The key to successful freelancing and winning new work

When it comes to transitioning from fulltime agency work to freelancing, the biggest, and single most important, shift you’ll need to make is inside your head. The fear and discomfort around not knowing where the next cheque is coming from – and when – is natural and a hurdle that needs jumping, but one that will set you free.

Chances are that if you’re thinking seriously about making the work and lifestyle jump into the world of freelancing that you’ve already got the necessary experience and skill set to make it work out. I often get emails from would-be copywriters seeking advice on how to make it happen. It’s really a confidence issue where people are looking for assurance. More on this later.

I’ve been thinking about all this recently because I’m about to start learning Final Cut Pro, Apple's video editing tool. It’s something that’s been simmering away for a while on my back burner of ‘things to do’.

The reason this is now moving from idea to action is down to the content creation and social media work I’m doing for a client, Arabian Gateway. Social media loves video - nothing groundbreaking there - and any well-rounded digital campaign needs video. Previously, when video content came up in discussions with clients, I’d simply recommend people I know who can make this deliver this part of the puzzle. Which got me thinking, sending work (and cash) to someone else is an opportunity missed. Of course life - and freelancing - is all about opportunities.

The wider my range of skills and services, the more interesting I become to a potential client; the more value I can add to answering the brief, and the bigger my invoice. Everyone is happy, and it all serves to deflate nagging freelancer doubts about when and where the next job is coming from.

You’ve already got your core set of skills. In my case, content and copywriting. But what I’m driving at here is to keep learning the skills and tools that your client is going to need, and ultimately you will expand your earning capacity.

Understand the art of SEO, because that’s always going to be critical to your clients’ needs. Elevate yourself beyond digital copywriting to digital consultancy by putting in the time to learn successful website strategy and the nuances and language intrinsic to front end design and back end development so that you are able to competently lead and launch a web project. Really truly read as much insight as you can in the field of social media, so you can become an expert that executes beyond meaningless jargon and catch phrases.

So, it’s time for me to learn Final Cut Pro. I don’t imagine I’ll be making award winning productions at Cannes Lions - there’s far better qualified people than me who have dedicated their careers to this sort of thing. But I know that, in time, I’ll be able to film, cut and edit interviews and produce slick little montages and cool kinetic typography packages. And that’s worth something to potential clients and my sense of financial security, which help me maintain belief that work is coming, and my choice to be a freelancer is the right one.

Maybe one day soon...

Copywriters vs Art Directors

Lovely little graphical representation on the duality between two positions in advertising agencies.

random picture show

just some photographs that have tickled me lately...

atmospheric fairground

for fleeting moments you hang,
all charcoal and fire.

you remind me to be...

like a floating wisp,
a calligrapher's light touch.
something lies behind and beyond,
the still beauty of me.

act two shows me more.
orbital brilliance.

a shotgun blasts into blackness.
white gems above your stage.

how deep do we go?

photo: golden bay, new zealand. january 2010.

Welcome to web design hell

This is brilliant.

No one does observational humour quite like The Oatmeal.

When you're this Close Up, it looks ugly

I've got to question the role of our state broadcaster, Television New Zealand.

The day following Waitangi Day, I watched a story on Close Up of a dispute between local Iwi and land owners about Maungatautari Sanctuary.

Before the story even starts, it's fair to assume that it was always going to be a dispute of a complex nature. When it comes to disagreement over land ownership, is there any other kind?

And here lies my point.

What is Close Up possibly hoping to achieve in devoting just 12 minutes to a story that actually warrants an hour-long documentary in order to inform their audience with a fair perspective on the facts and opinions from both sides?

It pissed me off. Lots.

Surely all this ordinary piece of journalism does is agitate negative misconceptions and racist attitudes. Is this in line with the TVNZ Charter?

It's the sort of crappy sensationalised piece that Close Up execs know will rate well and watch well in the heartland of New Zealand.

Our state broadcaster needs to take a far more responsible role in informing and educating New Zealanders about land and race issues than this throwaway segment aired the day after Waitangi Day.

what a load of rubbish!

The inorganic rubbish collection needs to stop. Now. The concept is outdated, illogical and sends out a disastrous message that flies in the face of responsible, sustainable living.

Large piles of unwanted whiteware, old stereos, beds, mattresses, busted up furniture, kitchen sinks and other odds and ends literally litter the streets in my neighbourhood, right now.

I cannot believe that all this junk is now going to get picked up and thrown in a landfill to possibly biodegrade over the next few ten thousand years or so – at no cost to the person throwing it out there on the street.

