哈囉！各位 CAREhER 的朋友大家好，我是 Tiffany。在新世代人才之中有一部分的人稱自己為 Slashie，他們一個人可能有不同的角色跟工作，因為網路和科技的便利性造就了這樣子的工作機會和模式，但這種和過往工作麼是差異很大的 Slashie 有沒有可能真的成為一種職涯？現在比較常聽到的是設計師或是接案類型的創意產業的工作者。我們今天邀請到在澳洲的 Sarah，不少讀者應該對她也很熟悉，她是 Little Girl Big Dream 的創辦人，她在 2015 年又成立了 Gemini 3，她身兼多職又常往返世界各地，應該是最適合來跟我們聊聊 Slashie 的人，我們歡迎 Sarah。
編按：以下為英文逐字稿，有興趣的讀者可參考中文摘要逐字稿。
Tiffany: Sarah, why don’t you quickly update us what you are up to recently?
Sarah: Sure, it’s been very busy and eventful couple of months. Since we last spoke, i have continued my work with The Dream Collective and also here at Gemini 3. We are recently close to signing a deal withe a state government here in Australia to implement the job share technology across the department within the state government, which is the great news for us. And on the other hand with Little Girl Big Dream and The Dream Collective we have reached a partnership agreement with various universities cross Australia to continue elevate our appearance to a different level, so it’s been really exciting and more challenging times to come.
So even though you’re super busy still have time for you in Taiwan for a little bit to do two endorsements for like Lancome and MaxMara. you are also Slashie.
So our question will be: we are now entire the era of Slashies, they are multi-task, multi-skilled, career juggling generation. So mostly of them say they take job performance over financial security, stability. However what’s the difference between a Slash and a freelancer? Is there any fine line?
Generation Slashie which as more formally also known as the diversified worker is a type of freelancer. So freelancer can be largely categorized into some key bucke. One is the independent contractors, which is what you alluded to be for, the designers, the web developers. I guess it dedicated in a large amount of their time on one particular category of work, so that’s the independent contractor, who are mostly wildly known as freelancers. and their’s the Moonlighters which means they are people with one predominant full time job, possibly 9 to 5, and they take on for example photography project or varies radio host shows, different responsibility and work in the time of their work hours, so that’s the Moonlighters. And generation Slashie which is a growing segment which is what we call formally the diversified workers, means they actually juggle different professions at the same time, so its not necessary sticking with one profession, it’s that they actually expand beyond just one field of expertise. For example they can be a architect but at the same time a photographer, and as well as a business consultant.
I see, a quick follow up, so since they are expanding their professionals, does it mean that require a higher professional level than freelancers?
Yes, absolutely and also a more sophisticated level of expertise, very often those people are operating quite independently and quite autonomously which means you are the point of exelation . So not only that you will have a certain level of expected expertise, you also need to have the level of business acumen to manage yourself as a business.
But come back to the point you raise about financial insecurity, that’s a really interesting point, because one man’s insecurity is actually man’s flexibility. It’s interesting that point gets to raise a lot and very excited to be talking about a bit more detail, it’s because some people would actually argue that being a generation Slash and having multiple expertise and streams of income is the only way that you stay competitive and it’s the only way to guarantee security moving forward in this new era.
I see, since you raised that issue, we’re gonna be realistic and look at the down side of Slashie life, cause there’s a lot of stereotype and I think people might have under evaluated the professional and the sophistication of Slashie. So Slashies take a lot of opportunities here and there, and they used to over work and following like the pipe-dream that we often say yes to opportunities and that may lead them to under paid and sometimes not getting paid at all, so like you said how do we avoid that and more importantly make these opportunities actually viable income streams.
I think that’s a terrific point and i think one of key thing i wanna highlight for as formal is that how do you make it into a viable income stream and the problem of over work or sometimes under paid is not limited to generation Slashie. One is that its not limited to the stigma workers, two specifically about how we resolving that is clearly differentiate and understand the different category of your work. Are they for passion? are they for profit? are they for purpose? And start with that clarity in mind. If you know that, for example, I’m photography and job that all freelancing project lead is really for passion only, and its not a profitable income stream just yet. Then, what you need to actually think about is how you manage your time that is reflected of whether this job been a passion project or a profitable income stream, but i think time management is the key thing that most Slashes need to be aware of. You need to prioritize your project your tasks in accordance to the role that they play, which is it income generating or fulfillment and purposes. And also make sure that you actually backup and you have enough self-belief, that’s the only thing i find- because a lot of Slashies they work quite flexibility and because many of them actually work as a result of following their passion or fulfilling their purpose, so profit becomes sometime secondary, if not thirdary. I think thats something we need to understand continuously remind generation Slash which is the reality that in order to do the work that you love you actually need to get paid first.
So its comes out to prioritize section of your time, I guess effective management of your time and also being very clear and admin about the value that is associated with your work.
So each Slashie essentially is a project manager of themselves, they prioritize according to how they value wether it’s financial income or it’s fulfillment. but someone actually argue that before professionalism, you need to be passionate about something first, so that’s why a lot of people will like “I’m gonna quit my job and follow my passion and one day it will lead me to a profession that will be able to support me.” Is that really the right mindset to look at things this way?
Again i think you raise a very good point with this over romanticized about follow your passion, follow your dream. You see a lot of people following their passion but they failed at business anyway, and the reason is I believe comes down to rigor and business acumen.
So having passion is one thing, but having the rigor to translate that into time management, or manage your portfolio effectively, so that it delivers on profit, passion and purpose is a skill. What i would say to that is yes absolutely passion is a hundred percent, one of the key reasons for you to have a successful career, but what’s even more important is to have rigor around that to make sure that you manage successfully. And with passion as well, i think having that alone is not enough, so you need other elements to support you with that. and i might also add that, you don’t need to necessary need to be responsible for all of it, and it’s sometimes not possible to expect someone to be passionate about their work and to be at the same time excellent across business acumen financial management , so build a team around you or find people who can support you with that, i would say it’s equally important step to identify your passion.
