Category: Being the boss

This is about work from the managing side. Freelancing, entrepreneuring, consulting: having to make the decisions as the person in charge. In charge of your work, in charge of your life — so work-life balance factors in, too.

What if Generalist vs. Expert was a Mistake? [en]

[fr] L'expertise peut être alimentée par une connaissance exhaustive d'un seul domaine, ou par une connaissance approfondie de multiples domaines. Le généraliste a également une connaissance de multiples domaines, mais elle est superficielle. On a tendance à considérer que n'importe qui ayant des connaissances dans plusieurs domaines différents ne peut être un expert -- et c'est à mon sens une erreur. L'expertise n'est pas obligatoirement liée à la spécialisation. On peut être un expert dans de nombreux domaines -- un poly-expert plutôt qu'un mono-expert.

First of all, I urge you to go and read my friend Stephanie Troeth‘s article “The generalist’s dilemma“. We had a short chat a day or two ago about the difficulty we multi-talented people face making a decision about “what do to with our lives”. I touch upon this subject a little in my recent article “What Do We Call Ourselves?“, actually, but from a slightly different angle.

“Jack of all trades, master of none.” It rings in our heads like an accusation, or worse, a verdict. The message is clear: the more varied your interests, the more diverse your talents, the less authority and expertise you can expect to have in those areas. If you’re a generalist, then clearly, you cannot be the expert we’re looking for.

I think this way of thinking is (at least partly) mistaken. Even if my areas of expertise are varied, for example, I can be an expert on the question of teenagers and social media. I will be a different kind of expert than the person who devotes their career exclusively to this question, of course — but an expert nonetheless.

As Stephanie’s post shows very clearly, skills and expertise in various areas tend to reinforce and feed each other. An obvious example of that in my career (obvious to me, maybe not to everybody) is how my initial expertise in Indian culture and history of religions helps shape me as an expert of social media and online culture. Notice how I slipped the word culture in there? That’s the kind of “expert” I am in the field. I’m not the same kind of “expert” as somebody who has a marketing or business background.

I don’t want to discount the merits of specialization — but as a process rather than an end. My teacher at university used to tell us how important it was for us to specialize in one of the “major religions” our curriculum offered us: “if you have done it once, if you have once been through the process of acquiring deep expertise on one precise topic, you can do it again and again for others; if you just keep skimming the surface, you will never learn how to delve deep into anything.”

Does this sound in contradiction to what I’ve been saying above? It doesn’t to me. You see, I think there are two kinds of “generalists”:

  • those who have acquired expertise or specialized in a wide variety of subjects
  • those who touch upon a wide variety of subjects because they only ever skim the surface.

It is a fatal mistake to confuse the two of them. And maybe we need different names to distinguish between the two.

The idea that a generalist has “superficial understanding of everything” and can in fact only be jack of all trades, master of none, is what makes “generalist” a pejorative label — what makes people say “oh, we want an expert, not a “generalist”. What they maybe don’t realize is that some people who end up calling themselves “generalists” are in fact “poly-experts” (or “multi-experts”) as opposed to “mono-experts”.

The mono-expert builds his expertise on digging deeper and deeper and acquiring an exhaustive knowledge of his subject. He runs the risk of becoming blind to what is outside his specialty, or viewing the world through the distorted glasses of excessive specialization.

The poly-expert builds his expertise on digging again and again in different fields. In addition to being an expert in the various fields he has explored, the poly-expert is an expert as digging and acquiring expertise. By creating links between multiple fields of expertise, he avoids the pitfalls of excessive specialization — but on the other hand, he is often recognized as a superficial generalist rather than a kind of super-expert (because “you can’t be an expert in all those things, can you?”)

The generalist (superficial type) is the one who has studied “a bit of everything”. For lack of inclination, ability, or simply appropriate curriculum, the generalist has never gone through the process of digging deep enough to acquire proper expertise. Shallow understanding can be more dangerous than no understanding at all, and this profile is one that nobody actually wants to fit.

There might be more to investigate about the “pure/superficial generalist” profile’s assets, though — see “What Specifically do Generalists do?” on the Creative Generalist blog; but are we talking about the same “generalist”? Is this the right word to use here? Is my threefold typology leaving anything out? I feel like I’m painting an all-negative picture of the superficial generalist, and I’m not really happy with that. (For example, think of medicine, where “general medicine” — at least in French — is a specialty.)

In any case, framing the debate as “knows one thing = specialist” vs. “knows many things = generalist” completely misses the fact that the degree of expertise has little to do with the breadth of it. What’s important is if somebody has expertise or not, and that is not measured by the absence or presence of knowledge in other fields.

