Posted by David / Category: freelance, general, market, tips
Maintaining and growing a steady stream of clients and job leads is without a doubt the most important aspect of an online worker’s career. Andrew Neitlich, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for a Bulletproof Career, shares his tips on growing your stream of clients and jobs.
“One of the most important ways to succeed as a freelancer is to understand and get into the opportunity flow…”
Posted by David / Category: freelance, general, market, trends
Portfolios trump resumes, more workers telecommute, social media continues its spread, and mobile marches over desktop: Online magazine CIO provides technology and business leaders with insight and analysis on information technology developments and gives an interesting forecast of some of the key trends for the next year.
According to CIO, the workplace has evolved in new and exciting ways and has become even more centered on the Web. In 2010, mobile applications gained on desktop apps as many companies focused on facilitating smartphones and tablet PCs. Traditional marketing techniques were edged out by web-based marketing via search engines and social media. However, one of the most important trends is the continuous growth of online work. According to the CEO of one of the leading marketplaces for online talent: “It’s a digital world, and the smart companies will hire more flexibly and get more work done online in 2011″. Read the full post on CIO.com.
Technology-centered work trends for 2011:
Human resources usually describes the individuals who comprise the workforce of an organization; often its most valuable asset. Therefore, the strategies and policies relating to the management of individuals are very important factors for most businesses.
Apparently, human resource professionals are still hesitant and critical when it comes to anything technology related, including applicant recruitment and employee selection through social media. However, social medias’ popularity and possibilities have forced H&R professionals to give the medium a second thought.
This post on mashable discusses the issue and looks at how social media is affecting the human resources field.
What are your experiences?
According to a new survey by projektwerk’s U.S. counterpart Elance, more people are choosing to live the life of a freelancer, as opposed to traditional employment. Elance sampled more than 700 freelancers. The survey revealed that 70% are happier working independently than when they were full-time employees. Also, the report found many more reasons, other than for example economic downturns, driving professionals to start a freelance career. Read the full post on NYTimes.
Do you have specific reasons for freelancing? If so, please share them with us.
On Graphicdesignblender you’ll find some useful tips on how to create a healthy work-life balance when working as a freelancer. As a freelancer you need to have a compensation to your daily work. That is a problem many business owner have because you feel the success or failure right away. This pressure causes oftentimes exhaustion, burnout and mediocre work. So here are some tips:
1. Know your limits
You should not exaggerate overtimes. Working overtime can be good and can make sense, for example because you have to finish a project on time, but working working constantly can become a dangerous way of life. “Set an hour-long meeting with yourself to assess your working situation. Are you currently feeling overworked and stressed? If so, what can you say ‘no’ too?”
2. Turn it Off
Being the owner of a business lets you often run out of time. “You spend time answering emails, putting out client fires, working as a receptionist and project manager, and thinking about things like ROI and SEO for your design business. To achieve a good work/life balance at some point you’re going to have to turn things off. Turn off your computer. Turn off your internet. Turn off your phone.” And your brain of course too. Maybe you take one night so switch of you business life in total.
3. Why do you do what you do?
Ask yourself, why you are doing that work you do. Is it because of the more flexible schedule? Or the free time? “If you are consistently working more than you want and constantly stressed out, then you need to sit yourself down and have a talk. How can you change your design job to make it more like the job you want to have? Do you need to work less? Take on fewer design projects? Schedule your time better? Get out more?” Try to reflect and write down, why you became a freelancer.
4. Get passionate about something besides your work
Everybody needs a hobby. If you don’t know what else to do except working, you should look for one. “To provide some balance you’ll need to find something else you really like to do when you’re not working.” The further away from your job, the fuller your life will be.
Posted by Simone / Category: consulting, consulting-market
Dr. Carsten Deckert, born 1971 in Aachen (Germany), studied mechanical engineering and industrial engineering at the RWTH Aachen University. Since 2009 he is member of the board of directors of Deutsche Aktionsgemeinschaft Bildung-Erfindung-Innovation (DABEI) e.V., a non-profit organization promoting education, invention and innovation in Germany. Carsten Deckert is also the author of the satirical guidebook “Anleitung zum Uninnovativsein” (“The Pursuit of Un-innovativeness”) and writes the Knowledge Gorilla-Blog www.carstendeckert.de.
