The Crazy One

Ep 95 Career: How to create a standout portfolio.

February 16, 2020 Stephen Gates Episode 95
The Crazy One
Ep 95 Career: How to create a standout portfolio.
Show Notes Transcript

Creating a standout portfolio is essential because it helps you stand out from the crowd, is one of the main faces of your brand, and your first introduction to prospective employers and your industry. The problem is that it is equal parts art and science with no set formula for success. In this episode, we will look at the trends that are affecting how people see your portfolio, the foundational pieces you will need, and how to build your brand messaging, work case studies and talk about your experience.

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Stephen Gates :

What's going on everybody and welcome into the 95th episode of the crazy one podcast. As always, I'm your host Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership design and so much more. Now, as always, be sure to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform to get the latest episodes whenever those come out. And you know what while you're there Do me a favor take just a couple seconds and hit those stars and leave a review. You can listen to the shows get the show notes even get some crazy one propaganda and a whole lot more I have to do is head over to the crazy one calm. That's the crazy and the number one calm into you got any questions? You just want to keep up with my adventures get more content like this or anything else like that. You can always follow me on Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn. I can't but man, we're at 95 shows that's crazy to me. I can't believe it's I've been yakking for that long, but here we are. But you know, the interesting thing for me is that there's sort of been this debate because when you've done 95 shows been three and a half years you've talked about a lot of stuff but just Like all of you, over that time, you learn things you grow, you see things differently. And so I've sort of had this internal debate about Should I go back and either update or redo, you know, episodes that were things that I talked about, but I just sort of feel like I've got a little bit of a different perspective or something else is going on that maybe I want to revisit it. And I think I want to do that today. Because, you know, we've been talking about a lot of big, personal issues, heavy things over the last couple shows. And I know that those, you know, it's interesting, but those can be a little bit weighty. So I wanted to shift gears and go back to something more practical. And I want to go back and I want to talk about the one thing that I really feel like in many cases can probably have a really big influence on your career, maybe not make or break it, but it damn sure can have a big influence on it. And that's your portfolio. And that was something that I originally talked about way back in episode nine. That was almost three years ago, almost 90 shows ago. So I wanted to go back and just sort of revisit Talk about this and maybe go a little bit more detail than what I did then because you know, just like anything else I've learned how to do a little bit better show since then. But the first thing in part for me is that I see so many for portfolio so many people send them to me, they want my thoughts, they want me to be able to critique them and do things like that. And I swear, truly, I swear that I think for so many people, they put more creativity and more effort into their last Instagram post than they did in their damn portfolio. And I've never, never understood that because it seems like so many people for so many of you your resume your portfolio is this sort of like afterthought. I've always viewed this that my portfolio, my resume, my social presence, whatever this is, this is my face. This is my brand. This is my first introduction to people, in many cases are going to be through things like this. So in this episode, what I want to do a few different things. One is I want to and we hit on this in an episode not too long ago, but I just want to look at what are some of the trends that I think are kind of affecting the state of portfolios? What is going on out there? How are companies thinking about it? I want to go through the basics. So just like how do you think about what are some of the most common mistakes that I see people make whenever they make a portfolio? What are some of the technical pieces? How do you pick a platform? How do you do things like that? How do you think about your brand, your work your experience? And just how do you need to position this is that what does this mean to your career? How should you treat it as you go on through all these things? So that's what I want to cover today. But I want to start with those sort of trends. And I talked about this back in Episode 89. about some of the trends that I saw that were coming out whenever it came to hiring and now if you didn't listen to that episode, there are a few things that I think you should be aware of because they're gonna I think affect you there's gonna be things that you may find along your travels to try to get a job, or they just may affect how people view your portfolio. And look, the thing to me is that you know, to be clear about this portfolios are not the end all be all right? They're not what they used to be. Because I think they used to be this just sort of like that is what you would send. And that would be your story. And that would be the big part of it. And a lot has sort of happened to the point where in some cases with some teams, quite honestly, and especially in the digital space, portfolios are dying. And now you may be saying to yourself, Steve, but portfolios are dying, why the hell are we doing an episode on portfolios? Because this is a trend right. And I think it's a trend in a very particular space. But I still think even in those cases, the portfolio is still the introduction, the portfolio is still the thing that is going to get you to that place to be able to get in to have the conversation and do that. But in whenever they start to be treated differently, they aren't the end all be all that they used to be. Now the reason why that's happening is because, look, you know, a lot of us have