I presented a session on freelancing at Codestock 2012 – there were actually quite a few of them (4, I think). I’d wanted to see Michael French’s session, as he sat in on mine, gave me good feedback, and mentioned some areas of freelancing that I don’t discuss in mine (or certainly not enough) – cash flow and insurance. Alas, I didn’t get to see his, but I suspect it went well.
On to the topic of this post. I got to recapping some of my talk to a smaller group of people in an open spaces segment, and the subject of “how do you find work” came up. “Grow your network, work your network” was the crux of my answer, and someone rightly challenged me on what “work your network” actually *means*. Good catch, and I wanted to outline some concrete examples of what you can do to “work your network”.
1. Find someone in your network who’s better at X than you, and take them to lunch for a short tutorial on X to get you better. This is one case where you’ll actually be spending time on a technical subject, but the goal is not specifically that. Getting some one on one time with someone better than you in a tutorial/teacher scenario is generally good – you give them the ability to hone their presentation/explanation skills, and let them know you’re genuinely interested in topic X (you have to be sincere about the request and the topic). You will learn something new, but also have deepened a connection with someone. If/when they have a work referral, you’ll be closer to top of mind for that person.
2. Go to user groups and actively mingle. Invite friends to join you, or ask someone in your network what groups they go to that you don’t know about, and ask to join them during their next meeting. Have that person introduce you to a few people there. You’re actively growing your network, but also positioning your friend in their network as someone who is a connected person with fun/interesting/useful connections. That means you have to be fun, interesting or useful to people at some point. 
3. Take #1, but invite other people, and turn it in to a small group “lunch and learn” session. “Lunch and learns” are often used inside companies, but doing some ad-hoc ones among small groups of people will associate you with that group as someone who makes things happen and brings people together.
4. Related to number 3, but don’t bother with having someone make a technical presentation – just invite a small group of people who you know but that you know don’t know each other directly. Go to lunch – have a good time. Again, your reputation in this group will become one of someone who knows people, has connections, and can mix with people of multiple backgrounds.
In any of these above, asking people to bring others you don’t know is probably a good idea, but you may want to hold off on that from day 1 if you’re on the shy/introverted side. You can build up to that, and practice these skills with colleagues/friends first.
All of these sound like I’m trying to make you in to a socialite vs a technical worker, and … in some ways that’s true. I have to assume that you already have some technical chops to be working as a freelancer already, or that you can get those chops quickly. The problem many have, especially when first starting out, is finding projects. The primary way to get around that is to have a network of people who feel comfortable calling on you when they have work. They’ll feel more comfortable knowing that you’re someone who will not embarrass them when they introduce you to people on their team or in their network. That is probably the most key aspect that tech people sometimes forget or ignore. Most people really really really don’t care if you have the best technical chops – in some cases they don’t really even want to be outshone, but they do need someone who can get the work done without causing them embarrassment. Helping them meet their goals of work done while making them look good is paramount.
How many projects have you been on that failed because you didn’t know how to write to a file, talk to a database, send output to a browser or take input from a form? I bet that number is 0. Projects fail because of communication between client and dev, or amongst the team. Likewise, people don’t necessarily hire you just because of your skill. Indeed, they may keep someone on a project *despite* the person’s skills, because they have no choice in the short term. In the long term, they’ll get rid of that person if they’re poisonous to the project/team, even if the replacement is less skilled.
In short, “working your network” involves being social with other people. That may be a stretch outside your comfort zone – many developers like working with computers vs people. However, the technical skills you have now with PHP, C#, Java, Ruby, Python, Perl, whatever… – those may change, or become irrelevant if you change industries. Being comfortable talking to people in social situations is a skill that will never go out of fashion, and you can learn and practice this skill in controlled situations by creating social settings with your current network, and at the same time grow that network with new and interesting people.
