My videos from the Blogalicious Party at BlogHer ’10 are finally up and ready to view. Let me just say that Blogalicious knows how to throw a party like no other. They hired break dancers and a dj who came equipped more than even the other parties. Enjoy!
Over the weekend, I attended the Creative Freelancer Conference (CFC) along with another 149 designers, copywriters, photographers, illustrators and creative entrepreneurs. The energy was great and I got to see all the friends I made last year. It was two days of sessions about client management, creativity and small business finances. In so many words, it was a good kick in the butt and a great check up to see how I’m doing.
I also had a wonderful opportunity to lead a breakfast round table on the second day of the conference. It was loosely named, Growing your team: when is the right time to start collaborating with others? I covered the subject matter in a previous post, When Did Your Super Woman or Super Man Costume Get Too Tight? The core issue we covered was trying to understand when it’s best partner up with others in order to free up your time as a solo creative. We told horror stories and I had the participants complete a worksheet to determine what their best skills and their sucky skills are.
On the worksheet we calculated how much it was costing them to keep trying to monopolize the part of the project with their sucky skills instead of just partnering up with someone who does it better than them. It was eye opening to say the least. All of participants found their regular rates dropped in half when they insisted on doing a task that with a mediocre skill level.
At the bottom of the work sheet, I asked the question, “What would you rather be doing instead of suffering?”. The time saved by collaborating with others can easily be put towards looking for more clients, learning the skills you actually do need, working on art or spending time with family. Download the worksheet and try working through it to see how much time and money you could be saving by collaborating with others.
What are your numbers? What would you rather be doing?
Thanks so much to Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor & Heather Griffin of F+W Media/How Magazine for offering the opportunity for me to facilitate this discussion. And double thanks to the participants in the round table:
I don’t know about you all but I have a lot going on this summer. So much so, that I started what I call my Summer Happy Fun Time To Do List™ to just get it all out of my head and down on (digital) paper. After this, I’m going to plot all this out on a real live calendar so I can get a spatial feel for the season. There’s nothing like using a real calendar to see you have 4 deadlines or events all one day. Also, because I’m concurrently in school for my MFA while running a business, it kind of feels like I’m “on summer vacation” when that’s entirely not true. At all. Doing this will help me balance out a design practice mixed with an academic practice. On to the show, here’s what is swimming around my head for the summer…
– enjoy my vacation to Brussels, Belgium (with a day trip to Paris and a couple of days in Malmo, Sweden!)
– web site launch
– thesis user research
– read Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky (CEO & Founder of Behance.com)
– finish applying for grants and scholarships for thesis year
– design an iPhone/iPad app (interface only)
– learn how to swim at the Y
– launch Brooklyn Urban Homesteaders Unite
August:
– BlogHer ’10 Conference in NYC – 8/6 – 8/7
– Fall promo project for papercut
– streamline all my blogs
– Final launch of web site
– squeeze out one last weekend away before school starts again
– drink to my awesomeness and not be disappointed if I don’t finish all of it.
So, dear readers, what’s on your Summer Happy Fun Time To Do List™? Do you need help with any of it? If so, feel free to ping me and let’s figure out how we can work together.
