I used to work in publishing – I had a lovely job as an editor at Penguin Books* – and I never, ever liked it when people called our books ‘products’. It always made me both shudder and cringe.
And now, quite a few years later and firmly ensconced in the world of architecture and the ways of architects, I’ve found myself wrestling with that word again. Even worse, it’s morphed into another variant – ‘productisation’.
But if I didn’t like hearing books talked about as products, then surely for architects to bundle their creativity and expertise into a product is even worse… Well, actually, I can see that it might just be a good thing. It brings clarity.
Your clients know exactly what they’re getting and exactly what they’re paying, and you know exactly what you’re offering.
So, if you’ve been wondering if it could work for you, then I’m here to cheer you on.
In fact, so much so that I’ve taken the leap and put together two ‘products’ of my own.
Of course these two options don’t cover the half of it (and if you try this, I’m sure it’ll be the same for you), but I trust they present a welcoming shopfront – and an open door – to anyone who’s not sure whether to step inside.
I’ve called my two easy-to-grasp options The Writing Workshop and The Thinking Workshop – to tie in nicely with my Writing Toolkit and my Thinking Toolkit – and if you scroll down a little on my How I help page, you’ll find them.
So, I still can’t write ‘productisation’ without quote marks, just in case someone thinks I’m taking myself seriously, but at least I’m talking about it – and even doing it.
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*The bookshelf you can see above shows a few of the books I worked on in my publishing days. They definitely weren’t ‘products’.