gotten smarter, we listen to podcasts, we watch TED Talks, we we started to figure out how to be really Good storytellers because we're in such more of a social setting now, right, where we're sharing all this stuff, we're doing all these things. And whenever we do that, a lot of people become really good storytellers. But the problem with that is when you're on the other side of that, whenever you start to run into people who are really good storytellers, you start to get people, you start to hire people, God forbid, who are just good storytellers. And they can't back up what they say they can do. And that creates a huge problem, because now, how do you tell apart the good storyteller from the person that actually really has talent? And this has created a big problem for a lot of people. So I think a lot of companies now are in a place where they want some sort of proof to back up what they see in the portfolio. And, you know, I think that that has started to create some interesting things, and we'll talk about what they're doing in a minute. But I think in some cases, like I said, there's a few teams I've started to see that just place a lot less emphasis on it because they just don't feel like it's that source of truth. They do. Just don't feel like it really is the clear picture that it used to be. Now here's the thing I would say whenever you think about that, is that what you should do? What I do with that is you take that information, you understand it and you react, you understand that you're now going going to need to construct your portfolio differently, we're going to need to construct this stuff differently than we used to these long sort of like lists of just screenshots. And this generic business babble buzzword bullshit has to stop because it doesn't actually do any good. And I would continue to argue that for the people it is effective for is probably a job you shouldn't want. But so what we're doing is we're seeing the portfolios or the starting point, but from there now they're starting to they want to see things like real files or real products, because that's the thing if you think about it, if I have somebody bring in their sketch file and start to walk me through it, I can very quickly understand if this big story they told him the case study in their portfolio is true or not, because if you can talk about the error states or you can talk about What you did, or what the team overcame or did things like that, you can tell if somebody lived with that file, you can tell if it's been a part of something that they've really done or not. Or that again, they just go into the server and pull the file down. And they're trying to represent it as their own. And that's what I said, and this is this is the part of this industry that drives me crazy, where the best of us have to be tied to the standards that are created by the worst of us. But that's the problem is that since those people are out there, we're going to need to read and react. The other part of it is in a lot of cases, you'll start to see companies will start to want to do more exercises, use the portfolio, you do all that stuff. And at some point, if you say you can do this, they want to be able to actually see you do it. I've never shied away from this. I know this is an incredibly controversial subject for a lot of people again, spent time on it in the past and Episode 89 and others. The short version of this is I'm going to say Look, I don't think that if you can actually do what you say you can do showing it to somebody should be a problem. That being said, Do you think it needs to be done in a way that respects your time? I think it needs to be done in a way where you are sure that it is furthering the interview and that you're not giving them a free work. I think that, you know, again, you need to make sure that you're not getting taken advantage of hundred percent, right, because I think this can be done super badly. And a lot of people have really screwed this up and put a lot of bad taste in people's mouths about that. But that's the thing, right? Is the shift here is that starting to happen is the portfolios are just as important, but they aren't. Like I said, that all encompassing sort of thing where, you know, you start to see people use them as a starting point, but then one of validate that what they're seeing is really true. So I just want you to keep that in the back of your mind. I just want you to be able to kind of keep that around and think about it. That again, you know, we're just I don't think you know, this era of my portfolio should be enough. Don't you see what I've done? Don't you know who I am? For me partially, like if if those words ever come out of your mouth, we're not working together just to be totally blunt. Because like, for Me, I don't care if you have done that work if you have that attitude, that's a bigger problem for me because for me to be a part of a team to be creative, nothing should be beneath anybody. And if you're coming in with that big of a chip on your shoulder, I don't carry it nobody else on my team carries it like we're not gonna do things like that because I just think that sort of elitist you know, don't you knew who I am thing, I just I have such an allergy to that. But like I said, that's just me. A lot of other people I know are very successful being that way. So you know, hey, whatever works for you. But the thing is, right, you're you want to do your portfolio and update your portfolio. You want to think about this, maybe you're just starting out, maybe you know, you've been in the industry for a really long time or anything in between, I talk to people that are in all of those different positions. There are so many variables that go into making a great one. And in my experience, there is no secret formula. There is no you do this, this and this and this will get you to be successful. You do this, this and this, and it's going to get you to stand out. I mean, for me, the idea of Something like that is so contrary to everything we do. Because like, just think about that, we're gonna say that, like, if you follow a formula, you're going to stand out. That makes no fucking sense to me. Because if you're going to do the same thing, and everybody else is going to do the same thing, then you're going