Renzo Carlos

I like to describe myself as a ‘bibliophile,’ a lover of books. But that love only applies to the commercial fantasy genre. Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon, the New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist, is probably the first non-fiction book I ever thoroughly enjoyed—or finished reading without the need to force myself. This little book (with dimensions smaller than a piece of Kleenex tissue) offers ten transformative rules to motivate creatives to come out of their shells and reach out to others so they can get discovered and become an inspiration to an audience.

Photo: AustinKleon.com

Back in September, I read an insight by customer experience expert Gerry McGovern that stuck with me ever since. He argues that “digital is mainly garbage.” Simply put, almost everything you post online is pretty much filler, so get straight to the point. This mindset literally evolved the way I write moving forward, focusing only on what needs to be said then deleting everything else. And Show Your Work! does precisely that.

One of the reasons I’m uninterested with non-fiction is that I find they often discuss something completely different, resulting in hundreds of redundant pages. Show Your Work!, on the other hand, keeps it short by talking about relevant and essential details and ideas; each line of text provides something valuable. The book is over 200 pages, yet Kleon holds your attention by adding various illustrations, quotes from known artists, and blackout poetry. If I could, I would recommend it to a friend by telling them just to read the whole thing. I marked the pages containing interesting points with a sticky tab—and there’s practically one on every other page that includes the main content.

Photo: Flickr

Show Your Work! is an aesthetically pleasing book mostly aimed at visual artists, designers, and other creatives. Still, there are a lot of pieces of advice that can be applied to any career. Speaking as an interactive media management individual, I combined all my learnings into three key takeaways:

Don’t Hog Information

When chocolate chip cookies were first invented around the 1930s, the baker Ruth Graves Wakefield didn’t take the recipe to her grave. Instead, she shared it with the world, allowing it to continue existing in food places and everyone’s tummy many decades later. This sweet, hunger-inducing analogy links to Kleon’s advice to not be a hoarder and share your knowledge with the world. “The act of sharing is one of generosity—you’re putting something out there because you think it might be helpful or entertaining to someone on the other side of the screen,” he remarks.

Everyone has something to contribute in their respective fields, whether they’re just starting or have been in the game for a long time. Share valuable and educational information you use to grow your career. Provide links to blogs, articles, resources, and tutorials. When you share something with someone, chances are they’ll share with you back.

Teaching someone that knowledge is even better. If you’re not well-rounded about the subject matter or confident enough to do so, then that’s okay, too! There’s always someone else who can do the teaching for you. Be helpful; it’s enough to point the people one step behind us in the right direction.

Forget thinking of it as losing your competitive advantages. “Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it. When you teach someone how to do your work, you are, in effect, generating more interest in your work,” Kleon says. “People feel closer to your work because you’re letting them in on what you know.” So give away your treasured trade secrets and out-teach your competition. There’s always knowledge to be shared, and benefits we can reap by doing so. Let’s not waste it.

Connect with People

Great, you just learned about a free event where they teach all the exciting things about UX. But who do you share it with? Your network, of course!

People who attained great accomplishments in their lifetime didn’t do so by shunning the world. “Lone genius is a myth,” writes Kleon. So get out there and reach out to people. The relationships you make and the people you meet can help you become successful.

Networking is the perfect opportunity to gain access to the fundamental resources and experiences that will further advance your career. Having connections with all sorts of professionals is beneficial. But searching for the right people who hold the same interests as you is what substantially impacts your craft.

Humans tend to desire meeting others they identify with. As Kleon puts it, “These are your real peers—the people who share your obsessions, the people who share a similar mission to your own, the people with whom you share a mutual respect. There will only be a handful or so of them, but they’re so, so important.” Find someone who is passionate about typography or idolises Don Norman as much as you then do your absolute best to maintain that bond.

It’s hard to admit but it’s true: you can’t do everything by yourself; you need to collaborate with others. The good news is that you don’t need to be the perfect candidate in your profession to network. All it takes is having something to offer and the ability to share your knowledge.

Get To Work

Excellent, you now have a network of people who can share their expertise with you and provide support on your work. But there’s no work for them to look at if you’ve done nothing.

