Wanted: Portfolio workers over 50

Most of you will be aware that the other main project in which I am involved is the study of portfolio careers as an increasingly popular choice of career pattern or work style. We have had a great deal of positive publicity for this and recently in talking to a journalist in Leeds she was especially interested in talking with some people who are over 50 and have chosen to pursue a portfolio career.

This is a request to any reader who fits these 2 categories and would be happy to be interviewed by Tina Walsh who writes articles regularly for a range of national newspapers and magazines. If you live in Yorkshire that would be great but Tina would also be happy to interview you by phone. Just reply to me at barrie@portfoliocareers.net.

Interviewed by Bill Vicks in the US

I was recently contacted by Bill Vicks in Texas who is a portfolio worker and amongst other things has a site called BoomersNext Step.com.  Bill interviewed me about the work that Mike and I have been doing relating to the over 50's and it kind of moved over into the work that I have and currently am doing with Katie Ledger on portfolio careers. I do apologise for the length but as Bill put it I am a recovering academic! So be glad I did not talk for 50 minutes without stopping. This is only 19 minutes so would just have qualified as a TED talk......

This gets syndicated to a multitude of sites in the US.


Anyway if you are really bored do have a look.

Portfolio careers

I have already announced the launch of my latest book on portfolio careers and there are a number of videos from that launch on www.portfoliocareers.net. This will give you a taste of what the project is all about. And the relevance to this site? We found evidence to suggest that the idea of a portfolio career has special attractions for the over 50's who are searching for a different way to the traditional single track career.

And What Do You Do? 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career

Do have a look at the new website that explores the concept of portfolio careers. This is now completely redesigned. You can download the first chapter from the new book and get free emailed tips. I know from the many people that I interviewed for the book that this is a career pattern that the over 50's find increasingly attractive.

Look at the Buzz section too and see the early reviews and recommendations that Katie Ledger and I have already received.

Rainbow cupcakes

Thought you might like to see these little beauties. Wonder why I like them so much! They are actually the product of Hannah Miles who has a portfolio career which Katie and I describe in our new book on portfolio careers. As well as being a high flying freelance lawyer, she was a Masterchef finalist and is now a professional cook and author. It is quite dangerous to look at her site!

Portfolio Careers

Just to remind you that the new book that I wrote with Katie Ledger on Portfolio Careers is out this Thursday. Also to remind you that research done on this topic states that the 2 age groups most interested in this topic are the under 25's and the over 60's. Look at our new website on this to learn more. www.portfoliocareers.net

And What Do You Do? 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career

You will see that there is a new book in our widget to the right. This is one that I have written with Katie Ledger and which is already on Amazon although it is not published until October 15th. The publisher is A&C Black, part of the Bloomsbury group. I will post more about this later as one of the things that Katie and I discovered in researching for the book was that the concept of a portfolio career - having more than one job at a time by choice - was a career pattern that had attractions for the 50+'s. The other group that found it very attractive was the Gen Y's - the under 28's. So maybe the different generations are not quite so far apart as some in the media suggest. Watch this space......

Try Using Alltop to Follow Your Main Interests on the Net

In my new book on Portfolio Careers - which, by the way is almost complete by now - we give many tips on using new technology for promoting your brand. One site that we suggest that people use is Alltop. This is the way that they describe their function and how they differ from a Google search. "The purpose of Alltop is to help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in “all the topics” that interest you. You may wonder how Alltop is different from a search engine. A search engine is good to answer a question like, “How many people live in China?” However, it has a much harder time answering the question, “What’s happening in China?” That’s the kind of question that we answer. We do this by collecting the headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs that cover a topic. We group these collections — “aggregations” — into individual web pages. Then we display the five most recent headlines of the information sources as well as their first paragraph. Our topics run from adoption to zoology with photography, food, science, religion, celebrities, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, Macintosh, and hundreds of other subjects along the way. You can think of Alltop as the “online magazine rack” of the web. We’ve subscribed to thousands of sources to provide “aggregation without aggravation.” To be clear, Alltop pages are starting points—they are not destinations per se. Ultimately, our goal is to enhance your online reading by displaying stories from sources that you’re already visiting plus helping you discover sources that you didn’t know existed. Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems with Pictures, used these two pictures to explain Alltop vis-à-vis Google.

Hugh MacLeod

The observant amongst may have noticed that we have just added another widget to the site. This contains the cartoons by a spectacularly original and slightly crazy person called Hugh MacLeod. It is worth having a look at his website www.gapingvoid.com.
Some of his material relates to the over 50's but I just think that he has such a unique style that his contributions are always worth looking at. I should give a health warning here in that some of his material is quite adult! The cartoons change automatically every few days and we have no idea what is coming up! I like his stuff so much that my new book will have a number of his cartoons illustrating it. The new book is on Portfolio Careers, which I am writing with Katie Ledger, the ex ITN newsreader and now communications coach. This is a career pattern increasingly attractive to the over 50's and I will post more on this topic as we write the book.