Expertise, for me, means that:

  • you know more (quantity) in that field than most people (you’re in the top n%)
  • you can make sense of what you know, and know what you’re talking about
  • you know where the limits of your expertise is
  • your bring value to others that is magnitudes above what the “average joe” with some hobby-knowledge of the field would

(This was off the top of my head and might need another post to be dealt with properly — defining expertise.)

For some people, expertise will be nourished by comparable expertise in other fields (poly-experts). For others, it will be nourished by exhaustive knowledge of a single field (mono-experts). Both are experts. It’s then a question of personal preference which one to be or hire. However, given the prejudices against generalists and “jack of all trades”, the latter is easier to market than the former.

What Do We Call Ourselves? [en]

[fr] Un article de plus dans la longue série "Stephanie se demande comment appeler ce qu'elle fait". Si "social media expert" a été usé jusqu'à la corde, que reste-t-il à une "spécialiste généraliste" des nouveaux médias comme moi?

This morning I read 6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Brand Yourself as a Social Media Expert. It echoes with a piece I wrote earlier this year: To Be or Not to Be a New Media Strategist, in which I (a) explain that I have finally understood that the core of my work is strategy and (b) wonder what to call myself.

I pride myself in being one of these “early generation” people, not a “me too”. This year the blog you’re reading will celebrate its 9th birthday, which means that although I’m not the oldest dinosaur out there, I was already blogging when many who are now considered respected old-timers wrote their first post. I’ve been earning money in the field of what we now call social media since early 2005 — and this is Europe, little Switzerland, not the US of Silicon Valley. And without wanting to blame all my failures on being too innovative, I like to think that at least some of them have to do with trying to do things too soon, before the market was ready for them.

The facts above are not just to toot my own horn (a little, I’ll admit) but to drive in the point that I have a very different profile from people who discovered social media, noted that it was (or was going to be) hot, and decided to jump in and make money out of it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… I think. I’m somebody who has always been driven more by my interest in things than by “earning money” — my somewhat mediocre business skills (monetizing, marketing, sales). What “title” can I find to differentiate myself from all the other people who are now in the field?

When I was reading Dan’s article, I kept thinking “yes, but what if I really am a social media expert?” I’m not a “had a blog for 18 months” or “I know what Twitter is” kind of expert. And I’m also not somebody who sticks to one kind of activity or domain of expertise (e.g. “teenagers and the net” or “blogging for internal communications”).

A few days ago I came upon this diagram by Budd Caddell, which has had me thinking:

Venn diagram for happiness as a freelancer.

I’m aware that part of my ongoing struggle to define myself for others has to do with my internal struggle to figure out what it is exactly that I do, want to do, can get paid to do. I know what I have been paid to do during the last three years. I have more insight into what I don’t like doing and others want me to do, and am learning to say no. “What I do well” is a bigger problem, because part of me keeps thinking that I suck at more or less everything I do, and though I know it’s not true, it makes self-assessment tricky.

I also think I have a bit of a “generalist” profile: I’m good at a lot of things, but probably, for each thing that I do, you can find somebody who is a bigger “expert” — but who will have a more limited field of expertise. I view myself as a kind of “generalist specialist”, or “generalist expert” in my field.

Many years ago, I wrote a rant in French about so-called “blogging specialists”. (For the sake of the discussion here, let’s consider that specialist = expert.) At the time, I was concerned about the need of the press to be able to quote “specialists”, and they were labeling bloggers “specialists” left, right, and centre, me included. At the time, I felt anything like a specialist, and resented the misattribution.

I guess the same thing bugs me today. People labeling themselves “experts” when, in all honesty, they’re not that much of an expert (see reason #1 in Dan’s article). It’s easy to be somebody else’s expert when you know more than them: au royaume des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois. I see it a lot. It annoys me for two reasons: first, there is sometimes a certain amount of dishonesty or deception (conscious or not) involved; second, if everybody is an expert (reason #6), how do you distinguish between the experts? How do I label myself to make it clear that I am not the same breed as the buzzing crowd of “me too” web2.0 or social media “experts”?

Dan offers a solution in his article, but I’m only half-convinced:

The pioneers of new media are still successful today, but they don’t even brand themselves as “social media experts.”  Think about experts such as David Meerman Scott, Paul Gillan, Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, Steve Rubel, and Robert Scoble.  David is an author who has successfully blended social media with PR and marketing before everyone else.  Chris Brogan focuses more on social media’s impact on community building and he’s been blogging religiously before the medium became mainstream.  Don’t try and brand yourself as one of them because you’ll fail trying.

I guess this works if you really have an area of specialisation in social media, but that’s just not the type of personality I am. I see it in other areas too, take judo, for example: most judo practitioners have one “special”, a move that stands out — I have at least 3 that could be my “special”; how about studies? I spent my career switching between arts and science.