There comes a certain point when you need to pause making connections and start doing. When describing the people he looks up to, Kleon notes they “...aren’t schmoozing at cocktail parties; they’re too busy for that...Instead of wasting their time ‘networking,’ they’re taking advantage of the network.” Stop spending too much of your energy searching for every little piece of knowledge you can get. By using your current resources and dedicating time to do well on what you do, others may come to you for your wealth of experience.

Overnight success is a myth. Achieving goals through hard work and perseverance isn’t. Your dream job at Google isn’t going to be handed to you the instant you receive that certificate or diploma. “Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams,” TV writer Shonda Rhimes once said. “But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.”

Shopify is an e-commerce platform for online stores created by Shopify Inc., a company in the multi-channel commerce platform industry. What started as an online snowboard store in 2004 built from scratch after frustrations with available software at the time turned to becoming the “leading global commerce company” that’s home to over a million business owners. Now, the company is headed by one of its co-founders Tobias Lütke and consists of over 4,000 employees. It has offices in Toronto, Waterloo, San Francisco, Tokyo, London, Singapore, and many other locations all over the world, but its headquarters is in Ottawa.

It’s understandable daydreaming about going to work and being exposed to thrilling employee lounge amenities, onsite fitness facilities, and a cafeteria that provides free lunch and snacks daily—and Shopify has them all. (Psst…there’s an indoor go-kart track in their Ottawa office.) Their dog-friendly office space permits a very casual dress code for its employees who also have flexible work hours and work from home options.

Moreover, Shopify provides growth opportunities for its employees. They offer basic health benefits plan, in-house training initiatives such as mentoring and paid internships, performance recognition like individual performance bonuses and awards to recognize employee impact, and a no-limit vacation policy.

But what makes working at Shopify great is how they exemplify having a strong company culture. They display job openings by applying to you beforehand. Shopify provides its own résumé, informing applicants about the education of their current employees (some of whom are university drop-outs) and their business functions (of which Chief Product Officer Craig Miller oversees UX and Design teams), among others. They then add an interesting twist through the Life Story interview, the first stage in their hiring process where Shopify goes more in-depth to learn about its applicants and their personal lives leading up to where they are today.

Described as “YouTube for the written word,” Wattpad is an Internet storytelling platform connecting over 80 million readers and writers. The audience spends over 23 billion minutes a month engaged in more than half a million stories written on the platform.

The brick-and-bream, loft-style office of Wattpad Corp.—the company behind “the world’s most-loved social storytelling platform”—houses almost 200 employees, complete with a rooftop patio. As part of the Internet publishing industry, the team is changing how stories are told through technology from their downtown Toronto headquarters at the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood.

The work culture looks very laidback, evident through photos dotted throughout their website of the workers in casual attire working on bean bag chairs and hammocks. There’s even an Instagram dedicated to “a day in the life at Wattpad and being a Wattpadder” where they post about costume competitions, company cruises, multicultural potlucks, and—most importantly—office dogs!

But the final part of the hiring process is meeting the CEO and co-founder Allen Lau, according to a 2018 interview with Wattpad’s Human Resources Manager, Meghan Scott. Getting interviewed by the big cheese of one of the most influential companies in the world is intimidating, that’s for sure—or, maybe not. The company showcases treating every employee equally no matter the position through the website’s team page that shows everybody—even the interns! Moreover, they’re listed all together in alphabetical order by first name, which means you won’t actually see the profiles of Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Ivan Yuen, Head of Experience Design Andrew Chak, Head of Content and Creator Development Danielle Zacarias, and Allen himself till you scroll further across the list. It seems they all handpick their profile photos too, so you’ll see professional headshots, selfies, and even a candid picture of someone in a onesie.

Wattpad offers a wide variety of benefits, including competitive salary, career development and mentorship opportunities, paid internships, health benefits for new employees, paid vacation after the first year on the job, transit subsidies, plus a whole lot more.

But it’s not only the flexible work schedule, the option to work from home, nor the kitchen stocked with free, healthy snacks (also comes in vegan and gluten-free options!) that makes working at Wattpad great. They are a company committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in an industry that doesn’t welcome all women and minorities in tech. They recently released their third annual Diversity & Inclusion Survey; the highlights include 50% of employees are women, 40% are persons of colour, and 96% of employees approve their employer values diversity. Wattpad states in all their job postings that they are “an equal opportunity employer. [They] do not discriminate. Period.”