I hope this helps give you some ideas about how to manage and grow your network. Are you in violent disagreement with that I wrote above? Let me know
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… but I’ll change them
Had an interesting chat with my aunt and uncle this week, and got on to the topic of people changing other people. Initial discussion was in the context of some marriage counseling advice heard on the radio recently – (typically) women getting in to bad relationships or marriages with someone who they think they can “change”. “He’ll change after we’re married”, etc. We’ve all heard that sort of stuff, and I would think most of us know instinctively that it’s wrong, but why? Is it just experience, and that’s why we see teens and young adults saying these things? Probably not entirely – I’ve known grown people in their 30s and 40s still saying/believing these sorts of things.
It hit me a couple days back that the best evidence to point out to someone thinking that they can change someone is to point out that they’re likely not capable of changing themselves. Most of us require enormous willpower to overcome habits and addictions we have. Even when we *know* we should stop/change/start behaviour, it’s often a massive struggle. Smoking, drinking, binge eating, junk food, exercise, work habits – all of these core basic things have billion dollar industries vying for our attention to help change our behaviour in different ways, and we still fail. HOW ON EARTH does someone think they can “change” someone else when it’s so hard to change yourself?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that line of reasoning used in the discussion of why “I can change this other person” is faulty thinking, but it seems potentially a powerful argument to me. I say this as someone who’s wrestling with going to the gym on a regular basis, as well as increasing my juicing and cutting back on bad foods. This is a no-brainer, but it’s still a struggle. How I could change someone else’s behaviour when I can’t change my own… I’ve no clue.
Thoughts? Do you think it’s easier to change someone else vs yourself? Is it easy to change yourself?
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Wedged Lumbar Vertebrae
Sounds painful, doesn’t it? It is. I’ve had this for… not exactly sure, but I’ve been having lower back pain for many months (not quite a year, but almost). The pain was previously episodic, and generally only small spasms that hurt, but only for a few minutes – moving around and/or aspirin made it go away pretty quickly.
A few months ago, it started getting worse, lasting for minutes, then hours, then almost constant. Coincidentally, I’d begun spending a lot more time in the car. I’m not sure it was *causal*, but it surely didn’t help.
I relented and went to the doctor 2 weeks ago, and got an X-ray and some pain medication and muscle relaxants. The X-ray turned up the diagnosis which graces the title of this post, with an attendant prescription for physical therapy, which I start tomorrow. In 7 hours and 55 minutes, really. And yet I’m up, after midnight, writing this post. Why? Because I was stupid and had two cups of coffee between 5 and 7 this evening, meaning I’m wide awake trying to get to sleep, with little luck.
If anyone reading this has had this same diagnosis, and had physical therapy that worked, please share your story. I’d like to make the most of my visits, and anything you can share would likely help.
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2009 goals recap
I did a 2008 recap with 2009 goals, and I thought it would be good to revisit those from last year, see where I progressed.
Lose more weight. 20 pounds lighter by January 2010.
How’d I do? I fluctuated a lot, but I’m not down 20 pounds from last year. I was down 15, but have gone back up in December (bad month for me), so now I’m down 9. Not my goal of 20, which I’d still like to hit.
Financial stability – I have a number in mind (and written down) as to where I want to be at the end of 2009. Never written one down before – we’ll see how that goes.
Not where I wanted to be, but 2009 was a much healthier year for me than 2008 was. I got more than halfway to the written goal in pure raw income (which was a pleasant surprise of its own!), but expenses took a chunk away from that.
GroovyMag and related projects being profitable enough to meet all basic living expenses every month by the middle of 2009. This is a somewhat modest goal, not over the top. The over the top stuff comes a bit later.
Check, though it wasn’t by the middle of 2009.
Get in to other information publishing arenas – books, videos, training – either produced by myself, or acting in the publisher role for other talented people.
Didn’t pursue this as much as I’d wanted initially. I became more cautious, and have held back, with some new plans formulating.