to end up with the same thing, right? So I think, you know, for me that the formula is, the thing to do is, be memorable, right? Because I mean, remember the things, the people the experiences, that's for you stand out from the crowd. And those are things that are not going to follow the formula. They're not going to follow what everybody else did. But the temptation is, the poll will be to be like everyone else, this is a part of what we deal with. This is designed imposter syndrome. This is the part of that sort of herd mentality where we want to fit in, we want to be accepted by people. But the problem is, whenever you do that, then you get lost in the noise. And so it's this constant push and pull between these two things. And that's what I'm saying. Like you're gonna be tempted to fall into that. You know, and I think social media teaches too. Many people this, there is this trap where it's like, you know, you need to be like everybody else or worse, I think like you need to go to extremes or start doing things that aren't the way you really are. If you want to stand out, right, so I'm not saying that I'm not saying, you know, don't become somebody else. But at the same point, don't be like everybody else. And we're gonna get into what that means here in a minute, as we start to talk about what are some of those mistakes. But the first thing I tell you to do, before you even start working on portfolio before you think about start updating yours, or anything like that, is do your homework. Because that's the thing is I'm so amazed where people like didn't want to go out, they want to compete, they want to get a job, they want to do all this sort of stuff. And they have not a clue of who it is that they're competing against. They have not a clue of what the standard is that they are up against. Because here's the thing, your resume your portfolio, your brand does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in a world where it competes against other things. It exists in a world where a standard has been set. And if you don't understand that, that becomes a huge problem. Again, some of the earlier shows I would talk about Jiro Ono is a sushi chef and from the documentary Jiro dreams of sushi, who would talk about whenever he would get these young cooks, that if you want to cook great food, you need to eat great food. Because the only way you're going to understand if what you are doing is great if what you're doing is different if what you're doing will stand out is that you have developed your palette to actually consumed enough design enough portfolios, enough of the work that is out there, so that you can then judge what you do about is this below average, average or above average, and how do I feel about that? But that's the sort of thing that you absolutely need to start with. Because if you don't have that standard, then you may think you're doing something so exceptional, so fantastic. But without that context, you may not understand that it may be it's really average, maybe it's bad, or maybe it actually truly is exceptional. But if you don't understand the landscape, you're not going to know that. But here's the other thing I would tell you to do. You know, and this is as we start to get into the mistakes, is that no matter what you do, no matter your industry, no matter your role, the thing that I would encourage you to do more than anything is to make sure your portfolio is online. Because this is the way HR, this is the way hiring managers. This is the way that people consume information. One of the things I would tell you that like is the I don't know what most frustrating thing is, whenever I'm going through and I'm seeing all these amazing online portfolios, he's amazing sort of things. And then all of a sudden, it's like bang PDF. It's just, I mean, for me, at least, it's like a thud in the middle of the room because there are just these sort of things where it's like I understand, not everyone is technical. I understand not everybody knows how to build a website, but I also understand that we're at a time and a place where there are platforms for all skill levels out there. There are is the ability for any to go out and engage in that, to learn to try to work on that. But for me, especially like, God forbid, if you're a digital designer and you send me a PDF, I mean, I'm sure maybe I'm missing out on amazing talent. But if what you are telling me your stock and trade is, is to work as a digital designer, and you send me a PDF, those two things are in such stark contrast to each other, that I I just personally have such a hard time getting around that. Because it's like, Look, you mean to tell me this is what it is, this is your passion. This is your love. This is what you want to do for your life and your career. But you can't even present yourself in that medium. So I think, look, you know, take that time do some research, but understand because and here's the other reason why I would say to put it online, is because whenever it's online, sort of like your LinkedIn profile or other things, there are certain platforms that are going to be out there, selling your brand, selling you putting your image out there. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That's the sort of thing that I like about my site or doing even the podcast or things like that, I don't have to be constantly out pushing and selling and Hawking and talking about my image. And here's what I'm doing and all those sort of things, the sites can exist out there, and the people come to them, learn about it, and then they want to engage so that it helps you build your brand, it helps you carry the message, so much more in a PDF doesn't do any of those things. So I think you've got to make sure that you're actually engaging in a way that's going to help you. But also, again, if you are making an introduction, an introduction is about who you are. An introduction is about what you do, don't fall into this trap of having a portfolio full of just images. Because whenever I look at a portfolio that is full of just images, it tells me nothing. Yeah, they're very pretty. But the bottom line is, who cares? The world is full of people who are great designers. The world is full of people who can make pretty pictures. If that is all that you're