You mentioned business acumen many times, and i think that is something Little Girl Big Dream is able to teach or help assist people who have passion but don’t have that mindset to turn that into a life time career that can support themselves yet.
Yes, Little Girls Big Dream and The Dream Collective, our leadership program actually focus on two key areas. One is how do we empower them? To rise up to leadership positions to have aspiration to advance into the next step of their career, but equally important is about equipping, so always empower and equip and it comes in hand in hand, because its not enough again to our point earlier just to have passion and be inspired, what next? how do you bring longevity and success into what you do requires on equipping yourself with the right tools, experiences and skill sets, necessary to take you there.
Right, so we’ve talked a lot about more the business technical side, and now we are gonna talk about more about the connections, relationships side of being a Slashie.
It’s a completely different type of work relationship, network that Slashes are facing and building, cause they are gonna be wearing different hats, they are gonna be building different network set, within different groups, sometimes even within different cities or regions, and basically you are someone like that too, you have connections in Australia, in Taiwan and Singapore, New York, even flying to different cities and cultivating your networks, what is the mindset that one has to have if you’re a Slashie, it would be so different from being and cooperate when network just come to you organically, cause this is something that you need to go out there and build it yourself, so what is the mindset that one has to have?
I think there are three things probably touch on that, one is treat yourself as a personal brand, and recognize the importance of the personal brand. and what that means is that you are now representing your own business, and sometimes i think we are not strategic enough, we step out and we just who we are, of course having that authenticity is very important, but you need to carefully and intentionally build and cultivate the kind of personal brand you want to project. So very often we hear people talk about “It’s not what you do, it’s about who you know”, i will go one step further and say, it’s not really about who you know either, is who you are “known as “to those people. And how to cultivate that is through building a successful personal brand. So i have what I call the “P.I.E. theory” which is very important for all the generation Slash to be aware of which is “Performance, Imagine, Exposure”. So once you got the strong performance, you need to think about what imagine are you trying to build, once you got a successful imagine you make sure you build meaningful and strategic exposure around that. So I think that’s the mindset you need to approach whenever you put yourself out there, you always need to have the mindset that you actually manage a brand.
The second very important point I will think it is actually a heightened level of sensitivity, and that sensitivity speak through if that opportunities are aware, you are representing yourself anywhere, anytime. So you need to actually be very sensitive about your surroundings, some people find that exhausting, but some people find that very exciting and opportunities can be found anywhere across your network. So be always mindful and sensitive to the discussion that happening around you, and be agile enough to switch your hat, and be able to identify opportunity and engage in the right conversations straight away, but also be mindful that be quite targeted in how you approach people, because as generation Slashie we build up an extensive network , I speak that from my experiences as well, sometimes you need to be very strategic and targeted in what kind of relationship you are building with people and who you are known as to them, so you are not a jack of all trade and master of none, you are actually a specialist in certain field. So be quite clever and quite strategic and knowing what is the other looking for, be sensitive to their need and their interest, and make sure you position yourself in the way that you can be received and perceived subject matter expert.
I think a lot of people now are unaware of the importance of exposure and imagine, but i think what comes after that is because there’re so many opportunities out there, sometime imagine build is too scattered. A lot of people will take up on any opportunities they have and they don’t really have a strategy on they are gonna enhance on that specific imagine they wanted to, so that is also maybe something that people need to be aware if not making the same mistake.
Absolutely right, you just need to be careful what you want other people to know you as, and what is that connection that network going to bring you, will that person give you the most value, and how are you gonna make the most out of this relationship. So don’t have a scattered approach, have the right target to approach, and always start with an end goal in mind.
Okay we’ve talked so much about Slashie, the concept and soft skills, or even like technical parts, it’s very close to the core of your other startup named Gemini 3, cause it’s about job sharing, can you update us what’s going on there and also further we are gonna talk about what skills of personalities do you think a Slash needs to have.
So Gemini 3, we are going through a very interesting time, and it’s been absolutely phenomenal but quite challenging journey as well, because Gemini 3, what we do is that we match compatible job share partners, who can not only work together but work together to deliver and increase labor productivity. So we have develop our own proprietary matching algorithm to match compatible job share partners. So think about us as almost the online dating website and tool for jobs and for workplace. And this is challenging it’s such a novel concept, and when you are not selling your product, you are actually trying to change mindset, and change behavior, thats’s a challenging and that’s the long road you need to be prepared for.
So recently as i mentioned in the beginning of the podcast is that we are actually finalizing a contract with the state government here in Australia, which is huge exciting for us, so what we will be looking and doing is to start creating track record and start matching within organizations compatible job share partners to start delivering some really successful stories that can then be translate and adapted into different industry and sectors.
What type of jobs in particular like would it be more professional license job that is more suitable for that kind of model or just anyone with any skills?
A lot of people ask us what kind of jobs can be job shared, after research our responses now is not so much about the job, is what type of person you are, which is actually come straight into what you alluded to before in terms of characteristic and personality type. So what we’ve uncovered is that all jobs can be job shared, really if you want to, but not everyone can job share, it takes someone who is competitive but not competitive with your job share partner, it takes certain level of career motivates and certain level of values and communication styles and work ethics to make you a successful job share candidate.
Thank you so much Sarah today for sharing with us a lot of those innovative ideas and a lot of theories that i think only people that have gone through all these stages are able to tell us and remind us, and we are waiting for your new updates, thank you!
Thank you so much!
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