So when it comes to my work, what am I good at? I’m good at a lot of things:

But in none of these areas am I “the most extraordinary person out there”. My strength is that I do all these things, and pretty well too — but there is nothing I can put forward to say “I’m the ultimate expert on X”.

How do I market myself? What do I call myself, if I can’t call myself a social media expert?

Update: Prompted by the same blog post, and written as I was writing this one, do read Suw’s excellent article about the necessity of keeping the E-word around: Hi, my name is Suw and I’m a social media expert.

Je ne facture pas à l'heure [fr]

[en] My decision is now clear: I don't bill by the hour. Some of the stuff I do has time limits (e.g. if you want to see me to kick off a consulting relationship, or explore possibilities of work together, well, it's going to cost you this much and we should plan to spend half a day together for it) -- but what I clearly don't do (anymore) is clock my time. There's a ton of reasons for this which the French blog post explains, and if you want some insight on my thinking about this, I recommend you read my notes from Martin Roell's 2007 workshop on consulting, and listen to the Going Solo panel about rates and invoicing.

Cela fait des mois (voire plus) que je tergiverse sur la question: est-ce que j’accepte ou non de facturer mes prestations à l’heure? Je l’ai fait (rarement) par le passé, mais je n’ai jamais aimé ça.

La réponse est donc maintenant ferme: je ne facture pas à l’heure.

Je vais m’expliquer, parce que ce n’est pas simple. J’ai en effet beau expliquer comment je fonctionne à mes clients, je me retrouve encore et toujours dans la situation où l’on me demande de “faire quelque chose” et de “facturer mes heures”. Je ne suis pas de la main-d’oeuvre.

Et aussi, le fait que je ne “facture pas mes heures” ne signifie pas qu’aucune de mes prestations n’est délimitée par le temps (la formation ou le consulting sont des bons exemples). Mais même dans ces cas, ce n’est pas pour mon temps que mon client me paie, mais pour mon expertise.

Voilà le terme clé: mon expertise. C’est pour cela qu’on me paie: pour avoir accès à un ensemble de savoirs, de compétences, et d’expérience hautement spécialisés dans le domaine des nouveaux médias. Cet accès se fait la plupart du temps par le biais de conférences, formations, relations de consulting, productions (e.g. écrites) ou autres réalisations (e.g. mise en place et gestion d’un système d’accréditation blogueurs pour une conférence, ou d’un site internet).

Alors bien sûr, le temps que je vais consacrer à un mandat entre en ligne de compte pour déterminer son prix. Mais le temps n’est de loin pas la seule variable! La valeur apportée au client en est une autre, bien plus importante à mon sens. L’importance et la spécialisation de l’expertise à laquelle il fait appel, également. Le pouvoir d’achat du client (oui, c’est un peu le souk: je ne facture pas la même chose à Oracle, à la PME du coin, à un indépendant ou une association).

Je sais que c’est une façon de procéder qui est très difficile à comprendre pour la plupart des gens. Notre société entière est construite sur le salaire horaire, cette idée que le temps du travailleur a un prix, variable selon ses compétences, et qu’en louant ses services, c’est son temps qu’on met à disposition.

J’aime beaucoup l’anecdote suivante pour illustrer que temps consacré n’est pas égal à valeur apportée. A la demande d’Henry Ford, Charles Steinmertz vient examiner un générateur qui fonctionne mal. Il l’examine, l’écoute, fait plein de calculs, demande une échelle sur laquelle il grimpe pour faire une marque à la craie à un endroit précis du générateur. Il suggère ensuite une opération relativement simple qui résout entièrement le problème. Steinmertz envoie ensuite une facture de $10’000 à Ford, qui demande le détail:

  • faire une marque à la craie sur le générateur: $1
  • savoir où faire la marque à la craie: $9’999

Le plus précieux que l’on a à offrir, souvent, est ce qui ne se voit pas. Si je suis capable de faire une installation WordPress sur mon serveur en cinq minutes, c’est parce que je l’ai fait auparavant une centaine de fois, et que j’ai des milliers et des milliers d’heures de pratique à l’ordinateur qui me donnent l’aisance pour le faire. Vous paraîtrait-il normal que je facture 5 minutes de mon temps pour une telle prestation, quand j’économise peut-être ainsi à mon client une journée entière de travail?

Si j’étais employée dans une entreprise, et que mon travail consistait à faire des installations WordPress à longueur de journée, le bénéfice de mon expertise irait principalement à mon employeur — dont je suis un peu l’esclave-horaire. En tant qu’indépendante, ça change la donne.

L’exemple que je viens de donner est un exemple concret, parce que ça rend l’illustration plus claire. Mais ce phénomène est encore amplifié quand on entre dans le domaine du conseil, du consulting, de la formation.

