What is your 20% project?

ICT4D

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We are all busy. But you should never be too busy to experiment, explore, and build something new, especially something new that could be a new income stream or professional achievement.

I call this the 20% project.

Yes, that implies you should be spending 20% of your time on new projects, be they for work or outside of it. My earliest 20% project, Belly Button Window opened up a world of friends that helped me cross the earth in style. My most successful 20% project was OLPC News, that beget a whole new career focus for me: 6 years as a thought leader in ICT for education.

Now I am juggling two 20% projects: Technology Salon, which I am working on rolling out as a private company in 2013, and an MBA, which is a long-term 20% project.

But don’t think I am the only one.

In thinking about 20% projects, I asked around to see what others are up to. Here are a few of the responses:
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  • Ian Thorpe says: two things 1. internal UN “transformation” network 2. #post2015agenda public conversation platform
  • Linda Raftree says: kids, running, capoeira, TSNYC, curric on Visual Literacy, blog, mYWD research, FLSMS brd
  • Mike McKay says: PouchDB is an html5 offline capable DB with full sync. Phones, tablets & dev countries. me =>80%
  • And Christine Prefontaine says: Maybe too meta, or maybe because I’m a freelance, but I don’t think 80/20.

Christine brings up a good point. If you do it right, your 20% is your 80% – you are able to build innovative projects as your job, and that’s when you know you’re doing it right.

So… what’s your 20% project?

Category: ICT4D

One Comment on “What is your 20% project?”

  1. Haha, I think I answered wrong by including kids in the 20%! retract. 🙂
    If you add vacation (fake-cation), nights and weekends, the 20% easily adds up a a second full-time job.
    Oh wait… is that a good thing?