The Crystal Ball Says I’m Hip
Posted on | September 6, 2008 |
I was recently lucky enough to hear Tom Savigar , Strategy and Insight Director at The Future Laboratory, give a presentation about future trends. It was one of those eye-opening, learning experiences that I’ll probably quote for a long time to come.We all like to think that we’re roughly keeping up with what’s going on, even if we don’t always ‘get it’, or have any desire to join in, and so I watched with interest as we were told about the new breed of entrepreneurs that have evolved from mere human beings, into very marketable brands.
They are the slash/slash generation; people that don’t (or can’t) define what they do as a single thing - ‘multi-skillers’. The example given was that of Zezi Ifore whose occupation is described as ‘tv presenter/ A&R/ dj/ journalist/ marketing consultant/ party thrower/ stylist’ (you can see where the slash/slashtag comes from).
Zezi said I like to have lots of things going on at once and whilst I totally believe in mastering something and doing it well, there’s a lot to be said for multi-tasking. All the things I do have a symbiotic relationship so each thing informs the next thing and makes it better.
Zezi Ifore
So, I’m sat there listening to this and two things cross my mind; what does she put down as her occupation on her passport? And how the hell does she juggle all those jobs?
And then it hit me (well, a day or so later when I had the first chance to relax and let Tom’s excellent presentation sink in) - I juggle just as many jobs. I am a multi skiller! Admittedly the last couple of weeks have been more mashed up than usual, but at some point or another I could reasonably describe my job as; 2d artist, 3d modeller, manager, producer, project manager, PR, marketing, events co-ordinator, games tester, games designer, and z-list celebrity (you heard me on the radio, right?) - basically I’ve been several flavours of ‘-ologist’ and ‘-icist’ without even realising that I was being so damn hip.
Suddenly the future trend for eclectic and varied occupations is no longer something to be feared. The only real fear is that even if all your tasks have a common theme, can you really devote enough time to each to do them well?
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