What was the most interesting project you have implemented?
The most interesting project I have done so far was the conception and implementation of an R&D-management at a large industrial company. We started from scratch with the R&D-manager of the company and conceived and implemented the strategic orientation, the organizational structure, the IT-tools and the budgeting of the projects. It was very satisfying to see the concepts on paper come to life in the real world. And we still work with this company on several innovation projects.
What was the most difficult experience you have had with a customer?
The famous Austrian psychologist Paul Watzlawick once said in an interview, that consultants normally get a paradoxical request from their clients: “Change us without changing us.” Customers who show a high degree of Watzlawick´s paradox, thus, are the hardest to work with, especially concerning innovation projects. One always needs the support of the management and at least one person from the operative team who backs up the project. Otherwise it can get very tricky and one wastes a lot of time on political issues instead of going to the core of the real problem.
What was the biggest challenge that you had to face?
The biggest challenge in all innovation projects is to anticipate the future. Like James Dyson, the inventor of the vacuum cleaner without a bag, once said in an interview: “It is not the best approach to design what the people want. One has to design what the people will want or should want. It sounds arrogant, but that is the job of a designer. Customers do not necessarily know what they want.” That is why Apple, for example, is so successful. They act according to a quote of the famous Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky: “I skate where the puck will be, not where it is.” And that is the everyday challenge in innovation: extrapolate the available data into the future, go beyond the frontier of the known and create truly new customer benefits. We use a method called Innovation Opportunities Scouting to facilitate this. But still, it is more like a prophetic talent than a sound business qualification.
Posted by Steffanie / Category: engineering, engineering-trends
Personnel service Hays (www.hays.de) conducted a survey asking 161 department manager in the engineering industry about their views on the use of external engineers.
The overall image: External engineers have good chances – no matter the size of the company.
Technical expertise, project-related experience and the ability to work in a team are the core capabilities that companies require.
The current situation in Germany is as follows: Every second company in Germany likes to outsource, because the use of external resources helps them to survive hard times and times of high orders. Two-thirds of respondents said that external engineers were a good and cheaper alternative to permanent positions. The companies could resort on special knowledge in limited time again and again without hiring permanently, because the external engineers are only needed for one project. The result is a high-level flexibility, which contributes a lot to a successful work.
However employing freelancers is also holding challenges for the companies:
62 % of the respondents see a challenge in the long learning curve of external engineers. Moreover, according to a third of the respondents the cost-benefit ratio might also argue against freelancers instead of permanent employees. However a work council veto decides only at 5% of the respondents against employment of an external engineer.
In cooperation with external engineers it is important that a willingness to integrate is found on both sides – freelance and permanent members of the team.
It is important that they show a will of integration inculding that the fixed employed team accept the freelancers. About 82% of respondents like defined processes and rules in dealing with external engineers and see them as an important factor for success.
Does this survey fit into your experience in practice? We are looking forward to your feedback.
According to a study by the Technische Universität Dortmund in cooperation with several freelance platforms, freelancers are more prone to suffer from the burnout syndrome than permanent employees.
Especially the lack of separation between the private and the working life would be responsible for permanent exhaustion, fear, negative emotions and the inability to regenerate, the findings suggest. While permanent employees are able to switch off on their way home every day, many freelancers work at home and may end their working day merely by switching rooms.
The main reasons for the burnout syndrome are not long working hours, the study suggests, but tasks that are either difficult to manage or appear to be pointless, low esteem expressed by superiors or customers, time pressure and the pressure to produce results, the lack of exchange and interaction with colleagues, almost no breaks as well as the lack of separation between the private and the working life, as mentioned.
14% of the freelancers, who are 43 years old on average, expressed that they problaby will not be able to endure this pressure until they turn 50.
Another significant part of the interviewees stated that the limit of capability has been exceeded with the effect, that job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation already has fallen by the wayside.
