The Quarantined Independent & Improv Consulting

The Yes! And... Papers

As many of you know I've been writing a book over the past 18-months or so: The Strategic Independent - theory and practice for independent consultants.

Pre-pandemic I started a new chapter in the book that I was affectionately calling the Yes! And... papers. It's a series of writings around the idea of improv acting and how it relates to consulting work:

1. Chapter 1 - How to be effective in the theatre of work
2. Chapter 2 - Optimism as an operating system
3. Chapter 3 - Blocking and unblocking clients

I hope you'll queue them up and read them - I think they're some of my best writing (and I was lucky enough to have chapter 1 at the top of Hacker News for a few days - which is where a lot of my new subscribers came from! hi! 👋).

There are two more chapters in this series waiting to be finished - but I've been interrupted twice now. Firstly by the birth of my son in December (hello Indigo! 👶) and then by a global pandemic.... Which leads me to:
 

Consulting "After Peacetime"

I put my Yes! And... papers on hold and... for a while didn't write anything. Until I realized that the mission for my writing about strategy consulting work for independents is to help independents in their consulting work. And indies are suffering right now.

So - I dusted off a new blogchain and fired up some faster, looser, more urgent writing around consulting through these weird times. The Quarantined Independent - so far there are 4 posts:

1. Introducing the Quarantined Independent blogchain
2. After Peacetime
3. Collective Narratives & Sensemaking in Uncertainty
4. The challenges of remote consulting (⚡ this one is the most interesting I think...)

These posts are questions more than answers - it's me feeling my way through ~all this~ and trying to navigate it somehow gracefully. I hope this writing helps - and I welcome comments, feedback and ideas.
 

Domestic Cozy Blogging

I've realized that I've become quite the crazy person. Blogging has become a core part of my identity - and fiddling with my blog has become a hobby and long-term interest for me. This.... will likely be no surprise to those of you who are close to me but it took me a while to realize.

When the pandemic started - I retreated into the domestic cozy world of fiddling with my blog and doing some internet trickery (honestly what I do is not coding, I prefer the word trickery). Some things:

• A proposal for a library.json bookshelf format for bloggers (📚this one was very widely shared - watch out for the followup soon!)
• New blogging 3: Blog Patterns (where I install site search on Jekyll and reformat how side notes work)
• Tiddlyblink on Glitch (know about Tiddlywiki? even though it's 15 years old it might end up out-pacing Roam! lots of fun experimentation here right now)

Oh - and there's a totally top secret new project I've been working on specifically for bloggers. Want early access? Ping me.
 

Public Work

I'm usually pretty cagey about the clients I work with - high level strategic work helping clients build new capabilities is often slightly uncomfortable for the client and I tend to bias towards being discreet. I don't have case studies on my website for example.

But recently I've had two client projects bleed out into public (is this a consequence of the pandemic? unclear) so I thought I'd share:

1. I'm working with HomeAdvisor on a strategic re-factoring and re-investment in SEO & content. As part of that I'm leading recruitment for a VP SEO based in Denver/NYC. I wrote up why it's so challenging to hire a VP-level SEO over on LinkedIn.
2. I'm working with Google's Area 120 team on a new project called Keen, advising on product strategy and growth - it's an early product aimed at helping you expand your interests. Think of it like are.na with a personalized recommendation feed for every channel. I wrote up how I'm using it to follow some blogging trends.

Attaching my personal identity to consulting work in public is an odd experience, and likely one I'll blog about at some point but both projects made sense to blur the boundaries so here we are. Hope it gives a peek into my consulting work.

Music

I've been finding solace in these uncertain and often confusing and stressful times in some lovely (new to me) African music. Some favourites:

Nomalanga - Caiphus Semenya
Not yet Uhuru - Letta Mbulu

And - this live song from Valerie June is very life affirming.

I hope they can bring you a small amount of hope in these times.

--

Forgive the lengthy email - it's been too long. I'm going to get back on a roughly ~monthly schedule going forward.

Be well, stay safe, look after each other.

Write back? How are you?

Much love,
Tom