saying you did. One I have a hard time sort of seeing where your value is and but Also here again, I don't know, if you actually did you do everything? Did you do one little piece? Like what did you do? So in most cases, even if you did everything, but you aren't saying, Hey, I did everything, people aren't gonna engage with it. I can't tell you like, you know, the number of times I've got caught out because it was on me. I made the assumption. Oh my god, this is amazing. Oh my god, they did all this fantastic stuff. Look at all this and they came in and they're like, Oh, no, I didn't actually do the whole site. I just did like the banner ad down in the corner. I was like, oh, that that would have been good to know. And note to self, make sure you ask people what they did on the project before you get them in your office. But that's the challenge. I think the other challenge right now because as I talked about, right, like there are platforms for everybody. You can go in and you can find a platform you can find inspiration. You can find Photoshop mock ups, you can find themes, you can find all this sort of stuff. But also understand that's a double edged sword because I can't tell you the number of portfolios that I look at the I can tell a story on Pinterest blind. And what I mean by that is that they all use the most popular theme on theme forest, they all go in and use the exact same Photoshop device mockups. They all go in and use the exact same lifestyle photography that's the most popular. And again, since they aren't looking at what else is out there, they're going in saying, Oh, this is the most popular, this must be the best, I'm going to use that. But then they aren't understanding that as a result, your stuff looks exactly like everybody else's. And so again, you that starts to become even again, if you're doing it with the best intentions or putting in the best work. The way that it's coming across isn't the way you want it to. So again, avoid that Pinterest blindness. Another big pet peeve of mine is whenever whenever I go into somebody's portfolio and they quote somebody else, commerce Edison, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, somebody right, like I go into look at their work, look at their creativity get introduced to them, and they start by introducing themselves and their creativity by using someone else's words. I will never understand that in until the day I die because I get it. You want to associate yourself with someone who's been successful, I get it that maybe they encapsulated the thought that you want or how you feel about yourself better than you feel like you could. But again, this is you introducing yourself to me and to the world. I would rather you do it in a way that maybe is a little clumsy isn't the best, you know, isn't the most eloquent and best written. I mean, Lord knows I'm a designer by profession and a writer by necessity. I am not somebody who's out there killing it in the way that I write. But I at least wanted to be my voice. So again, think about that sort of stuff. This I worry about this to the day I die, like for the love of God, can we please stop like using the infographics on our resumes and in our portfolios? Because it's like, I got this the other day, like I'm 82% in typography and 75% in sketch and, like, what the hell does any of that mean? Again? Like I know, somebody went on Pinterest and they saw it and he didn't that look cool. And I'm, I'm a designer, so I'm graphic. Those are the most meaningless things in the damn world. There's not a hiring manager or the head of designer creative director. I know that thinks those are a good idea ever. All that they're doing is, again, you're putting something out there that looks good. But at the end of the day shows me, you aren't actually thinking about even how you're representing yourself, because you're putting a metric out there that is not standardized, that is meaningless and just looks pretty. And so again, I don't want somebody who's on my team who just wants to do shit, that looks pretty. And again, I know it's such a small thing. But that's, again, the problem with a first introduction, and especially one that's being done through a resume, or a social media platform, or even a portfolio is that what you're doing is I'm taking these cues and I'm trying to extrapolate them out to get a picture of the person to get a picture of their thinking. And if I'm seeing these clues that you aren't thinking things through, then I'm going to associate that with your work and that's something you desperately don't want. But like I said, those are a few of my pet peeves got those off my chest, climbed down from my soapbox, feel better about all that stuff. But that's the problem is that you need to think through some of these things. Now, there is the technical aspect to making an online portfolio, right. And this is just the nuts and bolts of it. The first part is pick a platform. And again, I look you can, you can go out and you can custom code it, you can hire somebody to do it for you, you can do all those things. I am constantly trying to balance creativity with free time and free sanity. Because here's the thing, like, you know, have I custom coded my sites in the past? Yes. Could I probably do it again? Yes. Do I have the time the sanity or the will to keep that up into evolve that platform or do I want to spend the time doing other things, ie the show or things like that? I would rather find that sort of balance and use a platform now. I guess there's a ton of ones out there like popular ones Wix Squarespace fabric, which is fabric with a K and not with a C. Carbon made Moonfruit behance like, again, there's, you know, webflow there's tons of these out there. I personally again, don't get paid, not a paid recommendation. Nobody Send me you'd had, you know, said I had to do this. I like WordPress, because for me it's easy. It's something where again, they they sort of evolve it, it has plugins, it has themes, like it has a lot of things that allow me to take a base setup a basic setup, and go in and really tune it and customize it because again, I don't want my stuff to look like everybody else's stuff. So that's one of the things that I like. Now whenever it comes to WordPress, if that's the route you