Speak at at least one conference this year (besides Codemash, which I just got back from).
I presented to the SouthEastern Java User Group, spoke at two CodeCamps (Charlotte and Raleigh) and perhaps something else – I can’t remember now! I attended the GR8 conference in Copenhagen, hit up CodeStock in Knoxville, and attended the ColdFusion in NC conference in October.
I need to take stock of my 2010 goals and will publish them in the next few days or so.
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Virtual keyboards encourage weak passwords?
I’ve not seen any studies that indicate this, but I can say as a recent iPhone user, I’ve found myself changing some of my passwords to not include symbols or capitals or anything that isn’t convenient to type on the default virtual keyboard. Does anyone else do this? Has there been any research on this? While the Palm Pre keyboard is a bit tiny (even for my dainty digits) I know it would be easier to access symbols or other non-qwerty characters than it is on the iPhone. I suspect the same issue affects the new myTouch G3 phones as well.
Any thoughts/experiences on this?
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Moving to Opera, partially
I’m planning to move to using Opera as my main webmail client. I do a lot in gmail, and to a lesser extent in yahoo mail and other webmail clients. Firefox, as nice as it is, tends to hang quite a lot (not just with gmail – basically, all the time – 3.5 has not been a great update, and feels like a step backwards).
So, I’m going to treat my ‘mail’ as a separate notion, much like my regular mail client, and simply have Opera 10 open all the time on a secondary screen, along with my regular mail client. I suspect this will be a long-lived setup, but if it turns out there’s something wrong with it, I’ll let you know
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Traveling for a few days – London and Copenhagen
I’ll be traveling the next 10 days, including time in London May 12-17 and Copenhagen May 18-20. If any PHP or web people would like to get together for a drink/meal/chat/podcast/whatever, let me know. I’m planning on attending one of the Dojo dinner activities (I think it’s Thursday May 14) so if you’re already going to that, awesome
Best way to ping me is probably email – mgkimsal@gmail.com, though skyping me at mgkimsal should ring thru to my phone as well while I’m over there.
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Ways I’ve increased my productivity
Productivity has been one of those issues for me over the years that always seemed elusive. This isn’t to say I never get anything done, but I always feel I could be doing better. As some of my elementary school teachers used to write on my report card “Could do better”. That always stung, because it’s not that I didn’t know how to do the work – it was just bloody boring. Fast forward 30+ years and I feel like I’m in the same boat. I’ve always had this feeling that I could be doing better when it comes to how I get things done. Couple that with the idea that “productivity” is (in my view) a somewhat hard thing to measure, and you’ve got a recipe for a situation that’s driven me crazy for a long time.
Definition
Dictionary.com includes these for productivity and productive:
Productivity
- The quality of being productive or having the power to produce
- Economics The rate at which goods or services are produced especially output per unit of labor.
Productive
- having the power of producing; generative; creative: a productive effort.
- producing readily or abundantly; fertile: a productive vineyard.
- causing; bringing about (usually fol. by of): conditions productive of crime and sin.
“Having the power of producing”. Since I’ve been self-employed, that phrase has taken on new dimensions of meaning, and in ways that I wasn’t aware of during my first round with self-employment from 1999-2003. I’ve learned many lessons during and since that time, but it seemed many of them were not really *part* of my life yet. Many of them still aren’t, but they will be.
The “power of producing” also means “the responsibility of producing” in an work situation, and possibly doubly so in a self-employment situation. In its basest sense, whatever you “produce” must have “value” to someone else. If you “produce” things of no value, but do so rapidly, you’re “productive” by the book definition, but you’re out of a job in the real world.
What am I producing?
So I’ve had to be more aware of *what* specifically am I producing for people that bring them value? Currently I deliver three products to various customers: custom web applications, training services, and PDF magazines. Each one of them is a separate concern – there’s not much overlap between my customer base. And each one involves separate skills: development, teaching, editing. But I realized that in each case, the person buying the product is buying value, and that value to them is time.
