The ABCD of Careers

My friend Dougald recently told me about "Asset Based Community Development", which put very simply means starting with the assets in a community already and assessing how it can provide for its own needs, rather than starting with what's missing and making the local community dependent on central assistance.

I really like this concept. I like local emphasis, and I like the faith in people that lies at the heart of it. And I've also realised that I've been doing my own personal version of the same philosophy for myself.

Dougald is also, in his spare time, an anti-careers advisor, and we speak from time to time about our own career paths in all their peculiar twisty-turny glory. And I've come to the conclusion that I've actually been doing Asset Based Career Development. Here's my first stab at a 3-step guide:

Rule 1:
Go with the flow. Career planning is hugely overrated: sometimes life has a way of guiding you into the right place at the right time. The trick is to do lots of different things and pay attention to what you find the most fun, the easiest to do, to what gives you energy. Soon you'll find that there are some things you can do almost effortlessly, there's just a natural "flow" to them. If people won't pay you for doing them, do them in your spare time and monetise it later. And don't do stuff you hate because it will "get you somewhere later" - only suckers do that. If you don't enjoy the process of the work you do, you're either in the wrong business or you're being exploited. Career planning is hugely overrated - just do lots of stuff and follow what works for you.

Rule 2:
"If you want an interesting life, find the thing that's growing fastest in your community and join it." When I left university, my dad told me that quote, paraphrased from George Bernard Shaw I think. So I went to work in the internet. I often wondered why the hell I was working in technology when I had a history degree and didn't really like computers, but after a few years I realised I liked learning new things, working with intelligent people, designing from scratch, overseeing projects from start to finish, and producing something of value to other people at the end. And with the internet swiftly becoming ubiquitous, suddenly I had lots and lots of options. I couldn't have found this out if I'd had a plan. In fact, how could I have had a plan for my career ten years ago? My current job didn't even exist back then.

Rule 3:
Follow the people, not the money. When I was younger I wanted to be a barrister. Then I met barristers. I wanted to be a filmmaker. Then I met filmmakers. Meanwhile, in my personal life, I did stuff I enjoyed with people I liked spending time with. I met activists and social innovators, educationalists, researchers, radicals and open source hackers. And I had a lovely time hanging out with them and having interesting conversations. Eventually, my friends and I started School of Everything, and I've become a "social technologist" working in "innovation", "changing the world". Which is lots more fun than being a management consultant, and actually turns out to be pretty well-paid too.

I'll be refining this methodology over time - Dougald, Tessy, Anthony, anyone out there have anything to add? But for now, from a more sociable angle, here's my current mantra that I think should be posted on the wall of every careers office in the land:

The most important factor when choosing a career is whether you like the people you work with.

Don't pursue some abstract career plan. Do the things you enjoy, with the people you enjoy, and then work out how to pay for it later. To live life the other way round is just plain silly.

Blogtagged, apparently

Tessy has invited me to reveal six random things about myself, so here goes:

1. When I was very young, I wanted to be a tap dancer. Just like Fred Astaire.
2. I have, at one time in my life, had my hand in a cheetah's mouth. No, really.
   
3. Whilst looking for my friends, I once wandered through security lines at a Leicester Square premiere and accidentally met Paul McCartney, who was very confused by my presence there.
4. I grew a beard in 2002, at the Japan World Cup, because (a) I could, and (b) most of the Japanese couldn't.
5. I'm a West Ham fan, because Trevor Brooking is my mum's cousin.
   
6. I have conducted a 30-strong Christmas choir in Trafalgar Square, in front of around a hundred people. Unprompted. Whilst drunk.
   

So there you go. I'd like to invite Dougald, Anthony, Paul, Mary and School of Everything to do the same, if they'd like to. (And nice one David, loving the hair...)

Playing the piano badly

A very happy New Year to you all. I hope that you have all resolved to do more things badly in 2008? My resolution this year is to have more fun, which I shall begin doing badly for now and work upwards. Any suggestions for what constitutes "fun" would be very welcome. I'll keep you posted on how I get on.

My main "fun" activity so far this year has been playing the piano. I've flirted with learning the piano for many years, ever since I gave it up, aged seven, after a year of lessons. I grew up with huge admiration and quiet envy for jazz pianists, but I was always put off trying it myself: it was too technical, took too much work, and in any case I lacked any natural affinity with formal musical notation. So I didn't touch it for years, despite admiring those who did. The piano was clearly something that only very good musicians could master. I stuck to the guitar, with the other scruffs.

But a couple of years ago I realised something. The piano is basically just a big box that makes noise. Everything else is just stories we tell about it. Sure, if I want to be the next Dinu Lipatti or Keith Jarrett (and I'd love to be), knowing the theory and recommended techniques is important; but supposing I just want to play for my own amusement? Why can't I just make it up as I go along?