decide to go down, and these other ones have a similar sort of thing is that once you pick a platform, usually you need to pick a theme. Like I said, that's the theme is sort of what WordPress uses, but basically it's themes or skins or it's just some way of you know, you can go in usually for 10 2030 if you're feeling super crazy, maybe like 50 bucks at most to go in and be able to get these sort of pre setup templates. Alright, and again, I think what I would like to do is to sort of balance something that is easy, but again, it needs to have style. It needs to have sophistication, it needs to have flexibility, I needed to stand out. So I spent a lot of time on site on sites like, again big when I use unsolicited plug is themeforest. I go in there you go into WordPress, you can go under I think it used to be portfolio. I think it's creative now. But you can go in and just start to browse through and see what you like. And more than anything, they'll go in. And you'll see there's a little button in there that says Live Preview, hit on that. You can see it in action, right? Like try it on your computer, try it on your iPhone, try it on those sort of things, understand what really comes with it so you understand what you're getting that that's what I've done for my site for years and for other clients and things like that as I start with that. But then my goal is once I get it, download and install it to make it look in a way that no one is going to be able to look at and go oh, I know exactly what theme that is. Because again, I want to start to use it in ways and I want to again apply creativity applied design to make it unique and stand out. But I can use that as a base so I can get it stood up much faster and it's much easier to maintain. Now what I start to layer on top of that, then it's good customizations. And like, again, you start with the base. And if it's WordPress, you can add plugins that give it additional functionality. So you can start to put together different plugins and different combinations that'll let you do different things. ones that will help a search engine optimization ones they're going to help with image compression ones are going to help with, you know, protecting your site from being hacked. The most powerful, the most amazing one that I absolutely love is one called slider revolution, again, on paid plug, I think, you know, for me, it is I don't know what to how to describe it. It's almost sort of like an after effects esque tool that you can use in WordPress to create very sophisticated animations, embed videos, you know, if you want to, you know, create all sorts of crazy parallax effects do that sort of stuff. It allows you to create incredibly sophisticated, unique content that again, is very much with your style and those sorts of things. So it again, it doesn't feel like that sort of base way of doing it. But those are the sort of things that I want to do. Again, I want to add things it's gonna help my SEO, my search engine optimization so that, again, that site is doing the work for me, and I'm gonna, well, I'm not obsessed with it. I'm not going to be on the first page of like, digital creative director or something. But I want to at least know that I'm somewhere in the running and that there are those sorts of things. I want to make sure that it's shareable, that if somebody wants to share this with somebody, they want to send it to a colleague, I've got those sort of sharing buttons embedded in it. So again, I'm thinking through what this is. But again, the other thing I want to do is to make sure that it also works everywhere, make sure that it is responsive, you know, look at and actually pull up, how does it look on your computer, on your tablet on your phone, do the work that you would do treat yourself like you're a client, that's the best advice I can give you is be that perfectionist be the mechanic be someone who cares about their craft and goes in and looks at this, because again, somebody's like, slider revolution is amazing. But I can either go in and have it auto generate different versions, and most the time I work on the desktop and then it'll just sort of take that and shrink it down to make the mobile version, often rendering it you know, the type starts to overlap, and it's And unreadable. Yeah, that's the lazy way. Or it'll let you go in and build custom views for, you know, the, for your desktop, for tablet for mobile, for whatever you want to do. And you can go in and fully customize that great looks so much better, again, shows that you give a shit that you actually understand what it is you're doing. But take this time to, again, this is your chance to be your client. No excuses, right? Like you're the one who can go in and make this look amazing. So take the time to do that. And I know a lot of people are kind of like, Oh, you know what? It's working. It takes time. It's like no, I get it. You know, it's only your life, your career, how much money you make, you know, where you're gonna live, things like that. I can understand why you'd want to short circuit those things. So yeah, go ahead and be lazy. That makes a ton of sense. I'm sure everyone will just like develop a Jedi mind trick and suddenly magically understand what your value is. For those of you who aren't aware, that's called sarcasm people because that's not what's gonna happen. Again, your talent is only going to take you so far in this a certain point your work ethic is what gets you to stand out. Again, that's something that I look for in portfolios. The level of detail in your portfolio which tell me what your work ethic is, these are tea leaves that we again in leadership and if you look around for enough portfolios, you start to get trained to look at and understand. But more than anything, the biggest thing is that your portfolio has to talk about who you are, this is selling you. I've said this before, I will continue to rail on it. your site is your first introduction, and it is where you sell yourself. And you do not sell yourself you are not where you went to school. You are not where you have worked. You are not how much experience you do or don't have. Is that a part of it? Absolutely. But you need to make it clear who you are and what makes you different. If you don't know this, go back