Des tas d’indépendants facturent à l’heure. Et beaucoup d’entre eux, à mon avis, devraient y réfléchir à deux fois. Un argument simple est que le nombre d’heures facturables dans la semaine est limité. Quand mon expertise augmente ou que je travaille plus vite, si je facture à l’heure, c’est mon client qui en bénéficie (parce que je fais plus de travail en moins de temps). Mais ne devrait-ce pas être moi?

Ou alors… j’augmente mon tarif horaire, quite a friser l’absurde: qui oserait demander passé 1000 francs de l’heure? Et pourtant…

Le temps que je passe à faire quelque chose, au fond, cela ne regarde que moi. Je ne suis pas à la solde de mon client: il désire que j’accomplisse quelque chose pour lui, et il veut savoir à peu près combien cela va lui coûter. Le temps que ça prend… c’est mon affaire, parce que c’est à moi d’organiser mes journées et mes semaines. A moi aussi peut-être de dire au client quand ce sera prêt. Mais le temps effectif que je passe dessus… pardonnez-moi, mais ce n’est pas ses oignons.

C’est en 2007, en assistant à un workshop animé par Martin Roell, que j’ai réellement saisi les limites et les inconvénients de la facturation au temps. Cela change le rapport au client, par exemple: si on facture au temps, cela incite le client à nous contrôler ou à s’assurer que l’on utilise ce temps de façon efficace. Le temps, c’est pratique: tout le monde sait ce que c’est une heure. Les entreprises sont formattées pour évaluer tout travail fait ou à faire en fonction du temps qu’il prend (l’usine, les gars?) — mais en fin de compte, quand une entreprise mandate un consultant externe, la seule chose vraiment importante c’est “combien cela va-t-il coûter?” et “quand est-ce que cela sera fait?”

Si je reviens à ce que je fais, on peut imaginer en regardant certain de mes services que je facture à l’heure ou au temps. Deux heures de coaching, une demi-journée de consulting, oui, cela a un prix. Mais si on veut aller au fond des choses, c’est le prix qu’on paie pour ce que je prétends apporter durant ce temps que nous avons à disposition pour parler ensemble. Je ne sais pas très bien comment exprimer ça: c’est une prestation, qui comme toute prestation est délimitée, et dont une des limites est le temps passé en face-à-face avec moi. Et en conséquence, si on dépasse de 5, 10, ou même 30 minutes (suivant le “paquet” pour lequel a payé le client), ce n’est pas du tout un problème pour moi.

Un exemple où j’ai très vite renoncé à facturer “au temps”: les conférences. Que je parle 45 ou 90 minutes, franchement, ne change rien pour moi. C’est à peu près le même tracas, le même stress, la même préparation. Et je pense honnêtement qu’il n’y a pas grande différence de valeur entre ce qu’on retire à m’avoir sur un podium pendant 45 minutes ou le double (bon, c’est un peu mieux le double, on a plus de temps pour bavarder).

Si j’avais un tarif horaire pour les conférences, ce serait intenable! Ce tarif horaire serait élevé (suivant le client, il m’arrive de facturer plus de 1000 francs pour une conférence) — et si on dépasse, je fais quoi? Je rajoute 250.- à la facture parce qu’on a fait 10 minutes de plus? Ce serait ridicule. Donc, la conférence, c’est un tarif forfaitaire. Et tout comme on se met d’accord sur le sujet dont je vais parler, on se met aussi d’accord sur une durée indicative (ou rigide).

Je vous ai donné ces examples pour tenter de montrer que même ces prestations qui semblent être facturées au temps ne le sont en fait pas.

La conséquence majeure de mon refus de facturer au temps est que je ne prends pas des mandats “peanuts” où l’on chronomètre son temps passé à faire quelque chose (support, développement, CSS) pour ensuite faire une jolie facture avec le total des heures utilisées. Deux-trois raisons pour cela:

  • ce sont souvent des mandats “à la demande”, et donc qui requièrent une certaine disponibilité (ce serait-ce que pour recevoir le coup de fil ou le mail auquel on répond “je ne suis pas disponible avant le tant”) — qui me paie pour être disponible?
  • 5 minutes passées sur un mandat “peanuts”, c’est facilement 30 minutes de productivité perdue pour l’autre chose que j’étais en train de faire. Pour m’y retrouver, qu’est-ce que je fais? Je multiplie par 6 mon “tarif horaire”?
  • la quantité d’administratif que cela implique (tenir compte de ses heures, les noter, totaliser) va facilement annuler l’argent gagné en temps perdu (à nouveau, à moins d’avoir un salaire horaire “ridiculement élevé”)

Une autre chose que je ne fais pas est la formation en différé (répondre par e-mail à des questions d’un client, noter les heures, facturer). Par rapport au temps investi, je trouve moins efficace, plus ennuyeux, et ça revient pas moins cher au client.

