Slash Careers Gain International Attention

Slash careers are gaining international attention in Europe and Canada. This recent article in Canada's Globe and Mail, Bored with your job? Get slashing, talks about adding a slash career to one's existing gig as a good way to shake things up and avoid burnout. A recent International Herald Tribune piece, The job-changer's bibles, cites One Person/Multiple Careers along with the classic What Color is Your Parachute as the two professional reinvention must-reads.

On the home front, there was an interesting story in St. Louis Magazine profiling some unusual slash careerists: an office furniture salesman/photographer/reserve police officer, a costume vendor/property sales administrator, and a writer/soap maker/rickshaw pedlar/teacher.

Call for Canadian Slashes!

A Canadian journalist is working on an article about slash careers and is seeking to interview people in Canada. If you have an interesting slash career and would like to be interviewed, please contact her ASAP by email at kira@vermond.ca.

A (New) Slash Community Grows Online

I just discovered yet another online hangout for slashes, a page on Squidoo called "Slash" Careers: The Man of Many Hats. It's run by Aaron Klieber, whom I don't know (yet), but I'm thrilled to see another place pulling together resources for all things slash.

Today's Wall Street Journal Covers Slash Careers

Today's Wall Street Journal has a nice feature on slash careers, written by Toddi Gutner. It includes the stories of two people from the book -- Dan Milstein (computer programmer/theater director) and Karl Hampe (consultant/cartoonist) -- and has a nifty slide show with photos of Dan and Karl.

I know it's been a little quiet over here at heymarci.com. All my blogging energy is going to Shifting Careers at the New York Times. There's plenty of slash talk over there (as well as daily postings about other ways to think smart about our careers), so if you're not reading it, please do visit and sign up for the RSS feed.

Also, if you're interested in being part of a greater community of slash types, join the "slash careers" group on Facebook.

Book Proposal Pitch Conference

My colleagues at The New York Writers Workshop are hosting a two-day pitch conference for writers working on nonfiction book proposals. Full details below:



DATE: Friday through Sunday, February 22, 23 & 24, 2008

PLACE: JCC of Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue (between 75th & 76th Streets)

COST: $300 for three-day workshop

New York Writers Workshop hosts a three-day Pitch Conference for writers of non-fiction. At this unique conference, participants meet with and pitch book proposals to three different editors from major New York publishing houses (houses including Viking, Penguin, Random House, Scribners, Simon and Schuster, and others).

Before the conference begins, participants boil the essence of their manuscript down to a synopsis of jacket flap copy length (roughly three minutes). The copy should include the book's premise and hook, and the writer's platform.

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Day One: 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Pitch participants workshop their flap copy with a workshop leader from New York Writers Workshop. Each participant reads his/her synopsis. The NYWW instructor provides guidance in revision for clarity, concision, and impact. The instructor also discusses, as appropriate, the realities of the publishing market. The rest of the group participates as appropriate, and learns from each example.

Day Two: 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
There are two separate pitch sessions in the afternoon. From 1:30-3:30, the pitch is "public"; that is, participants pitch to an editor in the presence of their group. The second session, 4:00-6:00, is a private, one-on-one pitch to an editor. The day wraps with a group conference with the NYWW instructor.

Day Three: 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Here each participant pitches to an editor one-on-one, with the NYWW instructor present. Face time with editors varies: work might be effectively completed in five minutes, but can go as long as twelve minutes (but no longer).

How to Apply:

If you'd like to attend the workshop, prepare an email with the following information:

• Brief description of your project (up to 100 words)
• What you do for a living
• Contact information: email address, street address, phone

And send it to:

Charles Salzberg: charles@ducts.org

or

Tim Tomlinson: newyorkwritersworkshop@gmail.com

We'll get back to you within ten days to let you know if your application has been accepted and, if so, where you should send your check.

www.newyorkwritersworkshop.com

Slash Careerists Gathering on Facebook

This is a guest post by Vanessa Carr, who has been working with me on Facebook and some other technology projects:

There has been a great response to Marci's call for slashes on her "Slash '/' Careers" group on Facebook.