Web applications
When someone contracts me for web work, they’re wanting one of two things: either an application that will streamline some aspect of their business, or an application to get more sales in the door. The second one is more of a marketing type of thing, and I don’t usually involve myself in those project. I tend to focus on the quantifiable projects – “process X used to take 8 hours, and using this software it takes 27 minutes”. In those cases, I’m saving the customer’s time from doing automatable work to focus on tasks that have higher value to them.
Training
When people buy training services, they’re learning how to save time by doing something they didn’t know how to do before. They’re saving time both by having someone experience (me) show them how to do what they want rather than learning on their own (savings 1) and by utilizing the knowledge they learn to automate or eliminate things they currently do with their time (savings 2). I know this is a rather abstract way to talk about it, but training/education services all seem to have this in common.
PDF magazines
I launched GroovyMag a few months back as a way of bringing together information about the Groovy and Grails ecosystems to people in a consistent, regular fashion. The value provided here is education under a different delivery vehicle. People buying GroovyMag are hoping to get information which will make their Java and Groovy development processes faster, saving them time to do more important things (more complex Java work, disc golf, time with the family, whatever).
So while I’m not producing time directly, I’m producing things which have a direct impact on people’s time, and ideally let them keep more of their time for higher value tasks.
Keeping more of my own time
Given that the things I’m producing all end up with time as a key factor, it follows that I would also be looking for ways to save my own time to spend on producing things of value, right? Here is a list of a few steps I’ve taken which have been beneficial to me so far:
Read Getting Things Done (GTD)
I succumbed to the hype around this book and bought it many moons ago. It’s staring at me from my bookshelf as we speak. I was not quite able to implement all the physicality of the book’s ideas yet, but one suggestion from it is already paying some dividends.
Keep folders for everything
I have dozens of folders labelled now, each with only a few bits of paper in them. Years ago I would have *never* done that, but the GTD book suggested it, and it’s helped me be able to quickly find things I need when I need them. I need to reorient my office so that all of that is closer to hand, and I’ll use that technique even more in 2009.
Dual monitors
I’m split on whether this has actually *helped*. During my training sessions it has, because I’m using WebEx for training, and I can keep chat windows open in one window and the ‘shared applications’ open in another.
I tend to use a laptop a lot (as in, I only own laptops right now), and I like to sit leaning back in a chair with my feet up quite a lot. I swivel. I move. Keeping a second monitor plugged under those conditions doesn’t work very well. I already ruined one VGA cable because of so much twisting. I’m really waiting for wireless video (bluetooth video?!). So, despite the hype of “dual monitors make you more productive!” I can’t say it’s been a total time saver for me, except in training situations.
Macbook
I picked up a used Macbook in October, and it’s become my primary laptop. It directly saves me time because of the fast suspend/resume and intelligent wireless behaviour. It’s not a perfect laptop, but using previous laptops (both with XP and Linux) I realized I was always spending way too much time for the laptop to resume to a workable state, and for wireless functionality to come back up. I’m normally able to use my macbook within 4 seconds of opening the lid. Under my XP and Linux laptops, it was more like 10-15 seconds.
This doesn’t sound like much, I agree, but usually in those extra 6-11 seconds I’d get mentally miffed about the delay, my mind would start to wander, and I’d end up thinking about something else for a bit, or walking off to do something else for those ‘few seconds’ and end up wasting a minute or more. So, while I could have tried adjusting my concentration habits to remain “focused” on my initial reason for opening the laptop, trying out Mac hardware was an easier step which has ultimately saved me time every day. This isn’t saying my Mac saves me hours per day over another system, but little bits add up over time. And my frustration level has gone down some because of it.
