Personalisation: part one
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I spent much of the last five or so years of my time at my previous company, a digital advertising agency, debating the relative benefits of personalised ads.
We live in an era of personalisation, certainly when it comes to our digital lives.
The most successful platforms are those that learn what we like and what we don’t like; what gets us excited and what makes us bored; what motivates us and what makes us angry.
The question this raises for me is why personalisation isn’t a ‘thing’ in our work-lives? The vast majority of jobs come not just with a title but a description, outlining the day-to-day expectations and including prescriptive 'previous experience'.
We're also used to understanding 'career progression' linearly, as though there is a single route to career advancement if only you follow the laid out path.
My observations and predictions on the future of office life in FWL#3 provoked several interesting conversations with readers. Some lamented the loss of the positive aspects of the workplace should we see a significant shift towards distributed work; others excited by the prospect of remote-working hubs as innovation centres.
I also referenced a new, positive type of gig worker: in control of their destiny and knowing their true value, they would design a career that offered truly flexible work and maximised their earnings potential (as opposed to compromising it as is too frequently the case now.)
As with the other aspects of work-life design that I’ve discussed during this newsletter’s first month of life, personalisation - or to put it another way, playing to the strengths of the individual - presents opportunities for employers and employees alike. Even more so given the uncertain and unsettling short to medium term effects of Covid-19.
Next week I'll be considering how we can personalise jobs but today I'll look at a couple of interesting macro trends that I anticipate seeing more of over the coming years.
C-Lancing
We tend to think of gig work as the ‘choice’ of low-income workers, but the economic principles behind it are, theoretically positive.
Employers who would be otherwise unable to employ somebody in a permanent role can recruit that talent and expertise on a short-term basis.
Workers have the flexibility to work when and where they want, for multiple companies at once and, in theory, charge a premium.
We’re about to experience one of the worst economic downturns we’ve experienced in decades and with that will inevitably come mass unemployment (sorry for the negative vibes in what’s supposed to be a ‘positive view on the future of work-life but it’s unavoidable).
We must, therefore, be collectively creative with how we allocate human capital to maximise value creation for businesses and people. To that end, gig-work – which is effectively freelancing - is likely to become more commonplace, which if you haven’t inferred from what I’ve said so far, doesn’t necessarily have to be negative.
In particular, one trend that I predict becoming increasing common is that of the freelancing C-Suite – let’s call them C-Lancers.
Before Covid-19, we were already in the midst of rapid change, the rate of which has now multiplied immeasurably. These changes already demanded a level of adaptability and innovation in business leaders. Add to that a need for specialism as market competition increases in the face of the economic downturn.
So arises the need for specialism among senior executives. Take a CMO, for example. Naturally, some CMO’s tend to be stronger at some parts of the job than others. Category creation requires a different skill set than customer acquisition strategy, for example. Why have one CMO who is legendary at one and average at the other? Listen to this podcast with Christopher Lochhead and Mike Maples Jr, who have a fascinating conversation around this theme.
Instead, we could see a world-class category-creating CMO bring that expertise to multiple different companies at once, with one or more CMOs complementing them with other specialist skills. An outcome that would be great for the company and even better for the individuals who can leverage their market value.
Companies like Toptal already exist to match 'top freelance software developers, designers, finance experts, product managers, and project managers' with businesses requiring short-term resource. Expect to see new market entrants using this model and an emerging sub-category for C-Lancers.
The Passion Economy
In 2009 Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired magazine wrote that creators only needed to earn "1000 True Fans"—at $100 per fan, per year—to make a living. The 1,000 fans model illustrated the opportunities the internet offered for creators to monetise their knowledge and creativity.
"To be a successful creator, you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor, you need only thousands of true fans."
There are countless examples of people that have made this model work. My favourite is Ben Thompson of Stratechery, who has evolved his newsletter on technology and business strategy into a primary source of insight and analysis for those working in or in any way interested in the tech industry.
Not only is Thompson a fantastic analyst, but he’s also pioneered a ground-breaking business model and is the embodiment of the idea that you can work from anywhere. While the centre of the industry on which he commentates undoubtedly centred in Silicon Valley, Thompson lives in Taiwan. Does his location affect his ability to write knowledgeably and insightfully about tech? Absolutely not.
The Passion Economy is the next iteration of this idea. As this article by Li Jin - a partner at venture capital firm Andriessen Horowitz - outlines, the passion economy is the natural evolution of customer engagement. It offers creators the chance to develop an even deeper connection with their fans, who are, by extension, also their customers. Instead of charging 1,000 fans £100, why not charge 100 fans £1,000.
For Jin, it means providing differentiated content, community, accountability, and access.
Premium content and community that has no close substitutes
Delivering tangible value and results
Accountability
Access, recognition and status
Platforms like Substack and Twitch can now support people in this pursuit with minimal fixed costs and at relatively little expense, while facilitating a recurring revenue model, providing an alternative to ad-driven models, like YouTube's.
Most of us have something about which we're passionate or knowledgeable - and in many cases, both. The passion economy presents an opportunity to share this with others and get paid for it.
