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Net Positive for Success |
I recently had a convo on Slack with a friend over her sense of self-doubt with her new project. She had left one of tech's biggest companies to explore something closer to home and that aligned with her passions. Naturally, the idea of starting something new usually carries with it some self-doubt. But the success of anything is an aggregation of various outcomes and happens over an indeterminate period indeterminate period of time. It really comes down to your ability to adapt, incorporate good ideas and reject bad ones, and execute.
If things start slow, it doesn't mean they can't pick up once you figure stuff out. On the flip side, we've seen many instances where something shoots out of the gates, only to fizzle out because of a lack of preparation or mismanagement of challenges. We will all make mistakes, big and small, over the course of our lives and careers. The goal is to make sure you net out positive.
Rarely do businesses succeed or fail over one particular event, it's just that's what makes the headlines.
- Eugene |
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The Analysis |
A Creative's Dilemma: To Declare Multi-Hyphenate or Not? |
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Now that our side-hustle(s) have gone full-time, what meaning does “multi-hyphenate” have for creative careers? We look at how several titles could indicate both an interest in building a career in a lot of things or the need to cling to several lifelines at once.
Moving away from specialization
In her article for The Outline, Nikki Shaner-Bradford summarizes the transition away from assembly line-style specialization (“Fordism,” in honor of Henry Ford) as aligning with our transition towards an economy based around knowledge, information and the production of content.
As to whether being a multi-hyphenate is a good or bad thing, let’s look at some possibilities as to what the term implies:
- Specificity: By including fields that capture the scope of your capability and expertise, being a multi-hyphenate provides another branding differentiator that can help prospective clients immediately understand the breadth of your skills. In an era that emphasizes the personal brand, embracing being a multi-hyphenate communicates exactly what you’re good at and who you are — a three-word resume for the 280-character world.
- Survival: The flipside is that, depending on who sees the title, being a multi-hyphenate could be seen as both an outcome and symptom of the gig economy, one where people need multiple side hustles to make ends meet. In this case, the forward-facing image of an assured multi-hyphenate rests on an undeclared base of useful and interconnected talents, but which are all rigidly aligned towards getting paid work.
- Ownership: Where you’re able to make a living from your talents and assuming your strike that much sought-after work-life rhythm, the best case scenario for a multi-hyphenate creative is being able to make enough money from something you love without burning out.
- Insecurity: Because there are just so many “full stack creatives” (remember that word?) the catchall multi-hyphenate identity may be a means of compensating for the fact that when we all do largely the same type of work, we might not have a particularly unique selling point.
As Shaner-Bradford puts it: “The rise of the “multi-hyphenate” has ironically eliminated the need for any specificity at all, instead implying a complex creative identity grounded in a jack-of-all trades ideal that conflates production potential with individual worth.”
For more on how "multi-hyphenates" fit into the broader cultural picture, check out the rest of the Analysis on our website!
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From the Archives
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Evergreen stories from MAEKAN's archives.
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Community Spotlight — Yannick Hits Cuba
An important part of travel involves immersing yourself in a foreign culture, which can sometimes lead to uncomfortable, challenging situations. In Yannick Louis-Fernand’s case, navigating through a technologically backward country allowed him to enjoy otherwise fleeting tech-free moments such as understanding the culture around fine Cuban cigars, discovering a burgeoning art scene that blends local and occidental culture, and having genuine, unexpected conversations with locals.
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For Your A-10-Tion |
The best links from across the Internet. |
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