and listen to again, way back in the beginning episode six. I went through laid out different ways we able to get this done. So this way, again, you can figure out what your brand is customize it, tailor it and be able to do those sorts of things. So it matches you. I am not someone Who believes that you should customize your site, your resume or who you are to get a job that you want. I think that is a candidate something that a lot of recruiters do, because then it gets people into a position, it gets them their commission, and it gets you to a job that you're going to quit in 18 to 24 months. Because you're like, Oh, I'm this person, I want to be this. I'm all about this, I want to and then so you sort of realized that you've lost yourself. That's not the person you actually are. It's the same thing. Like if you're dating somebody and you try to become a holistically different person, guess what the relationship doesn't last, for that very reason, because you're not being authentic to who you are. Now, that being said, the biggest challenge in putting a portfolio online is to strike a very important balance. Because what you want to do on the one hand is you need to strike a balance between not going too far and looking like an egomaniac, but also on the other side, not being painfully generic. And I think that this can be incredibly hard, and it's something I've struggled with and I think in many cases Why people make their portfolios so generic? Because I, one was this week and a half ago, two weeks ago maybe. And again, this is this is where like the little trolls on the internet, I'll get to you. But in this point where I'm in my career, I just sort of find it funny. So this guy wrote to me and the entire contents of what he wrote to me through my website, the entire thing just said, Wow, you're incredibly into yourself. And I had to laugh partially because the dipshit wrote from his work email address, and that I'm connected with more than half of the people in his company on LinkedIn. Which again, like if I was a weaker person I would have taken advantage of but I just sort of feel like that's a cry for help or something. But that's the thing, right is that if for a lot of people in the industry, if you take credit for yourself, if you try to stand up for yourself, if you try to say, this is why I'm in what I'm about, the people who don't have that strength will sit on the sidelines and judge and make fun and go, Oh, my God, look how egotistical they are right. So what you need to do is to understand that that trend is there, but also not Pay it the mind that it is that they want you to give it right? Because I think that you know, if you tell the truth, if you actually talk about the work you have done, if you don't make it egotistical if you don't make it a party about your greatness or do things like that, like in many cases, that's why for me, I, I often will use quotes that other people have said, because then that way I can sort of show or demonstrate the impact that I feel like I have had, but doing it in a way where it's not like, hey, look how great I am. Look how like because that just makes me want to throw up like I just, but that's the thing, like, in some ways, as much as I don't like having to be PT Barnum, as much as even sometimes my peers will sort of kind of make veiled comments about you know, no, no, I, you know, I want to be able to promote my work, but I'm not you. Like I know what that means. I know what you're saying. But at the same point, you know, for me, it's trying to put it out there because if I don't, who will? But that's the thing like so on the one hand, no, don't go crazy but on the other Don't give in to that, where you just become that sort of painfully generic sort of thing. And you start to again, go into those generic corporate buzzwords where you use a lot of words, but sort of find a way not to say anything. But what you want to do more than anything is to show people how you think, right? That is what your brand is, why do I want to invest in you? Why do I get excited about you? Tell me what your creative processes Tell me what how do you approach problem solving, right? Like, cuz in my head, whenever I'm looking at your portfolio, what I'm doing is I'm trying to understand things like, what is your unique value, right? Like, what are those skills that are unique to your experience? How, what are those in like, you know, are those going to be a good match for my team? Do you even understand what those are? Or to do things like that? But that's what I want to do. Even for you, and I'll try to even do this trick. Like, okay, if I was a consultant, right, like if I was a product, if I was a company, what were the services that I would provide, right? Like how would I say so it wasn't me as an individual. I was a product or I was a creative brief or something like what would I do? But also think about for you like, what are the problems you like to solve? What are the things that you're obsessed with? Those are the things that things that you get passionate that you fired up about that your eyes light up, you sit up straighter in a chair, you lean forward, your voice goes up, and you can start to feel that passion in your voice, man, put that into that site, put that in there, put whatever it is that those things are, because that's the stuff that's gonna matter. And I know that here again, you're like, well, but if I do that, not everybody's gonna feel that way. Or maybe I feel like an outsider. Maybe I feel like a nerd. You're right. But here's the thing that I'll continue to argue about. No, you're not going to be for everybody. That's the point. Because if it's something in a culture, you don't click with a leader who doesn't value what you do somebody who doesn't value your culture, you're not gonna be happy in the job. You're not gonna want to be able to do that. So Wouldn't you rather have somebody look at that and go You know what, love them. That's I love this passion. I love what that is. Dammit, I want them on my team. Versus you know, somebody who's at the same point. I also want people to go You know what, no Not for me, not for me. And that's the sort of thing is, I know that can feel so hard. But I think it's just gonna save you a lot of headaches and a lot of sort