Que l’on soit clair: cela ne veut pas dire que je n’offre pas de service de support ou de formation par intermittence à distance. Mais un tel mandat devrait reposer sur un forfait mensuel, par exemple. On me paie tant par mois, et je suis à votre disposition pour “dépannages” ponctuels, quand vous en avez besoin (avec une clause ou deux pour éviter les abus).

Après, le tout est de se mettre d’accord sur une somme où aussi bien moi que le client nous nous y retrouvons… Parce qu’un tarif, au fond, c’est ça: une somme assez importante pour ce que ça vaille la peine pour moi de faire le travail, et assez modeste pour que le client soit content de s’en séparer pour avoir ce que je vais lui offrir.

Office vs. Errand Days [en]

[fr] Ma solution pour rester un peu en contrôle de mon agenda: bloquer des journées entières de travail au bureau sans rendez-vous, et concentrer tout ce qui implique sorties, courses, cours, meetings, rencontres sur d'autres journées. Etre ferme, avec soi-même tout d'abord.

These last weeks have been pretty hectic. Large amounts of stress (work and personal), slipping deadlines, contemplation of possible big changes ahead… I had the feeling that I was spending each of my days running around and not having the time to do any of all the hyper-urgent things I needed to deal with.

Now things are much calmer. I caught up with my deadlines (boy, were they running away fast!) and am much more relaxed. So, of course, it’s easy to figure out solutions that make things better and talk about them when things are better but… who knows, maybe these solutions did actually help me 😉

Actually, “this solution”: concentrate meetings and errands on given days. Book whole days in the office. Be firm with yourself. I actually put huge “booked!” meetings in my calendar. And I don’t make exceptions. Because when you start making exceptions, even with very good reasons, it’s the beginning of the end — and before long your whole week is just riddled with appointments and meetings, like a piece of old Emmental cheese.

To Be or Not to Be a New Media Strategist [en]

For years now (since I became self-employed, and maybe even before) I’ve been struggling to define myself and what I do. There are two main components to this problem, as I see it:

  • working in a fast-moving, cutting-edge field, where I’m creating my job and job description as I go along, and boldly going where none have gone before (haha)
  • inside that field, having a bit of a “generalist specialist” profile, which means that I do tons of different things which don’t always seem to go together (talk about teenager/education issues online; give strategic advice to startups; install blogs and teach people how to use them; etc)

Now, along my freelancing career, I’ve called myself a bunch of things (non-exhaustive list following):

  • blogging consultant
  • social sofware consultant
  • social media consultant
  • web consultant and commentator
  • 2.0 consultant

More recently, I more or less dropped the whole title thing, going for taglines like “I help you understand the internet better” and even giving up almost entirely before Lift09 and having “Online Person” written on my badge.

So, again: part of the problem is me (and my issues with defining myself) and another is the field in which I am. High tech and social media is a bubbly field. An expression is hot one day and cold the other. Hot in some circles, passé in others.

Take “blogging consultant”: when I started out, there were hardly any blogging consultants around. A year or so later, everybody and his dog who knew how to set up WordPress suddenly started calling themselves that. I remember talking to a friend some years ago: his company had hired a “blogging consultant” and we were both appalled at the kind of advice he was giving and things he was doing.

So at some point, to distance myself from such people (newcomers clearly more intent in blinding their clients with buzzwords), I stopped calling myself a “blogging consultant”.

Basically, it’s been more or less the same problem for all the titles I’ve tried to wear (like clothes).

Now, back to my own issue: the trouble I have explaining and defining what I do. I had a breakthrough conversation with Florian Egger at the Lift09 party (despite the dreadfully loud music during what was supposed to be a “networking lounge” time slot).

Here’s the image I like to use to explain this breakthrough: what I do could be represented by a tree. There are many branches and leaves, and a trunk. Until then, when I was asked what I did, I would talk about the leaves and the branches, but I never managed to pinpoint what the trunk was. It left an impression that what I was doing was ill-defined, scattered.

I have now understood that the trunk of what I do is new media-related strategic consulting, thanks to Florian who made me go through example after example of what I did, concluding each one with “well, that’s strategy too, if you think of it” — and I’d go “no, it’s not strategy… oh, actually, yes, I see what you mean… it is!”

So, that would make me a New Media Strategist. It sounds nice. And it fits. You know, like when you finally find a pair of trousers that seems to have been stitched for you?

And clearly, being able to say “I do strategic consulting” sounds way better than “well, I know a helluvalot of a stuff about the internet, and all this so-called web2.0 stuff, and I’m really good at explaining it and helping people and companies figure out what the hell they’re going to do with it, and how they can use it, and why it’s interesting for them, and I can give talks, do training, help set blogs up, promote stuff online, coach people on more or less anything social-media related, oh, and give advice, of course, people keep coming to me for advice, you know, and a whole lot of other things…”

See what I mean?

