A number of Hired Guns are presenting at SXSW Interactive this year. This series profiles a few of the proud and the brave. Please tweet and like this story so as a community we can build a little buzz for them.
Career Longevity: Build Your Brand The Rockstar Way
Hashtag: #SXSWGuns
Tuesday, March 15, 5:00
Presenter: Allison Hemming
Your Twesume
(your resume in 140 characters or less):
Talent agent to the digerati. Believes career management should be owned by the person and not the company. Will help you get there.
What inspired you to submit this idea?
People compare their careers to that of rockstars all the time. Why not look at the underlying traits that turned artists from struggling musicians into icons?
Why are you the expert on it?
I’m no music expert–the people at SXSW Music are–but I am a true music fan and an expert in career management. (I once quit a plum investment-banking job to launch a music magazine for women). I’ve now coached thousands of people and have a pretty specific take around the future of work.
Why did you want to speak at SXSW?
Lately, I’ve been obsessed with career longevity. Most people will have at least ten jobs between when they graduate and retire–and that’s probably a lot less than the amount of job change that will really happen in the next 30 years.
With every change, there is the risk that a career will permanently go off track–I see it all the time. I wanted to comingle the traits of the rockstars we know and love (and sometimes love to hate) and mash it up with some aspects of career sustainability that people in mid-career may not have considered before. That and I get to have a DJ (Nicholas Butterworth of Diversion media) to make the session very interactive.
Who should come to your talk?
I’m doing a core conversation, which means I do some of the talking, but that it will be highly participatory. It’s on the last day of SXSW Interactive, so people will be exhausted from gobbling up great information My session is meant to bridge personal introspection and fun (a key element of any successful career, by the way)–all fueled by some head-banging classic rock.
What will people walk away learning from you?
“You’re a rockstar” is about as common a phrase as “I’m a winner” these days. People say it about themselves and each other without getting at the underlying meaning. Musicians transport people with their music, their performances, and their ideas. Some rockstars are amazing collaborators who feed off of others and end up elevating their own work. Others are brave re-inventors–when the world is telling them they’re history, they say … not quite yet.
I want to examine and help the people who aspire to be rockstars in their own careers. What traits do you have that make you more like Jay-Z than Thom Yorke? — we’ll get at that.
What do you hope you learn from your SXSW experience?
To let go…
