5.1 million people in the UK. According to Judith Woods from the Telegraph thats how many people are choosing to work part time. After you have read the article – please read some of the comments. It gives you a flavour of how different people see this way of working. Some seem to think you only have to have one PT job or project. Lets think wider. If we can have Big Society surely we can all have Big Minds?

I am consistently surprised and delighted by the range of metaphors that appear from members of our portfolio careers linkedin group. And maybe I am going slightly mad after yet another day of continuous rain in the UK but this fantastic Ted video comes via last week’s TEDxSummit which gathered 700 organizers from 120 countries in Doha, Qatar, with the aim of activating Ideas Worth Doing. Although the event lasted an entire week, the most visually inventive idea to emerge from it was already complete by the time it began.

Amsterdam-based agency WE ARE Pi, which previously collaborated with TED on the human brain project last fall, joined forces with the Koerner Union and Paris’ BIG Productions to create a mesmerizing introduction video for TEDxSummit: a live-action kaleidoscope made of human arabesques.

When I think of why I love having a portfolio career its because it constantly changes shape, direction, involves increasing networks of people, is sometimes overwhelming but in the final analysis has a beauty of its own. See what you think – or maybe I am just rained out!

is the title of a fascinating book by Matt Emerzian who has an amazing life story which led him to write the book and then create a US nationwide educational and corporate campaign to get people to feel passionate about something. There is a great article in Fast Company which describes this well. One of the thoughts that I had was that I always wanted never to experience the despair of ‘mondays’ which is why I always left a job when I was not excited about doing it any more and then of course discovered a portfolio career makes it even less likely that black mondays will ever appear.

Eric Ries developed this system for analysing the real cause behind what seems to to be a technical problem. The video is of him explaining this but this technique seemed to me to be too powerful just to analyse technical problems. It works to analyse your career goals, your dreams and ambitions, a relationship issue – in fact just about anything. Mine your issue with this seemingly simple technique.

Katie recently was invited to do a TED talk here in the UK and not surprisingly talked about portfolio careers. She focused especially on a point that we both now emphasise all the time when discussing the future of work and new patterns of careers. Namely, that already it makes less sense to talk about what job you might want next – with all of the baggage that comes with that – but that instead to focus on what project or indeed projects that excites you. One of these might take an afternoon, a month or even several years and you will stay with it so long as it remains a vehicle for using your skills and engaging your passions. When it doesn’t you will search for your next project. Katie of course was a bit shy about posting  this excellent talk but I am not renowned for my shyness in regard to myself or for  those whom I rate enormously. Note the nifty use of the iPad instead of notes. I of course will be trying this out in my next presentation next month.

This is the title of an article summarised in the BPS Research Digest Blogging on Brain and Behaviour.

It could have significant implications for portfolio workers. We are often searching for new work, new clients, new income sources. This research suggests that this could lead to a preoccupation with linking hours to amount of pay. As one of the reasons that portfolio workers give for why they do what they do is that they have a better blended work/ life scenario this may serve as a warning that we really need to focus on this so that we do not lose one of the big pluses of our career life style.

I can’t say that this is something that impacts me – so far as I know. It would be interesting to find out if others think that this is an issue for them.

An interesting article in the London Evening Standard recently highlights a new agency set up by women for women who are looking for part time work. Women Like Us is not just a recruitment operation for would be part time female workers but focuses on helping employers ” who value talent more than round-the-clock availability. Who know that part time candidates give back in commitment what they get in flexibility. And who understand the importance of keeping expertise in the workforce”.

When entrepreneurs spot a niche you know that something significant is happening. The ONS, CIPD and many of the Unions all seem to combine to put down part time work as the inferior choice to full time jobs. They fail to see how many more people – especially the Gen Y’s and the 60+ – are redefining what they want from work and life. There is also much discussion about metro males in their 30’s and 40’s making key decisions to the effect that ” work alone does not define life in the way it once did. As people talk about portfolio careers, they now have portfolio lives of which work is an important part, but by no means the only part. They want to spend time with their families – and they may well want their work to be creative or reflect their interests. Some men now want to have it all.”

Many of these people then discover that rather than reverting to another full time job if they have the time they rather like the idea of having more than one part time job. And so the future of work continues to be redesigned by those people who are redesigning not just their own careers but the very nature of what a career is. Part time work is not just for women.

A long running joke between Katie and me has been that as an ex-tv journalist and newsreader she has always had the most professional looking photos of herself available – and still does. I have made do with some pics that my wife took in our dining room at no cost whatsoever. The difference in quality I have to admit is ‘just’ discernible. Just before Xmas I saw a Group On deal offering me a ‘boudoir experience’ including a makeover and a glass of bubbly for £19 at Mark Swinford’s studio in Horsforth, Leeds. This would get me one photo – which I reckoned was all I needed.

I finally got around to arranging these a couple of weeks ago. You will not be surprised that I did not take up the ‘boudoir experience” nor indeed was I offered it when I got there! If you are not sure what such an experience is – google it. You will quickly get the idea!

From the hundred or so pics that Mark took he put about 3o online and after much deliberation (after all my photos last for years – I could be dead before I arrange for another sitting) I got down to 3 and extravagantly therefore have bought 2 along with my ‘free’ one. Alongside this learning experience for me I came across a great blog posting from our guest blogger Jennifer Holloway, who was railing on about strange people who do not put a photo up on Linkedin and other social media. I had not thought about this before but whenever I see a blank where a photo should be or even more weird – a little cartoon or pen drawing – I have totally stopped reading about the person and instead am wondering why she/he has refused to let us see what they look like. I find it very distracting and absolutely I think it gets in the way of your personal brand. As portfolio workers we need to convey what we are about quickly and clearly. Refusing to show your face stops that in its tracks.

Coincidently, today, Fast Company has an amusing article all about what to do and not to do about using photos to project your brand. The writer here also abhors the facial no-shows. And he gives a number of tips to help your face and image become more memorable – no – not another boudoir experience!

You can see the one that I have put up on Linkedin and Twitter today. I shall expose the other 2 in my next postings. What I have to do to promote portfolio careers!

I  just loved a letter to the Financial Times from Jim Sanders in the US in which he states that “Concepts such as portfolio careers, artfully deconstructed jeans, deconstructed jackets, retro T-shirts and male moisturisers hint at a new atmosphere of muddle”.

To my knowledge I don’t own anything ‘deconstructed’ other than possibly a cat. Of course, I refuse to make any comment re. male moisturisers! But, humour aside, the quotation does embody beautifully the difference between what we all thought was ‘certain’ and ‘normal’ in the last century and the unpredictability and to some people the craziness of what is happening around us now. We know that not everyone enjoys ‘muddle’ but speaking personally what I love about having a portfolio career is the fact that I do not know what might happen next but I do know that tomorrow or perhaps next year is likely to be quite different from today. Muddling sounds good to me….

Interesting blog posting which spells out the variety of roles for which musicians could get paid. Wouldn’t it be good to take careers outside of the music world and to plot the possible different roles in one’s portfolio bag? Any suggestions? Good one this for a possible discussion on our portfolio careers linked in group.