’ll be more on discovering your unifier in my new book ‘Mash Up!’). The unifier makes your plurality instantly gettable.

So my own unifier is that I communicate ideas in business. Okay, it might be pretty broad but it encompasses everything from client work to side projects such as being a contributor to Monocle radio’s ‘The Entrepreneurs’. Not only is the unifier handy to pull out when you meet someone at the pub who asks what you do, it’s also a good check for taking on new projects. Before you take a new project on, ask does it fit your unifier. If it doesn’t, you might want to question how it adds value.

Here’s an example of a side project that perfectly fits my unifier: I wrote an article for the Financial Times last week about the rise of ideas festivals and how they’re becoming an alternative to traditional conferences for professional development. Having attended TEDx, SXSW and The Do Lectures I had some great first-hand experience to bring to the piece. And all importantly, the piece was about communicating ideas. You can read it on FT.com here (log in may be required).

So have a think what your unifier is and use it to help you make choices about what you do, where you go and what your side projects are.

‘Steal Like An Artist’: a bunch of ideas, well communicated

I’m in the ideas-communication business and one thing I learnt early on is a great idea is not good enough; it’s how good you are at communicating it that counts.  Austin Kleon’s new book ‘Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told Me About the Creative Life’ reminded me of this. Like many non-fiction books I buy, I knew what was in Austin’s book before I opened it. I’d watched a video of him speak, I follow him on Twitter and I’d seen and shared the blog post that gave birth to the book so I was familiar with the content. So why did I like it  if I already knew what was in it?

Because Austin is a good communicator. The hard copy version  has a great aesthetic quality - for a start it’s small and square (I once asked my publisher once whether I could have a square book - they said ‘no’!). The layout, the quotes and Austin’s illustrations make it a bunch of ideas well communicated.

When I’m writing my own books, I often visualise the reader as a version of me so I was interested to learn that Austin’s book is autobiographical in that he’s also talking to a previous, younger version of himself. Here are three lessons from the book that got me scribbling:

1. You are the consumer. Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use - do the work you want to see done
2. It’s the side projects that really take off. The stuff that you thought was just messing around. Stuff that’s just play. that’s actually the good stuff. That’s when the magic happens. Bounce between them. when you’re sick of one, switch to another.
3. Don’t worry about unity from piece to piece - what unifies all your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you’ll look back and it will all make sense.

This isn’t just another book about creativity; there’s lessons here to apply to a bunch of different businesses and work lives. And there’ll be more about Austin in my own new book ‘Mash-up!’ as he features with a Q&A on his multi-dimensional life.

What I learned from a knifemaker, a writer and a venture capitalist. 3 Lessons From The Do Lectures

I spent last Friday and Saturday in a big tent in the middle of the Welsh countryside. I was at fforest farm for the spring Do Lectures, an event  ‘that started out in a quiet corner of West Wales that inspires you to go and do amazing things’. There was some great content from thirty speakers, from a range of disciplines including not just entrepreneurs but also a fell walker and a baker. Here are three lessons that stood out in my - obligatory - moleskine notebook:

1. “If the work is great then people will come” Joel Bukiewicz, Knifemaker Cut Brooklyn. We hear many stories of people who quit their jobs to become writers; less of writers who quit to do something else. Joel falls in the latter. Frustrated with writing, he took a break and landed on making knives as his new business. What struck me about Joel was the simplicity of his business model: he goes to work, makes knives, puts them in the shop to sell. What he doesn’t sell, he puts online to sell. His shop is open twice a week and he doesn’t take advance orders. I love that confidence and simplicity. There is a great little film about him here.
2. “Does this work have a 1% chance of leaving a footprint?” Robin Sloan, writer & media inventor. We hear that if you want to make a difference with your work you must ‘make a dent in the universe’. Robin argued that dents get smoothed out over time - “time is the ultimate body shop” he said - and instead you should think about what fingerprints you’re leaving for the future. That focuses the mind on producing work that might leave a legacy.
3. “To have a life of doing, you need to not do” William Rosenzweig, Partner, Physic Ventures. Since William is a partner at a venture capital firm I was expecting a talk about entrepreneurship. Instead he introduced us to the Taoist concept of Wu Wei - the notion of ‘doing not doing’. William talked about the importance of getting unplugged and being still. It’s a personal action for me because I need to get better at switching off. He also reminded us the importance of listening in a storytelling-driven culture where everybody wants to tell, not listen.

