Why we should be optimistic about the future of work
There seems to be a lot of change in the way people are thinking about careers at the moment, with more of an emphasis on job satisfaction and finding work in line with one’s values. What advice do you have for young people entering the world of work?
If you’re fortunate to have a good education in a country like the UK, there are certain career paths that look really tempting and available, and you’re coerced into that direction. I was in that milkround at university, getting drunk on Deloitte or whoever it was that day, feeling like I should now be taking the next steps towards this career because it’s fortunate to be in this position and I should make the most of it. But I think we’re beyond that, especially with the next generation (Gen Y-ers/Millennials and beyond).
For Millennials self-actualisation, fulfillment and purpose are coming really early on in their career, maybe the earliest it’s ever happened for any generation in the world. For me this is so exciting because by 2025 the majority of the workforce will be Generation Y.
These are the people who have grown up online, and there’s a lack of ignorance about how the world works. There’s transparency and global connects; there’s this drive for purpose and self-actualisation early on in their lives. If you get the majority of the workforce with that mindset, well, that’s what makes me an optimist basically.
So my advice for people in that generation is feel good. Although the news is telling you it’s all shit, it’s all pretty exciting because there’s a lot of people out there doing brilliant things.
In terms of what you can do yourself, the most important thing is to connect and spend time with people who make you feel good about the world, who make you feel optimistic, who make it fun. I don’t mean escaping and going partying, I mean spending time with people, organisations, communities you look up to — just spend time with them because they’ll rub off on you and you’ll get connected.
The second thing to do is take your ideas and curiosities and do something about them rather than just think about it. You’ve got this amazing tool kit online to start talking about it, write about it, create an event about it. If it’s an organisation you want to be part of, just ask them. Most organisations, if you hustle in the right way, will say yes.
The third thing is to de-risk this process. Don’t think you need to spend years going to business school, learning and doing all this sort of education in order to get into this new world of work. Yes, join something like Escape the City or their equivalents — community programmes — but you don’t need certificates and MBAs if you want to explore 21st century careers. You need a healthy mindset, a healthy body (because it takes a lot of energy to do anything new and different), and most importantly you need a tribe of people who can support each other along the way.
For you, what defines a tribe?
A tribe is a group of people who have a purpose. There is usually some kind of leadership involved — it could be a lot of people leading, or one or two. It’s purposeful communities trying to do something in the world. A traditional tribe is connected to land, and the culture and wisdom that comes from close to that land; a 21st century tribe can be a lot more transient, but it’s purposeful and positive.
Tell us about the origins of Tribewanted.
For those of you that have grown up online, this is going to sound very strange. Back in 2005, the Internet was a new exciting world, and there was a site called ‘MySpace’ — it was essentially, as far as we were concerned, ‘the Internet’.
MySpace was mainly where bands would create fan pages and build their communities. The most famous example at the time was Arctic Monkeys, who built a massive fanbase on MySpace and then very quickly had their first single became No. 1 across the whole of Europe and the US. This was the first time something like this had happened since The Beatles. That was the beginning of change online around tribe-building and crowdfunding.
At the time, I was working in adventure travel, driving Land Rovers around West Africa, having a great education about how the world really works (trying to get across borders, sorting visas etc.). In 2006 a guy got in touch with me on MSN messenger, and we talked about what I was doing, my travel blog, and the Arctic Monkeys thing. His question to me was whether we could build an online community around a destination instead of a band. I thought this was a really interesting idea: I knew that community travel was a really great way for people to bond, but a lot of the time people didn’t have the money to keep projects going because visitors only came in the summers.
How did you decide on a location?
We thought: if we are going to do this somewhere in the world, where would we like to do it? We decided to do it on a remote desert island, because that felt like the opposite end of an online community.
Eventually we got in contact with someone who was an island broker, and pitched him our idea of supporting and developing a community. He told us about a place in northern Fiji (Vorovoro island) that had just come on the market, really out of the way from the main touristy areas. We got in touch with them and they liked the idea, and told us to come see them. Our MVP was to sit down with the chief on the island and plan how we’d build his family’s vision for a community tourism project there. He thought it was a good idea because it had been prophesised in the community that one day the world would come to this island. We explained that we’d been on MySpace and MSN messenger and that this brought us here; he was like, well that must be it then. For us it was MSN, for them it was a profound prophetic happening. Either way, he was happy to work together.
What were the next steps?
The next step was basically to try and raise the cash for the government lease; we needed to raise £30k in six weeks, starting with nothing. We put up a five page website and said ‘for the price of a Glastonbury ticket you can become a member of our tribe and have a week on this island some time in the next three years’. So we essentially pretended we already had the island and sent out a press release. A friend that worked in PR helped, and within three days we had a splash in the Metro, and it spread from there. We got a lot of membership quite quickly — about 1000 people. We spent £3000 on the two of us flying to Fiji and back, and £500 on the website, and then got about £100k return on that through membership sales within 3 months.
