Heidi, Minion of the Princess of Passion, Gets a Response.
Heidi Miller (whom Lee Hopkins called “uberbabe” and I trust him) has asked for responses to four questions by Kathy Sierra. Here are mine:
Q1: When was the last time you read a trade/professional journal or book related to your work?
A1: Today. I finished Made To Stick. Oh, so fine. It was the second time I had to take a bath instead of a shower because I couldn’t put the book down, and I didn’t want it to get too wet.
Q2: Name at least two of the key people in your field.
A2: Can’t. I don’t know anybody else who does what I do. My work is to make intelligent people and organizations sound as smart as they are, and to use their thought leadership to take dominant positions in their fields and industries.
It involves training, handling, coaching, counseling, arguing, promoting, editing, relationship-brokering, ghost-writing…
…and doing part of this publicly, appearing prominently as the thought partner of my client.
Even if we simplify this to “very public ghost-writer,” I don’t know anybody else doing it. (Even I can’t do it with joyous abandon until I leave the public position I’m in with my current employer. But my last client got into the Harvard Business Review and quadrupled his consulting firm’s run rate. And he only worked half the program, and I was in my current job at the time.)
Q3: If you had to, would you spend your own money to buy tools or other materials that would improve the quality of your work?
A3: I have to and I do. I buy books and take courses. I do this almost obsessively, because in two years other people will be doing what I do, and I’ll only sustain my lead by being the best.
Q4: If you did not do this for work, would you still do it (or something related to it) as a hobby?
A4: Exactly this, no. Something related, absolutely! In fact I teach people how to package their ideas in order to shame myself into taking my own advice, because I care about communicating, and I’m passionate about the things I write and speak about.