Lateral Activity

When I think of you I see angels

cartoon by hugh macleod

It’s time to spread the link love by highlighting some great examples of Lateral Activity elsewhere on the web…

You can tell the economy is in a bad way when we cautious Brits are seized with entrepreneurial fever. According to Money Market UK, job losses are spurring ‘a new breed of UK entrepreneurs’:

The growing number of talented high earners losing their jobs across Britain is spurring download sci-fi movie a revolution and new generation of entrepreneurs.

Taking what experience and contacts they have, many currently out of work would rather work for themselves carving out new business opportunities, surfacing as a direct result of the credit crunch.

Quality of life, job security and becoming the master of one’s own destiny are primary factors driving this surge in new business creation.

(Their prehistoric website doesn’t allow me to link to the actual article, but rest assured this is the interesting bit.)

If you find the prospect (or reality) of the entrepreneurial life a daunting one, you might want to take Tim Ferris’s advice on Harnessing Entrepreneurial Manic-Depression: Making the Rollercoaster Work for You:

ever since the media’s chicken little reply to the tremors in the financial markets, i’ve felt like shouting from the rooftops “now you know how it feels to be an entrepreneur!”

Maybe Marla was right when she said ‘We’re all entrepreneurs now’.

Camp orange

For some great examples of real life Marlas, check out Fast Company’s Top Women Entrepreneurs in Tech.

And according to the US National Endowment for the Arts, it’s not just tech creatives who are the future of the economy:

“artists now play a gargantuan but mostly unrecognized responsibility in the restored american thriftiness of the 21st century,” said nea chairman dana gioia. “this report shows how important american artists are to both our nation’s cultural zip and remunerative life of Riley of our communities.”

The New York Times describes artists who are Transforming Art into a More Lucrative Career Choice:

rather than seeing art as something to pursue in the hours when they are not earning a living, these artists are developing businesses around their talents. these artists are into a receive of a growing movement that has caught the attention of business experts and is being nudged along by both art and business schools.

No wonder Steve King advises artists to Take Business Classes with That Art Training.

In his usual inimitable style, Hugh MacLeod explains why the artist is the ultimate global microbrand:

4. being an artist has three prime components- 1. making the verified work 2. running the business and 3. promoting the job. it’s genuinely hard to do all three at the same time. it’s equally hard to find people who can take hold terminated some of the duties and responsibilities of 2 and 3. assets c incriminating evidence people who actually know what they’re doing are rare and expensive.

Moving on from entrepreneurship to ‘making the actual work’, Scott Belsky of Behance has a great short essay on Productive Creativity.

If you appreciate the value of creative constraints, you’ll enjoy Dan Siedell’s uncompromising view of artistic discipline:

studio work is an ascetic practice. it demands that the artist place limits on his or her manumission to do anything in reserve to do something. the artist must develop ascetic disciplines in order to avoid joke of the worst of aesthetic vices download horror: self-understanding.

(If Dan’s surname sounds familiar, it’s becaus

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