Consultancy
About a year ago I had a conversation with a colleague at work. She'd seen me, unexpectedly, on BBC 2 one early morning. 'What kind of job is it when you go on television?' she asked.
'I'm a consultant, I suppose'. I said.
'Isn't everyone these days?' she said.
Which is a round about way of introducing the hardest page of the site to pin down. If you're looking for a consultant to systematically reorganise your business, try Yellow Pages. My colleague was right. I'm the kind of 'everyone is these days' consultant. By which I mean that half of what I do is responding to requests from people who think I can help them and half is me chasing people because I know of some way we can work together.
The visible part is the television and radio punditry. To date this has taken in work for BBC television and radio, guest appearances on cable and satellite shows and event direction. Most of the pundit work comes after I've been brought in to advise or provide material for an event. In the recent past this has included Clive Anderson's Conspiracies for BBC Choice where I helped in preparing a programme on rock stars who may have faked their own deaths, been assassinated and/or not been who they claimed to be. I turned up talking about Elvis. I've also worked on radio shows. The one that drew the most response was Censored Sound for BBC Radio Two, where I discussed banned records, and gave the producers a few tips on what to include.
Censored sounds.
Sometimes this consultancy is hard work and sometimes it's the most fun you can have whilst employed. The problem with discussing this work is the amount of invisibility — or contracted secrecy — that goes with it. Honestly, I'd love to tell you about the book I just read for a publisher, but the contract for advising on it included a secrecy clause. Then there were the months I spent discussing an exciting product line with a high street chain which ended when…anyway, in a word it's consultancy.