Dogged determination

I've come to believe that dogged determination is a useful attribute for the portfolio careerist. With multiple roles, tasks, projects and responsibilities to juggle - you really have to want to get stuff done! This will appeal to some personality types more than others I'm sure.

A new addition to my office is a large whiteboard to help me keep track of projects and make sure they don't drift. Part of what I'm paid to do, with my various portfolio career hats on, is keep projects moving along. I get positive feedback from clients who say they are grateful for a bit of gentle goading! The 'completer-finisher' in me gives me the drive to keep an eye on projects and make sure they stay on track.

A civil service friend first introduced me to the term 'completer-finisher' several years ago after he had been dabbling with understanding Belbin's Team Roles. With this sort of thing, I always point-blank refuse to be pigeon-holed into one type or another (probably another reason why I have a portfolio career!) but I do recognise myself in some types more than others.

Which type are you?

Picture credit: David Horder

Social Media for portfolio careers

Social media - potentially a tricky one for portfolio careerists as we have multiple career identities. How do you present a coherent social media presence when you have fingers in lots of pies?

This is a challenge that I've attacked from several angles. I have my personal Twitter account which I use to follow and interact with friends and tweeters that cover a broad range of my personal and professional interests. I have two further shared accounts associated with my comms agency and my community interest company on both Twitter and Facebook. I also have a personal Facebook account linked to my personal Twitter account (which is just lazy social media) and is the account I reserve mainly for sharing pointless pictures of me and our dog or arranging meet ups with actual, real live friends.

So does this approach work? Well, the answer is, it works well enough for me for now. I get leads through the specific business-focused accounts and I make and maintain connections with lots of interesting people through the others. I know there is untapped potential in accounts that don't have professional social media communications staff helping me look after. I have interacted with and built working relationships with clients I would never have met if it weren't for having a social media presence.

My comms agency helps clients set up and in some cases manage social media profiles. Some sectors are more suited to it than others. Business to business profiles can be hugely successful and it has massive potential when appropriately resourced. On a personal level I loathed the whole idea of social media when it was new but I have seen it in action for both political and commercial purposes with impressive results. It is at the same time self-promoting, narcissistic, empowering, liberating, philanthropic, capitalistic, inane and profound. It can and should be whatever individuals and organisations choose it to be - and for portfolio careerists, that may well be several things at once!

Photo attribution: With thanks to Thos Ballantyne

Is part-time bad?

I read an article this week scaremongering that the recession was leading to an increase in part-time workers and that this was somehow a bad thing. Sure, employers creating new full-time jobs would be good for the economy but is it really so terrible that in being cautious about committing to full-time posts they end up helping people create portfolio careers instead?

The days when part-time work only meant low-paid, low-skilled jobs for students, immigrants and bored housewives are over. We're now in the era of the professional part-timer and professional portfolio careerist. Projects I'm working on currently, for clients I'm proud to be working for, employ highly skilled professionals on fractional contracts - and why not?

My portfolio career happens to currently include some elements of part-time employed lecturing work. I do this alongside consultancy work and running my own business. I don't do the teaching for the money, I do it because it's important to me. I wouldn't actually want to do it full time so it's ideal and I get to use a wide variety of skills across my portfolio that it would be challenging to combine in a single role.

It's time to forget the stigma associated with part-time work and make the most of our capacity to develop lots of skills in lots of areas and use them well.