Future Work/Life is a weekly newsletter that casts a positive eye to the future. I bring you interesting stories and articles, analyse industry trends and offer tips on designing a better work/life. If you enjoy reading it, please share it!
I’ve spent much of the last couple of years thinking about how work is changing and the impact on our lives. It’s resulted in many new connections with interesting and smart people, working on fascinating projects and developing exciting businesses. I’ve also written tens of thousands of words about all matters related to jobs, workplace culture, technology and much more, talking to leading experts and practitioners on my podcast.
What to do with all of this information and insight? Well, in late August, I contacted Cath Bishop, former podcast guest, Future Work/Life subscriber, and author of one of the Financial Times best business books of 2020, The Long Win, asking if I could bend her ear because, as I wrote, “I feel like I have a book in me.” In that case, advised Cath, the first thing I should do is sign up for Alison Jones’ Business Book Proposal Challenge, which she had previously taken while writing her book about reframing our relationship with winning, in business and life.
Long story short, I signed up, and after a very challenging two weeks, I did indeed have a book proposal of which I was very proud. Unexpectedly, I also won the challenge, so the big news is that in late 2022 my book, Work/Life Flywheel: Find flow and propel your career to the next level, will be published by Alison’s company Practical Inspiration.
A tremendous amount of work lies ahead, of course, but I’m very excited by the prospect of refining many of the ideas I’ve shared via this newsletter and creating a guide for individuals and businesses that are navigating the quickly evolving world of work. As Seth Godin puts it: “The book that will most change your life is the book you write.”
Much more on the Work/Life Flywheel to come, of course. In the meantime, I would recommend the Book Proposal Challenge to anyone looking to solidify their thinking about their subject specialism and, in the process, promote their business and build their profile. With that in mind, I thought I’d share a list of some of the other platforms and companies that I’ve encountered since I made my career pivot at the beginning of 2020. Perhaps you’ll find their products and services helpful too.
Here they are, in no particular order:
Practical Inspiration’s Business Book Proposal Challenge
As well as creating a genuine book proposal, the course forces you to critically analyse the size of the opportunity for your business, the needs of your potential audience, and the solutions that already exist. You’ll also join a cohort of other people exploring how to craft a book from their expertise and passions, and in my case, they proved invaluable and generous support. Go on, sign up - you might surprise yourself.
The Portfolio Collective’s CEO, Ben Legg, was one of my first guests on the podcast, and he’s tapped into a real need for a community and support network for people looking to build a portfolio career. The company provides training, learning resources, and, importantly, a community to collaborate with and share knowledge and ideas. During the summer, I took part in their Catapult Course, which offers valuable insights, however experienced you are and at whatever stage you’re at in developing your portfolio career.
I’ve also loved creating podcasts since launching Take My Advice (I’m Not Using It) this time last year, and after some ropey experiments using Zoom to record, I found Zencastr – what a great product! Easy to use and free with some restrictions, it does precisely what it promises to do – create studio-quality audio recordings – which not every company achieves. My advice to everyone – start a podcast to talk about something you’re passionate about and use Zencastr.
Before starting my own, I’ve presented and appeared on other podcasts, all produced and edited by someone else. I must say, I wasn’t particularly comfortable with doing this job myself, initially, but because of Descript, I actually love it! On the recommendation of Guy Kawasaki, I downloaded it before the first episode with Christopher Lochhead, and it’s now an essential part of both my production process and the content I create off the back of the shows. The editing process forces me to listen carefully to the conversation, which always provokes some ideas and insights for this newsletter.
I’m a big podcast listener, and as a result, I am constantly hearing about new companies experimenting with new ideas related to the future of work. I heard Braintrust’s founders on HBR’s Managing the Future of Work Podcast last year and was fascinated by the business model, which is designed to be user-owned and, through tokenisation, aims to redistribute value to both talent and the organisations recruiting them. Since we needed to quickly source developers earlier this year, I got to experience what is an impressive company built on an extensive collection of exceptional talent.
I’ve written about the decoupling of work from employment, and this trend will only increase in the coming years. While platforms matching companies with tech talent are relatively well established, the same model for other industries is also emerging. Talmix is an excellent case in point. Last year, I spoke to their CEO, Sandeep Dhillon, and they’ve created a superb product, filled with incredible talent who benefit from ever-changing projects, the freedom to work when and where they wish, and comparatively high day rates.
Of course, while there’s a trend towards ‘contingent workers’ – the unbundling of teams, if you like – one of the greatest challenges I see among the companies I work with is quickly spinning up well-balanced, highly skilled teams – in other words, rebundling the talent. One of Traktion’s features is its ability to do just that for brands looking for digital marketing support, but it also allows the experts to monetise their time more effectively. As co-founder Stefan Bardega said when I spoke to him last year, this reflects the fact that “clients don’t buy agencies, they buy the talent that works there.”
How do you verify a candidate’s work history and expertise? The likelihood is that you still receive a CV written in a Word document, with the details of a couple of referees who are typically either former managers or mates disguised as such. The truth is that vetting potential employees has been due an upgrade, and Veremark’s solution is definitely that. As well as providing employers with automated background checks, they also deliver blockchain-based passports to the candidates allowing them to ‘take ownership of their credentials and eliminate future repetitive and inconvenient checks’. Clever stuff.
Given my obsession with making good use of my increasingly limited time, it would be odd not to include a productivity tool in this list. The best I’ve found over the past year is Reclaim, which does a pretty effective job of syncing across multiple calendars and provides the tools to design your schedule around not just work but also activities that are important to you. So, if you want to ensure that you always have time for that power nap or lunch with your partner, check it out.
Open-sourced software has resulted in some of the most critical technology and breakthroughs for decades. In the same spirit, we’re seeing more products leading with a crowd-sourced approach to resources in workforce tech. Take, Almanac, for example. Admittedly, they want you to pay at some point in the process, but you can get a whole heap of value before you need to consider doing that. Although its value proposition focuses on a collaborative document editor for remote teams, there’s an emphasis on the community sharing their best work as templates for others, which, believe me, could save you a lot of time and significantly improve the quality of your internal comms.
I’ve just got back from holiday, so Any Other Business will return as usual next week.
Have a lovely weekend,
Ollie