Positioning - Howard Gray

Howard Gray

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Positioning

A collection of 10 posts

“How did you land the gig?”

Portfolio Career

“How did you land the gig?”

A simple question that's anything but.

Frames and Lenses

“Don’t care what anyone else thinks about you.” Maybe. But looking through the lens of others can sharpen up our own view. What do they see that I don’t? How do they explain what I do if someone asks? What would they omit that I’d like them

The Rough Edges

The photographer who infuses their biology degree into the art. The fashion stylist who spent time as a national-level rower. The educator who links teaching with rave DJs. The big-city brand strategist who built social enterprises in rural Africa. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They’re not going to be for everyone. They’ll

Serious Fun

10 years ago The End [https://djmag.com/longreads/end-club-changed-london] nightclub in London closed its doors for the final time. It’s hard to overstate the impact The End (along with close neighbour fabric [http://www.fabriclondon.com]) had on the electronic music landscape in the late 90s and early

The Question: 'So, what do you do?'

A Thursday afternoon as the summer blinked into view. The two of us pulled up a pair of high seats at the bar. Prohibition throwback, well-worn menu, metropolitan pricing. After an introduction from a mutual connection, we’d emerged unscathed from the obligatory tennis match of email-based scheduling – the clay

Positioning: Get Uncomfortably Narrow

A lot of entrepreneurs and freelancers struggle with positioning. Often it’s ironic as the work many of us do is to help others communicate, tell stories, and stand out. Yet, of course, we struggle to do this effectively for ourselves. Here’s one way to think about it: get

Be Like Bowie

On a cold London morning in 2016, I headed over to the rarified climes of Mayfair for a meeting. It was the middle of January, just a few days after David Bowie had passed away. My host’s occupation exposed him to plenty of interesting people across the spectrum of

The Microscope & The Telescope

Sometimes we need to look at things through the microscope: the detail, the hidden particles, the connective tissue, the grit,and the friction. It can be surprising just how much is happening in a tiny surface area. Other times we have to look through the telescope: the bigger picture, the

Lowercase skills

Portfolio Career

Lowercase skills

You may be familiar with concepts like T-shaped or I-shaped people to help simplify the way we think about skillsets in people. Here’s another that’s even simpler, and based on concepts most of us learnt when we were 4 or 5 years old. Capital and lowercase. [1] It

How to map your next career move

About 9 months after I graduated from university I moved to London. When I wasn’t watching World Cup games on TV during that boiling hot June of 2006, I went to interview for what would be the first ‘proper’ job of my career. Most of the interviews were at