"freelancing" in Weblog

After 5 good years I’m hanging up my freelancing spurs and settling into a more sedentary existence. Well, not exactly. I’m becoming Head of User Experience at Trampoline Systems. As a small start-up ‘sedentary’ is likely to be completely the wrong word… It’s going to be hard work - we’re up against the big boys - but it’s a really interesting field and the product we’ve been working on, SONAR, is absolutely fascinating. I don’t know whether anyone saw the Enron Explorer, which was our technology proof of concept, but it’s a step-change from that in terms of complexity.

Freelancing has been very good to me. I’ve been privileged to work for and with some really talented and inspiring people, made some good friends and learned a hell of a lot. I’ve been on longer term contracts for most of the last 2 years because I wanted to give myself the time to really get involved in some bigger projects. Over that period I’ve become less interested in web standards per se (it’s just how I do things so I take them for granted now) and more obsessed with problems and how to solve them. The logical next step is to get really involved with a single problem domain and see where that takes me. The Trampoline domain includes collective intelligence, social behaviour and semantics, all of which I love so I’m really looking forward to it.

I still have some loose ends to tie up though - if anyone wants a front end web dev job, check out my post on the Content with Style blog), but I’ll be permanent within the next couple of months. It’s going to be a busy period for me… I really want to get the work I’ve been doing with Wordtracker nicely squared away and I’m speaking at eTech in a few weeks too. I’ve also kicked off a personal project with fellow CwSer Matthias and there’s a small festival site to do as well. Crikey, seeing all that written down is quite intimidating! Roll on 2007.

Client frustrations are a part of life as a freelancer, having to be your own account manager, so I’ve had my fair share. I’ve come close to the point where my time becomes more important to me than the money several times but luckily things have always calmed down just in time. There’s nothing more depressing than working on something that the client seems so dead set on ruining that you’re certain that you will be disappointed with the end result. When you’re working with that knowledge at the back of your mind it starts to eat away at your motivation and confidence. No fun at all.

Kevin of Airgid.com has written up an interesting article about an experience with a nightmare client and the action he took. It’s a brave step to take and it’s reassuring to know that other people have had the same trouble.

Well, this is my first appearance in the press. Gary Marshall interviewed me for his article ‘Freelancing: Ditch the Day Job’ in this month’s .net magazine… and it’s a good article too: well balanced and realistic. It doesn’t make freelancing out to be the easy option and there’s some good advice in there from people in the know. I’m slightly miffed that they didn’t use my photo but then I’m probably to blame for that - the only one I could find was taken at 6am in Thailand waiting for a bus to Cambodia! Hardly the stock, professional-guy-in-shirt-and-tie fodder. Ah well.

When I first went freelance everyone told me that I’d have trouble getting work with agencies because the industry was soooooo cliquey. ‘Yup’, said I, ‘but I’ll be fine’. I figured that I was a pretty decent coder and that would be enough to get me noticed. A month went by and I didn’t land a single decent project - a few small things but nothing rock and roll. Nothing that felt like a ‘career’. I replied to every freelancers.net ad, emailed all the web agencies I could find… Nothing. I had 2 years experience and some good work behind me; what could be wrong? I started to consider finding a proper job.

Eventually got a call from the good people at Nykris. They needed a CSS/accessibility developer for a big project they had starting the next week. I could do it and I was available so off I went. With that one behind me I’ve not really had to look for work - people find me. Why? I’m not necessarily any better… It’s because I’ve joined the New Media Mafia. I now know enough people at enough agencies to be counted as part of the clique.

This only occurred to me the other week after two things happened. First, I was interviewed by .net magazine for an article about freelancing (thanks to Recollective) and I had to try and give advice to people who want to get into the industry. Second, a friend passed my email address on to a chap who was looking to get started and was looking for a few pointers. It’s a really tough question. How did I get into it? A bit of luck. Do I have any advice? Be lucky. That’s rubbish advice!

I think I need to think this one through properly and write it up because when I started I would have killed for some decent advice on what freelancing was really like. I actually registered juststartingout.co.uk (I couldn’t sleep one night so I registered some domains) and I have plans to turn it into a freelancers advice site but I haven’t had time yet… Nothing to compete with freelancers.net but a spot for some impartial advice and some links. The next time I get some spare time it’ll be top of my list.

In the meantime the best advice I can think of is to know a lot of people and make sure they all know what you do. That sounds pretty anti-social but that’s just how it works these days.