Today’s interview is with Jessica Hagy, who is widely known for her award winning blog: Indexed (I’ve been a subscriber for years!). Recently, she wrote an article for Forbes magazine on How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps). That article was incredibly popular. So much so that she has turned it into a book: How to Be Interesting: An Instruction Manual.
Apart from being a fan of Jessica’s work, I thought the interview and subject matter was apt and appropriate for some of the issues that I explore here on the blog. I hope you enjoy it.
This interview follows on the back of last week’s interview: Word of mouth marketing starts with proper listening – Interview with Molly Flatt of 1000 Heads and is number fifty-six in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things and helping businesses innovate, become more social and deliver better service.
Here’s the highlights from the interview I did with Jessica:
About Jessica (taken and adapted from her new book’s website)
“I was pondering personal assets in business, modern virtues if you will. I thought that being interesting was the greatest one. It’s more vital than hustle or education, more important than good networking. It’s a core attribute that draws people toward each other, and greases the wheels of love and commerce and politics. From that point, I noodled out what it meant to be interesting: and that’s this book.”
Jessica Hagy is an illustrator currently working in the Pacific Northwest.
Her work has been featured on the BBC Magazine Online, in Good Magazine, Reader’s Digest Canada, The National Post of Canada, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Redbook, Golf Digest, The New York Times, CNN.com, and her blog, Indexed, was named on of Time Magazine’s best blogs of 2008 and was a Webby Award winning site in 2010. She’s also a contributor to Forbes.
Her illustrations have been previously published by Random House/Europe, Penguin Books, Chronicle Books, and O’Reilly Publishing.
Check out her daily blog: Indexed, her website jessicahagy.info, say Hi on Twitter @jessicahagy and do pick up her new book: How to Be Interesting: An Instruction Manual here.
6 Comments
Adrain, I enjoyed the interview very much.
My favorite point is “go exploring”, simple, obvious and yet how often do we do it?
James
PS, I’ve ordered the book. With luck my own blog posts will show an improvement
I am really pleased that you liked the interview and went onto buy the book, James.
Go exploring! It’s a simple point but a very powerful one and one that we should all do more of. And, encourage all of those around us to more of too.
Adrian
Ps. I’ll keep an eye on your blog posts for an improvement 😉 Nb. Not that they need them.
Thanks, Adrian, for sharing this interview. I love the 10 habits and behaviors. They are a great reminder for how we should live our lives. I, too, will order the book and plan to print them out and post them on my wall. They are great lessons to share with the kids, too.
Annette 🙂
That’s great news, Annette. And, you are absolutely right about the value in sharing the book with kids too 🙂
Thanks again,
Adrian
Hello Adrian
Love it, thank you for sharing it. I cannot argue with what Jessica says as it shows up as perfect sense. For people to be interested in me I do have to show up as being interesting. And going exploring is a great place to start!
Maz
Hi Maz,
If you love the ideas that Jessica talks about then you’ll really love the book…it’s a beautiful little object packed full of gems. If you like the ideas then you have to buy the book….you’ll love it.
Adrian