One stand-out site was that of Katreen Hardt, an actress/freelance journalist living in Germany. Katreen boldly foregrounds her slash identity on her homepage with a colorful grid of images—half popular magazine covers for issues to which she's contributed writing and half stills from movies she's acted in (which include Henry Fool and The Book of Life)—beneath an equally bold title: Katreen Hardt, Freelance journalist and actress.

Part of what is effective about her site is its simplicity. From the homepage, you can navigate to one of four sections: about (bio), portfolio (writing), showreel (acting), and contact. On her about page, Katreen summarizes each of her slash components, highlighting a few of her most significant accomplishments.

Katreen's website embodies her brand: clean, artful, and organized—which helps her present her slash identity in a neat and easily comprehensible way. Branding can often be a challenge for slash careerists—and is a topic that has sparked some interesting conversation on Marci's Facebook discussion board. (Marci recently invited Pamela Slim to do a guest post on this subject on Shifting Careers, Marci's blog at The New York Times.) Not all slashes choose to present their multiple careers using the same tools or brand—for example, Gery Deer, whose multiple slashes include whip artistry and computer programming (among others), might only selectively combine those components of his slash career.

Another interesting Facebook post came from Nadine Touzet, a translator/interpreter living in Paris who just started blogging about her work. Unlike some slashes whose branding challenge is to describe how two or more radically different careers can fit together, Touzet's branding challenge is to describe how her slashes—translation and interpretation—are in fact distinct. She tackles this question in an interesting post on her blog.

As we hoped, people have been posting some interesting examples of how new technology can be used to represent a slash career. For example, check out the great video of Bonnie Duncan, an acrobat/teacher/puppeteer, performing a fantastic acrobatic routine with a partner to a raucous eastern European sounding marching band. In her other life, Bonnie works as a professional dancer, a puppeteer and a teacher working with students K-12 where she uses creative drama and movement techniques to enhance language arts and social studies curricula.

Marci and I hope you'll join in the Facebook conversation—and please keep posting links to the websites, videos, or other multimedia that capture your particular slash life.

—Vanessa K. Carr, Marci's technology assistant/blogger

Slash Careers on the Today Show!

Today was an exciting moment for me and for anyone else who has been following the growing interest in the slash effect. The Today show did a segment on slash careers this morning and they featured two especially inspiring people from the book, Deborah Rivera, an executive recruiter/chef-hotelier, and Rashid Silvera, a high school teacher/fashion model. You can get a glimpse of each of them in their dual lives, and see photos of some other folks from the book on this video clip.

Also pictured in the segment were Bonnie Duncan, a dancer/teacher/puppeteer, Alex von Bidder, a restaurateur/yoga instructor, and Bob Alper, a rabbi/stand-up comic.


Baby boomers juggling more jobs

Slash "/" Careers on Facebook

I have joined the growing numbers of authors on Facebook! If you're already a Facebook member, check out the conversation that is getting started on my new Slash "/" Careers group, where people in all stages of slash careers are invited to share stories, tips, and questions. If you're not on Facebook, consider checking it out. I was surprised to see how many people I know are already on Facebook, and it's been fun/interesting connecting with people in a new way.

I'm hoping the the Facebook page turns into a rich discussion of slash living that so many people have been asking me for.

I am also looking for a handful of savvy slashes from the Facebook group to feature on the Heymarci Blog. If you have a website, blog, portfolio, resume, or video that showcases your "slash" identity in an innovative way, please consider sharing it on the Slash "/" Careers group discussion board – or just stop by for a little slash inspiration. I hope to see you there!

My New Blog at the New York Times

Big news about my blogging. Since last week, I've been blogging for the New York Times (that's why it's been so quiet over here!). The blog is called Shifting Careers, and it will be the daily complement to my twice-monthly Shifting Careers column. (If you haven't been keeping up with the column, you can read all the past ones here.) I'm posting almost daily blog, so be sure to subscribe to the blog's feed here to stay current.

While I get up to speed on the NYT blog, The Heymarci Blog will go a little quiet. But I expect to begin posting again soon, with a slightly different focus. So stay tuned, and keep it on your feed if you subscribe.