Have you heard about the trend of standing room only meetings? Instead of having a team sit around a conference table, they’re made to stand up for short meetings instead.

The trend is becoming prevalent in tech companies, and is meant to eliminate long, boring meetings where no one pays attention. Some companies have even instituted a penalty for being late to a meeting—either through sheer humiliation or a small fee.

If someone is rambling on for too long, an employee may hold up a rubber rat indicating it is time to move on. Companies make exceptions to their no-sitting rules if a worker is sick, injured or pregnant—but usually not for workers outside the office telecommuting on Skype. —wsj.com

The trend is fueled by an approach to software development called “Agile”, which calls for compressing development projects into short pieces. It also includes daily stand-up meetings where everyone can update everyone else with what they are currently working on and any obstacles that stand in their way.

I think it’s brilliant! I immediately started wondering how I could incorporate this way of thinking into my freelance life. I took a look at the Agile Manifesto and sought to translate it into something freelancers could use. Here’s my attempt: Continue Reading

There are a lot of stories written about home-based businesses—trust me, I just did a Google search. Working from home has changed drastically over the years, thanks to technology.

If you think back not even 20 years about home-based businesses, you might envision a low-tech service business such as a daycare or landscaping company. To run a professional business, you needed to be located in commercial office space. Not only did commercial space provide the technical services you needed, but it also provided a professional atmosphere appropriate for meeting with clients. —seacoastonline.com

Luckily, for us freelancers, that is no longer the case.

I have a computer, high speed internet, printer, and cell phone that allow me to do my work at home. And I have a nice office/laundry room to do it in. I know a bunch of people who work from home and I have some tips on how to run it right. See if you agree. Continue Reading

A recent story in The Australian caught my eye. The title of the piece is “Online magazine offers less than 2c a word to freelancers”. The name of the online magazine is Breathe Magazine Australia (BreatheMagazine.com) and it is scheduled to launch in April 2012.

The Australian journalists’ union, called Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) has a recommended word rate of 93c a word (which is comparable to U.S. currency).  The MEAA criticized Breathe Magazine’s owner, Flujo, stating that “Employers must realize that journalists must be paid properly for their work.”

Flujo is looking for three full-time writers, and is asking journalists to agree to write a minimum of six 400-word articles throughout the course of a month in the hopes they are hired for the full time gig. A 400-word article, by Breathe Magazine’s pay rate, is $7.

Many established freelancers would scoff at that rate—and it’s unclear by this article if the full-time writer would be paid more than that once hired. Continue Reading

I love sleeping. Always have, always will. I was the kid whose parents had to wake up on Christmas morning. If I don’t get enough sleep—watch out.

Admittedly, sometimes I feel ashamed at getting nine hours of sleep at night. But when I read this article in Inc.com about how important sleep really is, I decided to never feel ashamed again.

The overall arching theme of this article? Working overtime doesn’t increase your output. It makes you stupid. AMEN!

This, however, is hard for some people to understand—especially if they are working on deadline.

Early productivity studies show that up to 40 hours, us humans are pretty productive. After that, when we get tired, we’re less able to produce reliable work.

“Although we might all like to imagine that we can work happily through the night, once again the data’s all against us. Lose just one night’s sleep and your cognitive capacity is roughly the same as being over the alcohol limit. Yet we regularly hail as heroes the executives who take the red eye, jump into a rental car, and zoom down the highway to the next meeting.” —Inc.com

Ever heard of quality over quantity? I would rather work a solid six-hour day without fatigue and call it quits—even if there is more stuff to do—than push myself to work 10 hours. Trust me, I’ve done both (and worked longer than 10 hours a day) and guess what? I was miserable. And one day like that affects the rest of your week. Here’s some science on what I’m talking about…

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I love a good infographic, and this one created by Jobvite (view full infographic post or view it at full size) is really cool. It shows how Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter help people find work.

This research looks at how people are using social media to look for and find work. Facebook leads the pack, with 44% of job seeking activity followed by LinkedIn at 26%. Are you a ‘super social’—someone who is highly active in social media circles with more than the average number of contacts? Twenty-eight percent of you found their last job through social networking, and 85% of you did so on Facebook.

And my mother thinks you can still find good jobs in the daily newspaper…

This infographic doesn’t just look at the millions of unemployed workers, it also takes into consideration the 61% of Americans (sorry, foreign readers) who are currently employed but are open to a new job. Continue Reading

Chris Brogan is the author of the new book, Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything.

As a Google+ skeptic (heck, I’m skeptical of all new social media) I was interested to learn more, so I sat down and watched this video where Michael Stelzner of Socialmediaexaminer.com interviewed Brogan about how Google+ can help small businesses.