I also realised that until then, the services that I had advertised were my “side-services” — my branches. In a way, I’ve always tried to do the strategic/advisory stuff undercover. Not very satisfying!

So now, the question this post is leading to: is “New Media Strategist” already old and loaded? What does it sound like? Is “everybody” calling themselves that nowadays? (I hope I don’t come across as pretentious because I consider I have a tad more expertise on the subject than newcomers in the field who have been blogging for 18 months and tweeting for 6…)

One could argue that titles don’t mean much, specially in today’s hypernetworked world, where connections are the most important thing in life (aside from drinking water… and even that could be subject to debate). Reputation, that’s what counts.

I disagree. I may be well-known and respected amongst my peers, but given the nature of my job, my clients are usually outside (even very far outside) the social media bubble. A title of some sort gives people a starting-point to figure you out.

“Social Media Consultant”, in my opinion, is dead from overuse and abuse. “New Media Strategist” seems better to me (because I “came up” with it during that discussion — of course I’d probably heard or seen it somewhere before, but it didn’t sound like something that is being thrown all over the place on Twitter et al these days). Or “Social Media Strategist”? What about “Social Media” itself… does that sound too much like an empty buzzword today (just like “Web 2.0”, which I never liked and honestly, was a media/marketing buzzword from the start). And then, for me, is the added issue of translating things in French. “New Media Strategist” doesn’t translate well — neither does “Social Media”, actually.

Lots of questions, as you can see.

Do you have trouble defining what you do? What do you put on your business card? What do you do? I’d love to exchange stories. And, of course, hear what you think about “New Media Strategist” — as a title in general, and to describe me… if you know me, of course. 🙂

Lift09: Turning Lake Leman into Silicon Valley? [en]

I participated in a Birds of a Feather session earlier, titled How can we make Lac Léman into an entrepreneurial hub? — I found it a little frustrating to start with, but it ended up really lively and interesting.

One issue that I’d like to insist upon is the cultural component of the problem. It’s easy to dismiss it as irrelevant, but I think it’s a mistake, because culture is the constraint within which we work. I’d like to share a few thoughts on the cultural differences between the US and Switzerland. I’m not a sociologist, so maybe they’re a bit naive, but I think they make sense and we should pay attention to them.

Not to say that all is impossible “because of culture”, but I do believe that there are cultural reasons this area is not “another Silicon Valley”. I don’t mean that it cannot become a good place for entrepreneurs. I hope it can, but if it can, it will be in a rather different way than the US, and taking into account the cultural differences between the two areas.

Let’s look at the heritage of Switzerland and the US.

Switzerland is over 900 years old as a nation, and the people living in these areas have been occupying them for a looong time. (There’s immigration, of course, proof typing these letters, but our culture has not been shaped by it in the distant past.) We are stable here. We don’t move. We are the decendants of farmers and mercenaries, and people who decided to “go alone” (Schwytz, Uri, Unterwald in 1291) besides the big political powers of the time. Face it, we’re a bit better than our neighbours and we don’t really need anybody.

The USA, on the other hand, is a young nation, founded by adventurers or pilgrims who set off to cross the bloody Atlantic to settle on a new continent peopled by savages (that’s how they must have seen things at the time). Many would die. It was risky. It was the land for innovators, for those who were not afraid of new things, who would try to do things differently. Dream a dream and make it come true.

These are (part of) our cultural backgrounds. Now, you can go against the grain, there are exceptions, but to some extent, we are prisoners of our culture, or at least, we must work within it.

I think that this historical and cultural heritage can help explain why the US is often branded as “entrepreneur-friendly” (what is new is better, and innovators and risk-takers are the kings) whereas in Switzerland, we are seen as more risk-averse. As we say in French, we tend to want to chop off the heads that stand out from the crowd. Don’t draw attention to yourself. I think the Swiss are less naturally inclined towards self-promotion, for example.

Now, these are cultural trends. An atmosphere. It doesn’t mean you won’t find risk-averse Americans, or extraordinary Swiss entrepreneurs. But I think these cultural traits end up being reflected in our institutions.

For example, during the session, Lucie mentioned how many administrative hurdles an entrepreneur needed to go through here to even get *close* to receiving money.

Another thing that came up which rings very true to me is that in Switzerland, we are really very comfortable. And as employees, particularly. Things like a mere two-week notice (what seems current in the US) would be unthinkable here (you get a month when you start, and it goes up to two and even three months after a few years of employment for the same company). We have incredibly good unemployment benefits (over a year at 80% of your last salary).