Delegation
This might have fit under the GTD heading above, as its recommended in that book, but its something that tends to be recommended by many personal development systems. And it works. In a corporate setting, delegation might be a situation where you ask a team mate to do something for you that better matches their skill set. I’ve not recently been in corporate situations where I had direct authority to delegate to other people, so this one always a difficult one for me to grasp. Being self-employed now, its easier to grasp and implement. The downside is that ‘delegation’ means ‘paying someone to do something’, but the upside is that, once you find the right people, it works wonders.
I was initially going to try to produce the GroovyMag PDF magazine on my own. I got a trial of InDesign, tried Apple’s Pages, and messed around with Scribus. After a few days I realized that there was *no* way I could handle this on my own. It would take me weeks or months to become proficient enough with any one of those tools to save myself any time at all. I ended up finding a good design person who charges reasonable rates, and I delegate the production of the magazine to her. We discuss layout options, design ideas, etc., so I have some input, but she’s able to do things in 15-20 hours that might take me 15-20 days of solid work. The delegation principle has worked wonders for that project, and I’ve tested out the concept on a smaller scale in other projects with similar, smaller scale results.
Turn off the phone
My cat knocked over a glass over water over night and my cell phone sat in a pool for about 7 hours. It doesn’t hold much of a charge, and flakes out now and then. I was initially miffed, and was suddenly thinking of all the expense and hassle a new phone brings. Considered an iPhone (but held off for now) and decided to see what things would be like without having the phone on all the time.
It’s great.
I check voicemail once every day or so, but people who need to get ahold of me know to email me, get me on IM, or Skype me. It may seem counterintuitive that I have the phone off, but keep IM on and still check email. Other productivity people will say “don’t check email”. I agree, and *usually* don’t check email but once every few hours. There are times, however, when I fall back in to old habits and check email every 5 minutes. When I notice myself doing this I need to figure out why. It’s *usually* because I’m working on something I’m having a huge mental block on, which I’ve not readily acknowledged. Once I recognize this, I stop the email fidgeting, get up, walk around, perhaps get on the treadmill for a few minute, or even go watch some television for 5 minutes. What I do isn’t as important as breaking that cycle and clearing my mind of that block.
Small notebook
I picked up a pocket-sized moleskine notebook a few weeks ago and carry it around with me. I find it easier to jot down notes in there any time of the day or night, laptop resume time notwithstanding. I sort of wish I’d gotten the ‘calendar’ one instead of the free-form ‘ruled’ paper one, but when I went back to the store, they didn’t seem to have the smaller sized calendar ones around. Maybe I just imagined they had them?
Another lesson learned – a good pen makes a difference. Or, put another way, a bad pen makes it really hard to write. My penmanship isn’t very good to start with. Couple that with a pen that makes me work too hard and it’s a recipe for chicken scratchings.
Things to try or master
There are still many things I’ve not tried or not incorporated in to my daily routine yet.
Virtual assistant
Having a virtual assistant has been one of those things I’d like to try. I always feel like I don’t have ‘enough’ to pass off to someone else, but I think I’m getting to that point.
iPhone/smartphone
At some point I’ll get a smartphone to see if the portability of having certain apps around with me outweighs the potential timewasting of having games like BubbleWrap 2 seconds away at all times.
“Refactoring your Wetware”
This book by local publisher Andy Hunt looks good. I saw him give a presentation on it at our local JUG, and the presentation has been an inspiration to me as I look for ways to be more productive in my day to day life.
“Getting Things Done” software
I’ve tried out a few GTD-inspired pieces of software, but nothing has stuck with me yet. I think I’m more tactile, and while I love computers, I’m just not yet able to organize my whole life there. I think expanding the ‘everything in folders’ concept may yield more short term benefits for me, but I’ll keep trying out software.
Am I more productive today?
Thinking about it today, I think I’m able to produce more value than I was a year ago. Whether this value is worth as much in the marketplace as I think it *should* be is a different story As is the case with most introspective journeys, the more you become aware of your situation, the more you realize there’s room for improvement. As I identify and make those improvements, I’ll document those here, or perhaps in another blog. This type of post isn’t keeping with the style of what this blog has been up to now, and I might want to start keeping these ‘introspective/improvement’ posts someplace dedicate to them.