How did you market Tribewanted to the press? How did you end up with a BBC documentary about the project?
We were desert island young people, so automatically got put into that reality TV box; lots of shows like Castaway/Shipwrecked/Survivor were popular at around the time. We marketed what we were doing as the anti-reality TV island adventure.
The Metro is the best thing to get into in the UK because all of the interesting people who work in junior levels of journalism read it on the way to work, and then take cool stories to their bosses. All of the mainstream press had said no and ignored our story, but after it was in the Metro they all changed tune. I learned that the more edgy and brave your project is, the more likely it is to get picked up — people want to see these things potentially fail.
Lots of TV companies got in touch. It wasn’t really what we had in mind, but we went along for the meetings and started working with one, who then got a commission from the BBC. It wasn’t broadcast for another two years, until 2008. It was weird, having your whole life over 18 months squeezed into five hours of TV. People do this thing when they watch shows about real life projects, contacting you thinking that what they’ve just seen happened last week. It plays tricks with people’s minds.
The opening credits of the documentary had this footage of a knife going into a squealing pig, taken from when we held a traditional ceremonial feast. The most criticism I’ve ever taken over the last 15 years of running projects has been off the back of that: I got about 100 messages within a week, people saying I was a murderer and had corrupted the society. That’s what happens if you take what you’re doing, working on a small project, and put in front of a lot of people. There’s always going to be a small percentage who feel what they’ve seen doesn’t match their values, and you’ve got to learn to not fight that battle.
What were the highs and lows of your time in Vorovoro?
The high was getting all the publicity, selling the membership, and moving to Fiji; it coming to life in six months from an idea to a reality, and 1000 people becoming involved with the island.
Our first problem was online. A 21 year old blogger in California wrote a 5000 word piece listing 5 red flags about the project and using conspiracy-like writing. The result of that was our membership sales going from £5000 to £500 a day overnight, regardless of the fact we’d had publicity, and partnerships with STA travel and the BBC. We thought we’d built some credibility, certainly in the media — this blogger destroyed it overnight. He recommended at the end of it: ‘if you want to go on a real adventure holiday, go with National Geographic’. A year later we were the cover story for National Geographic Adventure.
My instinct was to talk to this guy, be friendly and sort it out, but the publicity person in the US we were working with told us not to go there. We took the professional’s advice, and I regret that. I could have had a public conversation and explained what we were doing and how we were doing it. I think transparency as you launch your business into the world is a really important thing.
Our first big problem on the island itself was a huge fire, the first in a decade. It was sort of symbolic of our project going up in flames. Following that there was a political coup. In Fiji they happen like leap years; this was the fourth one in 20 years. It wasn’t violent, and nothing really changed in island life, but it had a massive impact on the tourism because headline news all around the world was saying ‘army kicks out government in Fiji’. People are thinking it must be violent, and it was then really hard to sell the project. Soon after there was the biggest cyclone they’d seen on the island in years, and a lot of the infrastructure we’d built was trashed. Everyone was ok, but at this point I wondered whether someone or something was telling us we shouldn’t be doing this. But we survived it, and within a year we’d had a lot of people visit and made a positive economic impact. It’s been much less dramatic from then on!
Where is Tribewanted now, 10 years later?
Tribewanted has become a really rewarding and fulfilling small social enterprise/community tourism project. We crowdfunded a couple more projects, including one in Sierra Leone. This was the first established eco-tourism project post-civil war, so played a part in shifting the story around Sierra Leone from blood diamonds and war to beach volleyball and adventure. Then of course Ebola came in, and it’s hard to sell holidays to somewhere with Ebola… We also established a base in Italy, which has been our most successful project in terms of it being closest to where most of our audience is in Europe. We have a sustainable organic farm there, and it fits all of our values without being in a wild remote location. The lesson from that project is sometimes things that seem less exciting and adventurous can still be wins for you and your customers. Plus it’s not been a drama running it, compared to other projects! We also have a tribe in Bali, a start up community, and are starting another little island project in Papa New Guinea.
What is something that no one ever tells you about running a business?
The imposter thing is huge. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m doing a job that I have no idea about, and that someday someone is gonna say ‘hey mate, get out of here you don’t know what you’re doing’, but even now I hear myself constantly trying to guide and advise and support people, and it’s like… listen to yourself. Actually putting stuff into practice is really hard; it’s that difference between being able to articulate what you want to do and how you’re going to do it, and actually doing it. It’s sounds so common-sense and obvious, but good entrepreneurs not big thinkers: they’re curious, they’re constantly wanting to see what’s next, but they don’t think too much about it, they do more. I think I’m good at thinking about something and then activating it, but I struggle and want to get better at getting from the first bit of momentum to sustainable business.
I think the day-to-day stuff of matching the plan with actually trying to do it is so hard, as is accepting that it changes all the time. Once you’re in the mindset of accepting the fact that stuff always changes, it gets easier.
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Original post published on Happy Blooming People, helping millennials navigate 21st century careers. Interview with Grace Waters.
