August 25th, 2008
The Ticket Off the Work-Watch-Spend Treadmill
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I stumbled upon Hugh McLeod’s paean to the Global Microbrand from October ‘05 via his recent post on the super-cool Digital Nomads blog by Dell –
A Global Microbrand is a small, tiny brand, that “sells” all over the world.
With the internet, of course, a global microbrand is easier to create than ever before… And with the advent of blogs this was no longer just limited to people who made products. We saw that any service professional with a bit of talent and something to say could spread their message far and wide beyond their immediate client base and local market, without needing a high-profile name or the goodwill of the mainstream media… But it’s not just limited to cottage industries. The great Tom Peters talks about “Brand You”, a personal brand that transcends your organisation or job description.
(After) I created my own fledgling global microbrand (i.e. via this weblog), I now live in a small cottage in the English boonies, and careerwise I’m getting a lot more done than when I lived in a large apartment in New York or London, for a fifth of the overheads. For one fiftieth of the stress levels.
I was talking to a friend on the phone about this yesterday. “There’s only two ways to deal with life in the big city,” he says. “Alcohol and high prices. Immersing yourself in high rent, luxury items, trendy, overpriced cocktail bars, flashy restaurants, tall leggy blondes who don’t give a damn about you, just to act as a buffer zone between you and the abyss.”
It seems to me a lot of people of my generation are locked into this high-priced corporate, urban treadmill. Sure, they get paid a lot, but their overheads are also off the scale. The minute they stop tapdancing as fast as they can is the minute they are crushed under the wheels of commerce. You know what? It’s not sustainable.
However, the Global Microbrand is sustainable. With it you are not beholden to one boss, one company, one customer, one local economy or even one industry. Your brand develops relationships in enough different places to where your permanent address becomes almost irrelevant.
Frankly, it beats the hell out of commuting every morning to the corporate glass box in the big city, something I did for many years. Just so I could make enough money to help me forget that I have to commute every morning to the corporate glass box in the big city.
There are thousands of reasons why people write blogs. But it seems to me the biggest reason that drives the bloggers I read the most is, we’re all looking for our own personal global microbrand. That is the prize. That is the ticket off the treadmill. And I don’t think it’s a bad one to aim for.
In March ‘07, I decided to make my blog into a ticket off the work-watch-spend treadmill. I haven’t become a digital nomad yet (and obviously not a “global microbrand” or “the next marketing guru”), but I have managed to turn my blog into my work for a year, and who knows what will happen next.
As Hugh says, building a personal global microbrand is not a bad prize to aim for when you are writing your blog.
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