of letdown and false hope as you go down the road. But then whenever you get into the work, right, because that's the thing at the end of the day, this is selling you, not your work, your work as a proof point that shows what you can actually do. But again, the work in your case studies are the past. The past is a demonstration of past expertise when I want to hire is I want to hire the future and the future is going to be you and what you bring to the table. Make sure you think about it that way. But the point of a case study is to show far more than anything you're thinking not the end result. Because again, too many people just like put the name of where the customer was and throw a whole bunch of screenshots in there and it tells me nothing. Now, I want you to be thoughtful about the work you're going to include. infuse your personality into those stories that you tell think about the order you have to put the work in and put those strongest pieces of strategic In order as you go through there, maybe you've got something that you're like, Look, this is under NDA or this is something that I can't share publicly great password protected. Again, and there's some people who password protect their entire portfolio totally makes sense to me. Because again, I actually really like that because what does it What does that show me? It shows me that they respect the work that you've done. They respect their clients, they respect their team. They are somebody who they will hold up to their word, that stuff matters. And but again, that the blueprint that I like to use, so whenever I go into every single piece of work, I want to tell a story about what I think about is first and foremost, explain what was the challenge, because again, the end result is fine, but I'm much more interested in the challenge and the journey. So again, start with what it was, what was the problem we were posed with? What was my role, again, being super clear, knowing there's a pitfall there? What was my role in this? What was the process that we were going to use more than anything more the problems we had to overcome? Don't tell me it was all sunshine rainbows and puppies because I don't believe you. Right? Like, what was that process? says what did you discover? Like, take me on that journey with you? Show me the work. Show me the sketches. Show me what it looked like, show me the end result like show me all that sort of stuff. But take me on that journey so I can see how it evolved. And then finally, like, again, show me the results. Did it work? Did it not like what happened? Be honest about it. Like if it worked great if it didn't, and you learn something great. Tell me that too. Sometimes the most memorable pieces of portfolio I've seen are the ones who feel talking about their failures. One because I just applaud the strength in doing that. But to because again, you know, they can sort of talk about it in a way where you can understand their perspective and who they are. But yeah, tell me about the results. Tell me about what press it got. Tell me if I won any awards, like tell me that sort of stuff. But walk me through that. But again, do this in a way that this is storytelling. So mix up the visuals with the content, keep it interesting use animation, do those sorts of different things. Because like I said before, this is your chance to show off. This is your chance to again, no clients no excuses. So that's again I'm looking at it because that is the biggest thing for me. If this is your chance to shine, this is your chance to step up and show people who you are, and you mail it in. Don't come to me about why your career isn't doing better, right? Because if you want to know what the problem is, look in the damn mirror. Because this is the thing, this is your shot, make it memorable, invest in it, treat it like it's your job, because like I said, it's only your life and your well being in your future. So maybe treat it like that, or it has that level of importance. But I think that's the important part of this sort of thing. But a lot of it too, is to think especially as you go on in your career, like you need your portfolio to contain more than just your work. Because as you progress, you move into leadership, your experience starts to take a different shape in a different tone than whatever you started out. This can be things like, you know, your leadership style initiatives or internal projects, you've launched public speaking, awards, all these sorts of things, because I think for many of us, we feel like things will get easier, the more experience we get, but in my experience, things only get harder. Because whenever I started out my career, showing what Did was easy. I could show you a design, I could show you sketches I could show you those sorts of things. The experience that I have right now is far less visible. Whenever I talk about building a team or working with, you know, leadership or putting transformation together or trying to scale the impact of design. What, what the hell is the visual that shows that like, yeah, I can put together, you know, maybe a couple quotes or testimonials, but it's so much less visible. But in many cases, again, leadership needs jobs more than anybody. So how do I put that together? You know, again, to tell the stories of what you've achieved through coaching or through leadership that the people that you brought along, like, you can't mention names like, but again, I've used so have these big impact on things. You also, you know, you tend to network less because you know, you've got that position, you're not driving as hard as you used to be. So how do you keep your brand and things out there? But that's going to be this problem is as you go on, you're going to need to think about your portfolio differently. Because look, you can put a leadership page in there talking about your leadership. style talking about your approach, talk about some of the things that you've done. Talk about, you know, whenever you scaled design thinking talk about, you know, whenever you instituted a new process on the team, that can be a case study, just the same, like, the visuals are going to be different, doesn't mean they need to be any less sexy, but they're going to be different. But again, your ability to invest in that to