Surely it’s widely accepted that we now live in an age where if we create waste then we have to pay for the disposal of that waste. Let’s face it, getting stung in the pocket is the only way we poorly evolved humans seem to find the collective will to change our behaviour.

At the same time as I get in a stir over one of Auckland’s largest city councils throwing thousands of tonnes of waste into a landfill, the New Zealand Government is introducing ETS (albeit a watered down version to the point of being utterly ineffective).

If we are to change our ways and start making a difference then the messages and actions must be aligned. Change is also most powerful when it comes from the bottom up.

Manukau City Council is so far out of whack here that it’s not funny. The huge sum of (our) money that will have veen paid by the council to some contractor to pick up the mess and put it in a hole in the ground should have been spent on an environmental initiative.

What a disgrace. What a waste.

an hypnotic asphalt trip

i like this...

seductive visuals and awesome soundtrack; the dodos, the season



enjoy that? here's some equally blissful movement and sound:
an hypnotic NYC trip

From lone nut to leader, how movements start

Short and sweet.

One of the briefest TED Talks I've seen and also one of the best.

Online entrepreneur Derek Siver on how movements start, and a fantastic representation of how the first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader.

Roll the tape...

up here in my tree

this is without doubt one of the coolest pictures i've seen in a while. sure, it's over exposed and blurry around the edges but that doesn't matter. in fact, it just adds to the surreal nature of the photo.

it's taken in sequoia national park, california. i love it. if i die without walking among the majesty of the giant sequoias then i will have missed out.

it's funny how things happen in life. these seemingly random events light up around you and you need to take action and connect them.

over summer i did quite a bit of tramping around new zealand with an american friend of mine from seattle. (hey, alan, how you going, bro?) i'm planning to go visit him at some point soon. i've got a real yearning for an american road trip, and the national parks on the west coast, like sequoia, look staggeringly beautiful.

i was watching one of my favourite movies, into the wild, just two nights ago, and there is a moving sequence when christopher mccandless is walking along the pacific crest trail in northern california. it touched me.

then, yesterday, i just felt compelled to start searching on google for the town of auckland in california. from the satellite view, it appears to be a tiny little outpost on the edges of sequoia national park. intrigued, i push sequoia national park into google image search and 'bam', this beautiful image is right there. i know i need to make that adventure happen.

i've always loved trees. i used to climb trees a lot when i was a kid. our backyard was blessed with what, at the time, seemed like giant sequoias that i would clamber up and summit; hugging tightly at the top, feeling an intoxicating mix of fear, joy and peace. there was also a big walnut tree in the middle of our yard, with a tree hut of mine tucked away up in the foliage.

my connection to nature and mother earth is really channeled through trees, and also landscapes - more so than the animal kingdom.

i can hear the giant sequoias and redwoods calling me, tapping into that innocent boyish spirit within me...

pearl jam: in my tree (no code)

an hypnotic new york city trip

i love this clip. broken social scene (bandwitch) and new york city. what a beautiful pair they make...

new york city bike messengers = grace, bravado, balance, timing, vision, audacity, control, faith.

Dad, what did you just do?!

i came across this ad today, served to the guardian's website courtesy of google. it's a real beauty, if not rather alarming on a couple of different levels.

firstly, for a horrifying millisecond, imagine that this is your father. yes, try not to remember that vision.

secondly, it's a good example of how opting in to google's online ad model will leave your brand vulnerable to 3rd party advertisers who may have absolutely nothing in common with your own brand values.

the day that this ad runs in the print version of the guardian is never, unless rupert murdoch has gone and bought the paper. so why would the guardian want it on their website?

our laughs are like our fingerprints

i love listening to laughter. it's a beautiful and simple thing.

i was laying on my bed reading this afternoon while in the room next door my two nieces were cackling away like - well, like two little girls. caitlyn, 11, has a laugh that is somewhere in between the unmistakable guffaws of bart and lisa simpson. just hearing caitlyn laugh makes me laugh. every. single. time.

each of my nieces have got such unique laughs. we all do. our laughs are like our fingerprints, only much more interesting.

we hear people laugh in public all the time - yet i can't help but feel that hearing someone laugh is a moment to share in something quite intimate. our laugh reflects the way that we are tickled by the world around us; the intonation, the hiss, the pitch, the choke, the vibration, the wheeze, the nasal-oral ratio.

i often try to work out whether caitlyn sounds more like bart or more like lisa... it's a mystery i shall never solve. each staccato of her unbridled glee switches between bart and lisa like a metronome that never hovers long enough for me to be sure.

and, honestly, i guess it's not something i care to ever know the answer. laughter, with all of its mesmerising idiosyncrasies, should be left simple. most beautiful things are.