Nevertheless, it is important to stress that one quarter of those interviewed does not feel exhausted or unable to regenerate. Two thirds even say that they are proud of their own performances and feel a strong or very strong positive performance orientation. Work-related stress is being perceived as positive – they have fun and feel very committed to their work.
The Technische Universität Dortmund has developed a concept for a burnout prevention programme based upon these findings that is being established through pilot projects in several parts of Germany such as Münsterland, Ruhrgebiet and Rheinland.
Posted by Maike / Category: creative, creative-market
Anna Clea Skoluda is a freelance art director and designer and has a background in advertising. Here, she answers some questions concerning difficult customers, the perfect team and plans for the future. All further information you will find here: www.anna-clea.de.
What was the most interesting project you have implemented?
Every project that I deal with is 100% interesting in the implementation phase. If I would not feel this way, the only thing that could help would be an oversized payment.
What was the most difficult experience you have had with a customer?
None. Every customer requires to be attended to optimally. Especially the customers with the smallest wallet. Which actually is kind of funny.
What was the biggest challenge that you had to face?
Professionally: The transition from being a freelancer in advertising to being self-employed as a designer. But it was the thought, really, that was the challenge, since everything went smoothly thanks to some lucky coincidences.
Are there customers for whom you would not work?
Possibly. That would be a spontaneous decision.
What does the client of your dreams look like?
Tasteful. Or did you mean which hair colour..?
Which qualifications characterise your dream team?
Fun, diligence and creativity.
What was your best performance for free?
I do not work at no charge. No payment = no respect for performance.
How long have you been in the business?
Since the 1. semester.
How often have you changed your specialization?
Once: From advertising to design. Thankfully, there has been and still is continuous further development.
Can you imagine to take another job?
Yes, the area of creativity is infinite.
What will you do in 10 years?
Beautiful things.
Posted by Maike / Category: creative, creative-market
Christopher von Greverode is a freelancer; a copywriter in the first place, but also a public relations and communications pro and a dedicated blogger. Here, he answers our questions. To get an impression of his writing and his literary ambitions, read his blog greverode.blogspot.com.
What was the most interesting project you have implemented?
That depends on what you define as interesting. As to working conditions it would be a Europe-wide marketing project for the University of Cambridge I was involved in for two years. Regarding creative aspects it surely was the „invention“ of a whole new company including a name, an image, a philosophy, and a Corporate Design.
What was the most difficult experience you have had with a customer?
The most difficult situation you can have with a customer is when he dislikes and rejects every new idea you come up with but fails to express what he actually wants. I’ve had that once.
What was the biggest challenge that you had to face?
Quitting my job and getting self-employed after a rather fatal one-year attempt to serve with a wicked real estate company…
Are there customers for whom you would not work?
Absolutely yes. The good thing about being self-employed is that you get to choose for whom you want to work. If a person or a company doesn’t suit me for moral or personal or whatever reasons I refuse to work for them. People who put ice in their single malt for instance.
Who is the client of your dreams?
The client of my dreams provides a huge budget and grants me plenty of time to come up with good ideas that he gratefully recognises as being absolutely brilliant and implements without further questions! And I get payed within 3 days.
Which characteristics distinguish your dream team?
The members of my dream team are creative but not obsessed with their individual ingenuity. They give their best without showing off. They listen to each other, and they can admit mistakes. They share the pain, and they share the glory. They are – well, a team!
What was your best performance for free?
Driving dear friends of mine to church for their wedding in my 1976 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow 
How long have you been in the business?
About 10 years.
How many times have you changed your specialization?
Never. But I changed my working concept four years ago. I used to run my own avertising agency, but I ended up being a project manager with no creative tasks at all while my designers got to do the cool stuff. That was completely unsatisfying, so I closed down my business and became a freelancer. Now I work for several agencies, companies, or organisations with new challenges every day. And I like it.
Can you imagine to take another job?
I could imagine to have taken another job in the first place because I have many other interests, but I really love what I do now, so I don’t intend to change my ways.
What do you do in 10 years?
Probably quite the same stuff I’m doing now – thinking up good communication strategies and writing good texts. In 25 years, I might wind up growing wine or breeding emus or something…