As a freelancer, you are running a small business—a very small business that probably includes just you. And you should think of yourself as a small business when it comes to representing yourself both online and in the real world. If you are thinking about creating a page on Google+, you might want to watch the video for yourself (or check out Chris Brogan’s book)—here are some snippets and take-aways from Brogan’s interview:

“Most small businesses are approaching [Google+] thinking, ‘I just figured out Facebook, why are you doing this to me?’ First off, no one is doing this to you. Sorry, technology is always adapting, you have to adapt with it. We all don’t still have car phones, we have mobile phones, it’s the same thing.” —Chris Brogan

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It’s the beginning of the year and things are slow. You are hustling to get work and the work that comes your way you don’t feel you can turn down. By the time summer rolls around, you have been working your butt off and let things—like life outside of your office—go by the wayside.

Having a life outside of your job is incredibly important. Spending time with your family and friends, as well as making time for your hobbies keep you grounded, energized, and overall happy.

I really loved the ideas these entrepreneurs shared with Inc.com on how to get a life outside of your job. Here are more of my favorites:

Communicate Constantly With Your Spouse

Then you will know how to  best support each other. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, says the biggest decision you’ll make in your career is who you decide to marry. I think this has really been true for me. Having a spouse that you know is in your corner is a huge source of comfort and confidence. – Anishiya Taneja, founder and CEO of TravelDNA, a travel planning site.

I would not have the confidence to do what I do if I did not have the support of my  husband. He believes in me, which helps me believe in myself. We can both tell when the other has had a bad day, and we do little things for each other—like cook dinner, do laundry, shovel the snow off our deck—to help each other out.

We also make sure to tell each other when we need an extra hug or quiet time. We both have high stress jobs, so talking about them and being honest with our needs is important. Continue Reading

Was your New Year’s resolution to start your own freelancing business? We’re five weeks in—how is it going? I found this article on Freelance: UK that got me thinking about financial issues to consider before taking the big freelance leap. Here are some of their suggestions as well as some of mine. Continue Reading

I had never heard of the freelance-writing online marketplace Contently until I stumbled across this piece of info from the Wall Street Journal:

Freelance-writing marketplace Contently has raised a $2 million Series A round led by Lightbank. Co-founder Shane Snow said he started the company to help resolve some of the business challenges–such as securing a string of new assignments and getting paid in a timely manner–common to many freelance writers. —wsj.com

What does this mean, exactly? Well, it means that Lightbank, a Chicago-based company that help create and fund early stage entrepreneurs, has given a sizeable chunk of venture capital money to an online community that supports freelancers. Lightbank is run by two guys who were the first two angel investors in Groupon. Guess they know a good thing when they see it.

Kinda cool, huh?

I decided to check more into this Contently company and see what it was all about. Their manifesto states, in a nutshell, that they believe in high quality content that is created by experienced journalists and writers, not blather cranked out by content farms. Continue Reading

You are a creative person and you want a new look for your business—whether it’s a website, business cards, or whatever. Sure, you could do the work yourself—but should you?

For some odd reason, there seems to be a discrepancy of sorts when it comes to doing the work for ourselves. Some designers feel like of course we should take on that Jack-of-all-trades mindset, while others just feel like it makes sense to pass the work off and let someone else do it. —webdesignerdepot.com

Before you jump in and start the project, ask yourself a couple of key questions: How creative are you? How much time do you have? What is your skill set? These might help you decided to forge ahead on your own, or hire someone else to help you. Continue Reading

We’ve been talking a lot about engagement lately, so when I saw this post on Mashable about 10 easy customer engagement ideas I was intrigued.

Engagement with your clients doesn’t happen overnight or all at once. It is something that needs to be worked on consistently over time. Engaging your clients is a great way to keep them involved during the down time as well as offer them reasons to remember your great work.

Following are ideas to help you engage with you clients, which will improve that professional relationship and strengthen your freelance business. Continue Reading

I really like the 60-Second Solutions videos on Entrepreneur.com. I thought that the recent video by communications coach Carmine Gallo on creating a 60 second strategy to tell your story was especially useful.

Sometimes it’s hard to explain to people what it is you really do. Many people hear the word ‘freelancer’ and don’t quite understand what it means, other than you probably work from home in your pajamas.

Gallo suggests you come up with one sentence answers to the following four questions to keep your “What I Do” story to 60 seconds.

What do you do?

Are you a graphic designer? A freelancer writer or photographer? Do you have a niche or topic (like small business, agriculture, health) that you concentrate on? Turn this into one sentence. Example: I am a freelance blogger and I write about small business financing for several online magazines. Continue Reading