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2008 goals recap and 2009
Last year, I wrote a post about things I wanted to do in 2008.
- Lose 30 pounds (I’d be fine with losing 10 this year, but close enough!)
I lost 10, then gained back 5. 
- One blog post per week – I tend to do more than that, but occasionally slip for more than 7 days without, so I’ll likely keep on top of that more. And keep them more focused. I may end up splitting in to two blogs. OR migrate WebDevRadio to WordPress and use that as a combined ‘tech’ blog and podcast.
Didn’t hit this.
- Write one new article per month – I’d like to write more in-depth how-tos than I do (which right now is almost 0). Focus will probably be grails or groovy, but I’ve got some PHP ideas I’m working on. Documenting those would be a good start.
Didn’t hit this.
- Another book in 2008. Funny enough, I did a book in 2007 – well, 2/3rds of one after the publisher reviewed it. It *may* come out this year, which would be nice. I have two other ideas I’m putting together, and I have interest from publishers on them. The issue is time to write, and I’ll work on making that happen.
Didn’t hit this.
- A picture a day in 2008. I don’t think I’ll be doing this one.
Didn’t try!
- Learn a new language. I was inspired to try to learn Chinese this year. I have a tiny bit of the spoken down, but the writing is what I’ll need to concentrate on if I do this. When I was in China, I couldn’t *read* anything, so trying to look it up in a dictionary was pointless.
Had been inspired to get into Chinese because of my 2007 trip, but ultimately didn’t do this either.
What the heck? Well, early last year I had an abrupt shift in the employment situation, which took some scrambling and readjusting to bring in to balance. I’m trying to take a more ‘ownership’ stance over my work and time this year. I made it through 2008 being entirely self-employed, and intend to do so in 2009, unless some great opportunity presents itself (basically, never say never to things).
So – 2009. What are the goals this time around?
- Lose more weight. 20 pounds lighter by January 2010.
- Financial stability – I have a number in mind (and written down) as to where I want to be at the end of 2009. Never written one down before – we’ll see how that goes.
- GroovyMag and related projects being profitable enough to meet all basic living expenses every month by the middle of 2009. This is a somewhat modest goal, not over the top. The over the top stuff comes a bit later.
- Get in to other information publishing arenas – books, videos, training – either produced by myself, or acting in the publisher role for other talented people.
- Speak at at least one conference this year (besides Codemash, which I just got back from).
What are your goals for 2009?
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Seven things about me (reply to Ben’s post)
I got ‘pinged’ by Ben Ramsey on this topic, so here goes:
- First computer was Sinclair ZX81 – 1K of RAM – soldered together from a kit ordered from UK.
- Played bass in a number of bands, including a blues band when I was 18 and next youngest guy was 37. Played for several years with some friends from HS – ‘modern rock / alternapop’ stuff. I may even have a CD somewhere.
- Worked at a Kroger during a strike – had to cross the picket line and got shouted/spat at. Fun times to make $6.50/hour.
- Played Paul McCartney in a Beatlefest band competition (yep, played left-handed).
- I despise the taste of beer, beer related drinks, and cooked vegetables (I don’t mean combined, I mean as three separate things).
- Had a small article published in “Compute!’s Gazette” in the mid ’80s dealing with ’80 column mode’ on the C128.
- Got an email reply from Warren Robinett for my fanboy email.
- Have never done one of these ‘things about me’ blog meme things before.
- Have a hard time stopping at 7 when making lists.
I don’t have anyone in mind to ‘tag’ who hasn’t been tagged (and who has a blog that I know of) but if I think of anyone, I’ll ping them.
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- Get better clients!
- Make more money!
- Avoid costly mistakes!
