Consulting? Advising? It's all a scam.

Hey, it's me Tom Critchlow, the #1 fan of the color green. Also an indie consultant and blogger.

Spring is in the air 🌱 Let's get a little spicy 🌶️

I'm giving myself permission to move with more conviction this year. Operating with lightness as my 'ol pal Calvino says. But not lightness like a feather, lightness like an owl. Light, but with sharp claws.

Rapid fire, here's what I've been up to:

Consulting & Advising is a scam (if you do the least)

Consulting can be easy money. Fleecing clients for cheap tricks. Clients have problems, you have powerpoints. It’s easy to flip a few quick slides into a chunk of cash and cackle off into the mountains.

But to really get stuck in….. to embrace the chaos of the daily flows of work - to grapple with and reconcile the messy reality of getting things out into the world and across the finish line. The combination of uncertainty, people, processes and power that exist in every organization. Ah. There’s the real work.

I've got a few open active advisory slots coming up. Read the full post to find out what being an active advisor means.

How to write a good riff

We've talked about riffs before. Well now, we finally have the ancient scrolls of the wise elders to reveal the true secrets of what makes a good riff:

Here's a great example of a riff from my friend Behzod: Me-as-a-service.

And this tweet triggered Emmanual to start blogging again. Job done.

LinkedIn is good actually (or could be)

I'm having a lot of fun moving my Twitter energy over to LinkedIn:

But, actually here's an earnest pitch for how LinkedIn could elevate and evolve their brand:

The world of work is changing.

AI, WFH & layoffs. WTF. The social contract between employers and employees is weakened. In this world of work - people don’t want to engage with a professional network.

Meanwhile, in a world of doomscrolling, algorithmic feeds and fake news - social media is the new tobacco. People don’t want to engage with another social network.

So we need a new script for the world of work. Maybe the future is… LinkedIn?

I think LinkedIn has a unique opportunity - a cultural moment around work, coupled with a unique proposition: real networks and real utility.

What if LinkedIn positioned itself not as a professional network or social network but as a learning network. A personal learning network for every user - centered on their personal development.

In this post I tried to show a little brand positioning thinking - connecting the dots between how the world of work is changing and how social media is changing.

Read the full post: LinkedIn is a Learning Network

C'mon did you really think I didn't rework my website?

A personal website is a worry stone. So of course I redesigned mine again.

My rapper name would be lil' website. Read all about the new site here: a lil' website refresh.

Kids, man

Kids know lightness. Like electrons in your orbit they're always there but also never where you expect them to be. Electric smudges. Waiting for a spark. Fleeting. Fragile. Tiny.

Much love, Tom