Postcard from the Edge.

Artisan talent and disintermediation...

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

One of the great pleasures of working on Medium and Substack is the variety of interesting people I encounter who I’d be very unlikely to see on mainstream media. Each has a particular focus and adds flavour to my thinking, as herbs and spices do to food in the hands of a good chef. They write from a place of curiosity and passion rather than with the intent of mainstream media to capture attention in order that we can be served a diet of advertising. Like herbs and spices, it requires balance but find that I tend more and more toward original content and spend less time with the mainstream. The mainstream are mediators. They sit between creation and customer, determining what we see and controlling what the creators are able to bring to market and the choices customers have.

An article by Doug Shapiro on Medium got me thinking about this and led me to wonder about the way that technology, in general, and AI, in particular, might change our relationship with those who mediate our talent. If we’re employed, we turn up to work and do what is asked of us (and often far more); our output is fed into the business model, and the resultant product is fed to customers shorn of our identity. At the same time, our time and energy are eaten up, ensuring our talent is carefully controlled, and doesn’t leak out without being monetised.

But perhaps that is changing. As Doug points out, technology is disintermediating those who have become used to controlling the output of talent to the market. There are now many platforms that we can access that are increasingly effective and low cost and offer us new routes to market. This is especially true for those areas that do not require high overhead and sunk costs. A thousand people who will support our work on a regular basis is enough to make a survival income, and turning a thousand into five thousand leads to a very comfortable life. It is not about the transient nature of “influencing” or “celebrity”; it is about a few people who appreciate and will pay for what we offer, the relationship they have with us, and the network we offer them.

As I reflect on my relationship with those I have been employed by over the years, one thing becomes clear. We offer employers value; they offer us money; it is rarely a fair exchange. They are in the business of talent exploitation (and that is not a criticism; it‘s how the model works), whilst our future is about exploring our unfolding talents wherever we are in life. We need to establish a balance.

And there is nothing to stop us other than the tiny piece of courage required to start and find out where we are valued.

Artisans are always present and catalytic as one cycle collapses into another, and it is clear we are in such a time now. It is uncertain, unpredictable and confusing, but it will not go away.

We all need options because, whatever the rhetoric, employers don’t owe us loyalty. As they feel the increasing force of the changes underway and understand the walls they have built around themselves will not withstand them, we will be the tokens they sacrifice.

It is a good time to dust off the artisan present in all of us.