Follow @dolectures for videos of 2012’s talks

A Q&A with me on IdeaMensch

IdeaMensch, the online community for people with ideas, has just published a Q&A interview with me. You can check it out here.

“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...!”

Why Sometimes It’s Okay to Not Know Where You’ re Going

Having left the venue of Saturday’s TEDxObserver conference, my wife and I climbed on a pair of Boris bikes and set off through the streets of Clerkenwell. “Where are we headed?” my wife asked me. “I have no idea, let’s take some side streets and see where we end up.”

It’s important to explore your curiosity and go on a journey without a destination in mind. That’s why we attended TEDx: to consume multiple voices, stories and ideas. Who knew what the next twenty minutes would bring, what action it might spark?

The 2012 TEDxObserver conference featured a neuroscientist, a community worker, food activist, musicians, a surgeon, a dancing psychologist and an anthropologist. My highlights included Pauline Pearce whose YouTube-captured rant amidst the 2011 riots became an inspiration. Having last seen the South African musician Hugh Masekela at an Anti Apartheid rally in Clapham Common in the ‘80s, it was great to hear him speak again. Then there was Miguel Torres, head of the Spanish winery who’d decided to take action on global warming after watching ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. A great example of the power of entrepreneurs in taking action to make real change. And finally Plan B, the musician and film director who spoke passionately about social injustice and the need to help urban kids discover their passion to get them re-engaged.

So what was the ‘ROI’ on all that?  It’s enough that I broadened my horizons.  It opened my eyes to themes outside my usual world. It moved me,  it got me thinking, it satisfied my curiosity.

Curiosity is an underestimated business tool. In a world of uncertainty where we’re faced with more challenging problems than ever before, you ‘aint going to find the answer in the usual places. You’ll find inspiration  in new places; you’ll need to learn from other industries and analogous businesses. You’ll need curiosity to challenge assumptions.

So on the face of it, Saturday was a great day. But somewhere deeper in our minds the value is being absorbed, mulled over, stored away to inspire us in the future in ways we can’t immediately know.

Whether it’s a bike ride with no destination, a conference with no identifiable return, listening to some new music or hanging out with a bunch of people you’d never usually mix with - try going somewhere you wouldn’t usually go; who knows in what ways it will inspire you.

The rapid mindset

I always liked to get things done fast. Whether it was assembling an air-fix model or building a den in my childhood bedroom, I just got on and did it quick.

And I’ve applied that thinking to my business life.

By being fast I don’t mean delivering insubstantial work or being sloppy because you’re not paying attention; and I don’t mean taking action without thinking first. I mean delivering better results by making a project happen faster. I get frustrated when good ideas get slowed down by procrastination or unnecessary delay. What is a good idea now may cease to be a good idea if it’s delivered in two weeks time. Of course the value is not in the idea, it’s in the execution - and that’s where speed can make all the difference. Because not doing it quick enough may mean you miss the boat.

In a world where serendipity and chance tend to be more valuable for business success than a strategic plan, you’ll need a rapid mindset.  In the last six months I’ve identified business opportunities for contacts and clients by blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments on Twitter: because I was bored on a train or was 5 minutes early to that meeting I happened to spot something. I didn’t just look and think ‘I will deal with this later’. I dived in, took action … in a flash. Alerted a client, hit ‘reply’, made a call, whatever.

Remember there is no shortage of people spotting opportunities but less who have the right attitude to react fast.  That rapidity has become my signature business style; it’s not unusual for me to spot an opportunity on a Tuesday evening and deliver it Thursday morning. It’s another reason why we wrote our book ‘Zoom! The Faster Way To Make Your Business Idea Happen’ in three months (well we could have hardly written a book about speed, slowly).

So speed is now my differentiator.  Why should you care? Because if you want to grab that opportunity, win that client, secure that job, land your dream gig, get your product out first, launch that blog, tick off your to-do list or generally beat the competition, you might need a rapid mindset too.