Indie Biz - Slow dance development

It’s spring I think officially now, and though everywhere I go everyone seems fully under the weather I’ve been blessed with nothing but a low-level version of the flu daemon and energy enough to trundle on with the project juggling I so enjoy. Though in recent months I’ve had to get quite firm with myself to streamline the multi-tasking and strengthen the focus and resources I throw at my priority commitments, I made a decision to keep certain projects in my life. Worn Fashion Journal is one.

Worn is a project dear and close to my heart, not just because I’ve contributed at least a book review to every issue so far, and helped edit throughout, so I feel invested; but more because it has adamant smarts, and seems to click with people in a way I find really kinda profound. It’s a journal. The articles are long and they use big words to talk about fashion, but rather than alienating people this seems to strike a chord with everyone from curators at major museum collections, to preteens in small towns where indie fashion is unavailable and utterly unheard of.

Over the years, Indyish and Worn have grown together. Founded by best-buds at about the same time, this seems bound to have happened, but still the Editor and I are pretty consistently surprised and delighted to find we’re building our own things and they happen to so satisfyingly connect. Every month or so we end up meeting, usually in an unplanned way, to compare notes and swap encouragement and pass on advice and ideas we’re trying to put to work. Often, we swap something we’ve learned from Lickety-Split, or other wise folks in our surprisingly supportive community.

Our volunteer staff overlaps, you’ll see articles in the upcoming issue of Worn by Team Indyisher’s Tessa and Lise, and even when it doesn’t, the challenges are the same. How do you consistently raise the quality of work you’re doing when you rely on contributions from volunteers? How do you become sustainable? How can you support other emerging orgs without having your own forward momentum disrupted?

I can get frustrated when things aren’t moving fast enough for my head-out-the-window-and-hollaring hectic taste, but friends calm me down, and in the end, staying calm and listening to advice and criticism seems to be the only way solid things happen. You can’t rush the good stuff. Real organic indie biz development shouldn’t feel like a bat outta hell or a runaway train never coming back; we don’t need another hero biz that burns out quick rather then fade away.

All the cliches pile up to suggest that the healthy rhythm for business development is perhaps more like a slow dance: gentle contact, mutual respect, delicate interlocking steps, time to get to know one another, to figure out what works and feels right … plus big poofy dresses, whenever possible.

SLOW DANCE PROM
Sala Rossa - 4848 St Laurent
April 11, 2008. 9pm
10$ gets you in and a copy of the new Worn.