Pazzardous Material Vol 30 – the week’s posts on a single page (most recent at the bottom):

Go Up – Butch remix

I’m pretty rubbish (like a lot of Brits) at self-promotion, hence the relatively low number of followers I have on social media.

But do I regret moving, on Twitter, from my @Paul__Parry account, which has a few hundred followers, to my older @Pazza account, which has about 160?

No.

Why?

Because the “Joined March 2007” on the older account won’t change but the number of followers can.

And who knows, maybe I’ll do a bit more self-promoting one day.

 

Big Love

It’s easier to condemn that create, easier to break than build.

So I encourage my kids to give generously.

Rush-hour driving provides a decent example of why: it’s generosity that maintains the fluidity of roads at those times. It’s what keeps the traffic flowing when tension among some drivers seems to be at its highest and might prevent them giving way and letting other drivers join the main road ahead of them.

The same is true online. If everyone were to guard their knowledge, and give nothing away except in exchange for money or an email address, the world would be poorer – and the internet smaller – for it.

 

9 to 5

You could argue that the days of the 9 to 5 are over, as more and more people either work in their own businesses or longer hours for somebody else.

I suggest we teach young people to be able to prepare and design their lives for the age we live in. Schools go part of the way – the rest is up to us as parents, just as it’s always been.

 

Electric Feel

Yesterday I wrote about the need to teach young people to be able to prepare and design their lives for the age we live in.

An example of how life moves on quickly and silently came in an interview with Mark Ronson that I read recently.

Ronson talked of the music industry’s current need for songs to be no more than 3′ 15″ and designed for listens on the iPhone.

Would I bear this in mind if I were a young musician today? Possibly.

Would I let it dictate my direction and steer my creativity? I’d like to think absolutely not.

 

All The Things She Said

A very good friend asked me recently about how his daughter might be able to make money from her Instagram profile, @britishthrowbacks. It had 73,000 followers. Less than two weeks on, it has almost 82,000. Amazingly, the account’s only been up and running for five months.

I offered a few suggestions and asked Some Really Really Really Cool Woman  (not her real name) who knows about these things and works in the brands/influencers industry.

Her suggestions were brilliant, current, knowledgeable and comprehensive. All the things she said made me sound outdated, and reminded me how much I don’t know and how quickly things change:

• Think about making content she thinks brands would like

• Tell her to pick her favourite brands that she’d like to partner with and make some content with them in mind

• Reach out directly to those brands

• She could also sign up to automated platforms (eg Tribe, Takumi, Buzzoole), not the most ethical route (they often don’t pay brilliantly and the influencer has to do all the work before they even know if they’ll get the brand deal, and the influencers also sign away their rights to content) but could be a good starting point into the world of monetisation

 

Eterna

Having worked on my book this morning I realise more and more that it’s about more than one central subject.

It’s not just about my life and work online, tips and knowledge and how you might be able to avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made.

It’s also about my relationship with my dad, who died in 2008. It’s the reason why I do a lot of the things I do.

Reflecting on that relationship, which I do daily, makes me appreciate that parenting matters, forever.

Parenting for me is about identifying – and then breaking – negative cycles and creating positive ones in their place, and celebrating what’s worth celebrating.

It’s about legacy.

 

Private Life

On a podcast I listened to a few months ago I heard a line that struck a chord:

People connect with stories they see themselves in.

That’s handy, I thought. I’ve got a few stories, a lot of them about things that other people might see themselves in.

They’re often about fear and other psychological barriers I’ve faced. Common stuff. They’re often personal and I always think twice before writing them, nevermind publishing them.

But if I just do it, and write them, then publish them, what’s the worst that can happen? What good might come of it?

Hopefully at least one person will see themselves in my stories and appreciate that they’re not alone in occasionally feeling rubbish or stupid or like an impostor.

This is why the forthcoming book is as much about personal battles as internet education. It simply has to be because without the battles I wouldn’t be able to offer much about the online stuff.

>>>Playlist<<<

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