Now, I would not dare suggest we give up the security we have here in Switzerland. No way! But we have to take this into account when analysing the situation. If we want to improve things for entrepreneurs here, we need to identify the problem and offer solutions to it. And those solutions need to take into account things that we cannot change, like cultural settings.

So, what can we do?

It was pointed out during the session that there are lots of local initiatives to encourage entrepreneurs, but they tend to be stuck in silos. An index of all the “happenings” here would be a good start. It was also suggested to bring Venture to Suisse Romande on the years it’s not happening in Suisse Allemande.

Discussion participants wrote ideas down on a big sheet of paper at the end of the session, and Vittorio said he’s make something available from the discussion page on the Lift conference website. Keep an eye on there. Things are going to happen.

From Airport to Airport [en]

[fr] Me voici à nouveau dans un aéroport. Celui de Bruxelles, pour être précise. Je n'avais jamais mis les pieds à Bruxelles. Et là, après une visite éclair de 24 heures à peine, je peux mettre un drapeau dans la carte, mais je ne peux pas dire que j'aie vu grand chose de la ville.

Ainsi va ma vie de voyages, enviable et excitante vue depuis le monde stable du sédentaire, mais qui comporte son lot de frustrations. J'ai dû accepter il y a un peu plus d'une année que mon insistance à rajouter 3-4 jours à chaque voyage pour "visiter" générait une quantité de stress que je n'avais pas à m'imposer.

Oui, diront certains, quel gâchis d'avoir la chance de mettre pied dans toutes ces villes, mais de ne pas même prendre le temps de faire un peu de tourisme!

Le tourisme, ça nous relaxe et nous plaît précisément parce que l'on ne le fait pas tous les jours. Une ville étrangère, c'est exotique quand on en visite une ou deux par an. Quand elles s'empilent les unes sur les autres, eh bien, comme avec tout, la routine s'installe.

Mais si je me lamente un peu, ce n'est pas tant que ma vie me déplaît -- au contraire, je préfère mille fois mieux "trop voyager" que me lever avant 7h chaque matin -- mais plus en réaction à l'incompréhension un peu systématique (mais bien pardonnable) des personnes qui peinent à voir en quoi tous ces voyages peuvent bien être pénibles.

Alors, aéroport, aéroport. Encore une ville où j'ai mis les pieds sans l'avoir vue. Une journée de travail fatiguante mais sympa et efficace, avec un chouette projet. Retour tard à la maison. Je vais tenter de profiter un peu de mon week-end, toutefois!

Airports all look the same. Well, not quite the same, but similar. All the excitement of being in one has long since disappeared. They’ve become tame and familiar, just like the airplanes that buzz in and out of them.

Another plane, another airport, another city. This was my first time in Brussels. barely 24 hours on Belgium soil. I’m starting to get used to this kind of trip. In, business, out. A bit over a year ago, I realized that all this traveling was stressful (though it may sound glamourous to some) and that if I wanted to spare myself a little, I had to stop insisting on tacking along extra days to each travel opportunity to “visit”. So, in, business, out.

This is what my life looks like at times. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I had a very good day (nice people, good business, fun project), the trip was rather painless (plane coming here 30 minutes late, searched at security), and I’m not unhappy or particularly travel-weary. And I know that compared to others, the amount of traveling I do in a year is a week-end trip to the mountains.

I’m just taking a step back and looking at my life. I wonder what my past self of a few years back would say, had I known. I never imagined this for me. This wasn’t part of the plan — but that’s what I have, and to be honest, I’m quite happy with it. I’d rather travel a bit too much than have to get up before 7am every morning. As downsides of the job go, this isn’t too bad.

I think that what frustrates me is that people who don’t travel much for work tend to assume that my traveling is as exciting as their traveling. “Oh, how exciting, you travel all the time and get to visit all these foreign cities!” In truth, as anybody who travels “too much” knows, traveling is exciting precisely because you don’t do it often. Visiting a foreign city is a great adventure when you do it once or twice a year. When it’s your seventh or eighth in a row, you’re sick of visiting and don’t go out to walk around if you don’t feel like it.

So, here is my life of travel (and again, aware that I travel less than many).

Another airport, another city I’ve visited but haven’t seen. A fun but tiring day of work, and a late night home. I’ll try and have a bit of a week-end, though. :-)

Busy Busy Busy [en]

[fr] Ma vie, cette course.

Two whole days is not enough. It’s the first day, and the last day, and nothing in between. Arrival and departure days do not count.

Next time I come up here, I’ll take a longer break.

I haven’t walked much — the weather isn’t really inviting, and my free access card which lets me use public transport freely in the area is not valid in November. December, hopefully, will be more exciting: some snow, maybe. I’ll be back just before Christmas.