Each piano is a predictable system, and any predictable system can be learned by trial and error. Since I made this realisation, two things have happened: firstly, and most importantly, I've started playing the piano. Lots. And I'm loving it. So that in itself is cause for celebration. And secondly, I've had a series of polite arguments with almost every pianist I know about why I'm not just learning to read music and do it properly. I may well do just that at some point. But the answer, for now, is this:

When I was a little younger and I wanted to be a writer, my father said something very helpfully blunt to me: "all writers have one thing in common: they write. And you don't." Wanting to do something, for me at least, isn't the same as actually doing it. If I wanted to be a writer so much, why couldn't I enjoy the simple pleasure of writing a few lines in a notebook? We should enjoy the process, not just the end result.

In the case of writing, my current strategy is to write a blog - badly - and see where that takes me. With the piano, what unstuck me was the sheer impetuous joy of refusing to learn the boring bits and focussing on what I love, which is improvising by ear. I have resolved to take as many shortcuts as possible on my way to a basic level of competance. I have chosen role models (a key component of "sociable learning") who were way beyond my capability (Keith Jarrett, Thelonius Monk, Brad Mehldau, Dr John) and I've tried to impersonate them. And not only am I learning far more quickly than I expected, but I'm also really enjoying myself.

That's more than can be said for those listening to me of course, and at some point, I hope that I will qualify to "do it properly". But I am quietly hopeful that I can get to a respectable level without forcing myself to learn like everybody else. It's all about keeping the faith. I borrowed my dad's Teach Yourself Jazz Piano book over Christmas, and found the following in the introduction: "how many times do parents tell a child: 'Stop making that noise and play something properly'? Conquering this feeling of guilt is a prerequisite of learning to play jazz: for it is only in experiment that the association between note and sound can be learned."

So on I go, but in the interests of sociablism, I have also resolved for 2008 to find myself a piano swami who can guide me in my defiant approach to the instrument. The word educate, whilst having its roots in the raising of children, is related to the Latin ducere, to lead: it is the process of drawing out what is inside, not simply of giving instruction. Too often we forget this, or else perhaps we need a new term for this process of educetion (ah, another crime against the English language - Andrew Keen would be so proud). I would like someone to help draw out my inner pianist. All applicants please write to this address, etc. and so on.

So, the next time you want to learn something, repeat after me: I already have this in me, otherwise I wouldn't feel an affinity with it. So what is the best way of drawing it out of myself? Start from there and you can't go wrong. Or rather, you can go wrong as much as you like and as long as you're happy, who cares?! So happy learning, happy noise-making, and a very happy New Year to you all.

x Andy x

What's in a name?

A few people have said to me that they don't quite understand the title and sub-title of this blog , and indeed they may appear a little incongruous. If I'm so interested in business, politics and society, they ask, why am I talking about doing things badly? What's so great about doing things badly anyway? And what's the connection with "Sociablism"?

Well, allow me to explain...

1. "Bad" is relative. We are often put off doing things we care about because of a perception of inadequacy relative to external standards. Often these standards are actually our own judgements, and we are harsh on ourselves; others may value what we do even if we don't. I don't consider myself to be a very good "blogger", but some people seem to enjoy what I write. If I censor myself, my contribution stops.
2. Good is dull. In this crowded world, we don't need millions of people aspiring to do the same things. Often the thing that you think is bad about what you're doing is actually what makes it stand out from the crowd. Bad is different, more human, more fun.
   
3. Doing things badly is actually the second stage of learning. We move from unconscious incompetence through to "conscious incompetence" - doing things badly - before we move onto conscious and unconscious competence. If we don't respect this second stage, how can we ever really learn?
4. Celebrating doing things badly gets us out of the standards trap. If we only value things done well, we are faced with the choice of praising others falsely for a quality which is in fact lacking, or crushing their passions by imposing external standards on them. Many young people these days seem to have unrealistic expectations of their own skill levels, both positive and negative. If you celebrate doing things badly, you can give someone encouragement without creating false perceptions.
5. The things we do have important incidental effects on our community development, social and cultural systems, mental and physical health and relationship with the environment. The things we do have all kinds of unintended consequences, good and bad. When people in rehab weave baskets, it's not because they need baskets. If we only do the things we are "good at", we will stop doing many of the things that imperceptibly nurture us and keep us healthy.
   

I believe that doing things badly provides a simple route out of some of the traps of the modern world, and moves us towards a more playful, sociable and constructive space. This is the root of "Sociablism": praising things not for their quality, but for the positive effects they have on our lives, both as individuals and as a society.

Over time I'll explore what this actually means in practice for politics, society, education and business. But for now, I'll leave you with the words of the great Samuel Beckett:

No matter. Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.