UPDATE: “I work for myself and have a number of different types of role.” – just an idea?!
A seemingly innocent and easy question. It is one that I, and I assume everyone, asks and gets asked, whenever we meet people.
In the past, for me at least, this was an easy question to answer – “I am a car designer”. This response acted as somewhat of a filter so that if people were genuinely interested, they would ask more questions and, if not, they’d continue talking about themselves.
Now, post-MBA, I find it much more difficult to answer this question as, to be quite honest, I have a few roles. Not wishing to bore my audience with a whole life story every-time they ask this seemingly innocent question sometimes proves a challenge.
The simple answer is “I am an entrepreneur”. The issue with that is that the definition of entrepreneur means different things to different people, much more so than car designer. It largely also implies that you have one thing that you’re focusing on and, in my case, that is simply not the case!
Another answer is “I have a number of hats depending on who I am talking too”. Now this just sounds shifty! It is true but needs the audience to have some imagination and genuine interest, which of course, they may not.
A third answer is “I am a business consultant”. Again true but so vague as to be almost irrelevant, plus, business consultants seem to be regarded in society as only one step down from estate agents, double glazing sales men and bankers; all full of fast flowery talk, expensive and offering no tangible benefit to an organisation.
Society expects you to have just one role, one identity, so that people can easily box you. This boxing has also been coined “personal branding” in management consulting speak, because it partly represents what activity people instantly (and subconsciousness) think of when they think of you. Clearly one has a lot of control over this, at least within boundary’s, so its worth thinking about because it could make a big difference ultimately to happiness and quality of life.
I have (at least!) four roles currently:
- a business consultant (focused on strategy, marketing and business planning).
- a business development guy (selling engineering software),
- a business owner (offering online marketing, website / app design, web hosting and SEO) and,
- an entrepreneur (looking for market opportunities to develop & sell my own products).
If that were you, how would you answer the question “What do yo do”. Comments welcome 
F1 teams have live telemetry data that allows their engineers in the pits, and even back at the factory, to see what is happening to the racing car while doing a lap. McLaren last year broadcast some of their data live online too for people to see. Some clever chaps have then scrapped this data and produced all sort of things, including this:
Peldi at Balsamiq is a funny Italian chap. He is a programmer who is passionate about UX – odd given I have been repeatedly been told was impossible (left brain / right brain etc etc). Prior to starting his business, named after the Italian vinegar, he has worked solely at large corporates – also odd because “real entrepreneurs” don’t do that apparently.
Slightly odd topic this but I thought it interesting to point out.
