Okay – if you have been reading this blog you’ll know that I am trying to live the Brand Me life. I started this blog mainly to try to capture my portfolio of projects going on, how I was juggling the opportunities presenting themselves in each one, and to start conversations with other who were also trying to live this way.
Get ready for the next installment. If you have not already, get on to Marc Andreessen’s blog and read his guide to career planning. It’s gold…a great conversation is now set to open up about Project Life and career development not focused on HR Functions, Line Promotions and boring 9-5ers.
A few pearls from the article…
Pearl #1: Career Planning = Career Limiting.
I can’t agree with this more. I once met a guy called Bill Horman. Bill had progressed through life leading many different cool govenment projects (oxymoron?). He started as a cop, simply did a great job, always took on more than he could handle, and as a result has never been for a job interview. Every 3-4 years, he would get a call from someone he had worked with, offering him another position. Bill is now the General Manager of Crown Casino’s Community Affairs, loving trying to make great things happen with, quite honestly, a s**t load of money.
He lived (lives) his career in the moment, and is ‘on fire’ in the Melbourne Community. I have, since meeting Bill, tried to live a my life a similar way. This blog title, The Squiggly Line, denotes a life and career that are one and the same. One that doesn’t travel in a linear fashion but…well, squiggly.
But, as I posted previously, sometimes Part Time People = Part Time Results, which leads to the next pearl…
Pearl #2 – Living the portfolio life
Marc points out the importance of not planning every step of your career, but instead having an attitude more befitting of a stockbroker. I love this point – and try to pay attention to it often. I think a career is more like a portfolio, and myself being a younger person, my portfolio currently includes a start-up and undefined junior position at WVA, doing some really cool innovative thinking and projects around how the largest non-profit company in Australia can do stuff better.
Pearl #3 – Get some ‘great skills’
Finally, Marc also points to skill development vs career development. I, again, agree with this completely…but would like to take it a touch further. I think skill development is crucial. I would like to consider that I am developing a skill set primed for innovation and making things happen. This is where I take things further. Skills are good, but, observing Napoleon Dynamite, sometimes your ‘great nunchuk skills’ do not get you as much payoff as you would like. I think it’s important to have a larger, unquantifiable but guiding goal to help drive your skill progression. Case in point, mine is to Make Stuff Happen. It has a real meaning for me, and when faced with different opportunities I ask myself the one simple question – does it help me build skills to Make Stuff Happen?
Napoleon…had “great nunchuck skills”, but didn’t get him far with the ladies
If not, then I leave it. If I can see the skills I would improve by being part of that project as a key ingredient to ‘making stuff happen’ then I take the opportunity, add it my portfolio, and start the learning.
Any other thoughts? Please, do comment or share! How do you manage your portfolio?
The Squiggly Line 