continue to put that message out there and not just say, well, oh, well people should know, or be able to do those things. But like, develop that short term memory loss, have come back and say, Look, if you didn't know you, what do you want people to walk away with? What do you want them to know? What do you want them to do? And where do you start to do that, then I think there's that sort of ongoing maintenance piece of this, right? Because what you want to do go out and get feedback on your portfolio. Ask friends, ask strangers ask anybody else like say, hey, look, what do you think about this? Would you walk away with like, because what you want to do is you want to be in this constant cycle of review and revision. Because in my experience, if I'm able to do little bits of work over a constant period of time, that makes it so much easier. Then it's like, oh, crap, I need a job. I haven't touch this in four years I need to start over. That is so daunting, that is so frustrating and hard because you feel like you're starting from zero again. And as again, if you just sort of keep that kind of drip feeding it a little bit, it makes it so much more manageable. And because again, I think that it also keeps it up to date, which is hugely important because the other thing that I've learned the hard way, you also don't ever know when you're going to need that network. You don't know when you're going to need that portfolio. I've been laid off twice, both times maybe had an inkling it was coming. But all of a sudden, I found myself, you know, out there on my own and after the first time it happened, I swore to myself, I was never gonna get caught flat footed again. And that's the sort of thing that where it becomes important to be able to make sure that you're maintaining this because you know, sometimes you don't know when you're gonna need it. Sometimes you don't you don't know who's gonna see it. Maybe that dream job you've always wanted can just come floating along, because you've got that work out there because you're telling your story because you're doing those sorts of things. But I know for so many of us it's that struggle of like I don't want to feel like egomaniac. I don't want to be bragging about I feel like I'm bragging about myself or my work isn't good enough or it's always tends to be that extreme right? Like you're I feel like I'm bragging or I don't have nearly the experience or it's not nearly good enough like, right? Like, it's always one or the other. Nobody. This is like Goldilocks and three bears or something nobody's ever like it's just right. It's the perfect time to tell my story. But that's the issue here. Right? No matter the platform, right? If you buy a theme, you design it yourself, if you have a ton of work or only three projects, like like no matter what it is, if you have a ton of experience or very little like there's always going to be some place where you're like, Ah, there's a challenge here. Great. Take this as an opportunity. Let this be your time to shine, show up who you are, put your name out there, build your brand, make it memorable, make it you. And I think that that's the thing is that make it not for everybody and know that that's the point. But to make it about you and if the barrier for you designing that portfolio or for doing that is that you don't know who you are, or you aren't sure what you really stand for what it is, you really want to take that as a sign to take the time to go back, do those exercises that I had back in Episode Six, like take the time to actually think about these things. Because if you are thinking that your boss, your company, your job is going to give you your direction, I will more often than not, you're going to be sadly disappointed in that. Because they don't know you. And again, they may or may not have your best interests in mind, they may or may not be wanting you to advance they may or may not be doing a lot of things that again, this is your livelihood. This is who you you are take some control in that because that is one of my biggest frustrations is is how many of us we don't go out and get what we want. We go out and we take what we're given your brand, your portfolio, your ability to tell your story to impose some power in that to be able to have power in this equation. To be able to say this is what it is. It's important to me, this is what I want. That for me is the definition Crazy, right like that changes so many things in such an amazing way. But I think that's why doing this stuff and again keeping at it understanding you you are your job, your happiness, your success, your your career is your job. And to make sure that you always think about it that way is going to make such a massive difference in so many different parts of your career that you're gonna be amazed at how much you get back from that investment. But as always, I'm gonna put links to everything I talked about all the different themes, all the different sites, all the different stuff, all the different platforms, just head over to the crazy one calm that crazy, the number one calm, get the shownotes hit up all the links to all that stuff. You know, as always, make sure you hit that subscribe button, leave a review, you can follow me on social media. Like I said before, you can do a Twitter Linkedin or Instagram always happy to do that. If you're gonna reach out I would suggest probably LinkedIn or write me through my site. Those are the best. The notifications in Twitter and on Instagram. Certainly something to be desired. So there's some times I will not see it someone has written to me for far longer than I would have liked. So if I did that to you, sorry. But like I said, you can do that. As always, everybody in legal wants me to remind you that views here are just my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are just my own views. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time. But thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury that any of us have and was incredibly humbled and want to spend any of it listening to me. So until next time, go out. Make a mark put a dent in the universe. Put together a kick ass portfolio, send it to me, I want to see it. I'll give you my thoughts. I'm here to help and all the time while you do it. Stay crazy.