I realised that I haven’t uploaded the photographs of my last trip here. To say the truth, I’ve been horribly busy. Way too horribly busy. At times it seems that I spend my months and years saying that: “I’m busy”. Busy, busy, busy. I always have tons of things to do, and if I don’t, I invent more. I long for a few weeks of leisurely time — India is great for that.

Money is an issue. As a freelancer, I can take time off whenever I want, as long as I can afford it. These days, I can’t say it’s really the case. On the other hand, maybe it’s worth examining how much paid work I actually accomplish each week over the month. It might help me get organised better.

It’s always the same problem: busy, busy, busy, I keep “working” but a lot of it is not directly earning me anything. And often this “work” is not very visible (read Suw’s great article on the nature of work in a knowledge economy), which leaves me with a sense of frustration at the end of it all.

Learning to Have an Office [en]

[fr] C'est étrange pour moi d'avoir un "bureau", maintenant que l'ECLAU est en fonction. Mon salon est à moitié vide maintenant que j'ai descendu de deux étages bureau et étagères, et j'avoue avoir un peu de peine à trouver mes marques (le chat également). Je suis par contre ravie de l'esprit qui règne déjà dans l'espace coworking. On est une chouette équipe et je me réjouis de voir qui va venir s'y adjoindre!

With the opening of the coworking space in the basement of my building, I am now learning to live with an office.

Eclau 5 - settling down even more

This first week has of course involved a lot of settling down, but already, I have a few comments to make.

I didn’t imagine how disruptive it would be for me to have all this “extra space”. I’m the person renting the space downstairs, so in a way it’s “mine” (even if it’s shared — I have the lease, and provide a service to the other people who use the space). So, all of a sudden, instead of “having” a flat (“having” because in Switzerland, you rent, you don’t buy — unless you’re settling down for life), I “have” a flat and this space downstairs which is actually bigger than my flat, and which a bunch of other people will be using too.

I like that bit. I like the idea of creating a space where people are welcome to hang out and drop in and work regularly. I brought a whole bunch of my books downstairs (many of them my “recommended reading”) and I’m really excited to be able to share it with the other coworkers like that. Somebody bought biscuits and fruit juices, so we’re starting to have a little stock of shared snacks — all this will be a bit more organised later on, but the spirit is right.

Moving away from the “coworking” bit, what is changing for me now that I have an “office”?

  • my flat is in chaos, as I have emptied half my living-room (desk and bookcase) and swapped the old drawers in my room for a newer set (most of the furniture for the space actually comes from my Dad’s house, which he has emptied to rent out)
  • I’m working at a desk now most of the time, rather than sitting on a mattress as I am now
  • I like having a desk, but I miss the mattress/floor moments. I have half a mind to set up something similar downstairs — maybe move the couches and create some “ground space” in the corner near the windows?
  • I spend my day in a room with people, rather than alone. Even though we work independantly, that’s a lot of interaction for me compared to my “usual” days. I realise I’ve become quite a recluse.
  • neither Bagha nor I have really found our balance — he comes downstairs with me and has adopted the sofa, but I realise he needs to spend time in the flat (which is “his home”), and by extension, I realise it’s the same for me
  • I think having a separate working place is going to help me “not work” — and like now, feel relaxed enough to blog or do “other stuff” online (or even offline!!) in the evenings
  • I’m eating at more “normal” hours — because I see other people go off or unpack their picnics at noon, and so I go and eat shortly after too

I’m looking forward to seeing how things evolve during the next weeks. I’m off to the mountains tomorrow, all the more because I’ve been on the verge of cancelling all week (too much to do!), which really shows how much I need a break. I’ll be back on Thursday.

Let's Buddy Work! [en]

[fr] Un bon truc quand on n'avance pas dans son travail: trouver quelqu'un (souvent en ligne) avec qui travailler en tandem. "Bon, alors moi, je vais écrire cet e-mail pendant que toi tu lis ce rapport, et on se retrouve dans 30 minutes pour se donner des nouvelles." Un moyen de s'encourager et de se soutenir mutuellement -- souvent, en aidant l'autre à déterminer quelle est sa prochaine tâche, à charge de revanche.

More than once, buddy working has saved my day. I think Suw came up with the term and the idea — though I’m sure there are many other people using this kind of technique. Suw’s the person I’ve done it most with, but not the only one. I’ve done it with Delphine a couple of times, and with a few other people.

How does it work? Basically, take two people who are faffing away or procrastinating through the day. Put them in touch through IM. Each helps/supports the other in figuring out a task to accomplish (15-30 minutes). Both go off and do their task, and come back into the chat to report on progress!

One of the first times I remember doing this was not for work, actually, but for something like washing the dishes. It’s a simple trick, and it works offline too. It gives you a little nudge to do things and is encouraging when you have somebody to share it with.

Do you do this? Do you have similar tricks to share? I’d love to hear about it!