A freelance eye view by Mike Bell

A true story: I posted this recent exchange on LinkedIn and got some very positive feedback…  from other freelancers

Agency email, calling upon me to help last minute:

“Your costs do seem quite high versus some of the other visualisers that I have spoken to, so fingers crossed we won’t go over the £192.50″

My reply:

“I rarely go over the time I quote, however not knowing your working methods I have to allow some contingency, anything else would be naive and foolish.

“I have many years of practical experience in creating, developing and designing a whole range of live projects – and my usual rate of £45/hour reflects this. I am charging you a higher rate because you have a short turnaround – as stated on my website – too many clients are pushing 24-hour turnarounds when it is not necessary, or they have failed to plan the production process.

“I am big enough, bold enough and wise enough to work this way – with all my fingers uncrossed.

“I am sure other people are cheaper – there is often a good reason, but it is not my concern and I don’t really need being told that.

“So on that basis I will leave it to you to find another, cheaper, and less tetchy designer who has no work and no clients.”

When you have had enough, and it seems that everything is going against you, its time for the Virtual Pearl-handled Revolver – smash the virtual glass, retrieve the virtual gun, and everything is virtually solved – just a single click away!

I provided this one for one of my customers, who was, yet again, bashing his real head against the real venue wall as another unreal ‘Event Executive’ was demanding-the-earth, without a clue, about what costs-the-earth. I told him it could be used on clients, or even on me (the far ends of his working life spectrum – both sometimes from another planet, but both very similar in holding their trajectories). On this point we reflected over emails..

A good client, I suggested, is like a good designer – they have experience, they can express themselves, and they are also willing to take direction. Clients always express their opinions loudly, but a good client listens too – much like a good designer does.

A good client thinks they know what they want, a good designer knows to think about what the client wants, but the problem is sometimes matching up the outcomes.

I offered him this thought: To elevate a client to this status of ‘good client’ you may wish for a combination of factors – excellent communication, realistic budgets, a partnership, honesty, and a long-term relationship. To elevate your freelance designer to the status of ‘good designer’ you may want the same from him/her too. And herein lies the rub – as an agency you need to match this pair up – with your own excellent communication, realistic budgets, honesty, and eye on the long-term relationship.

Once you have done that you can become a ‘Great Agency’ – and never again have to retrieve the Virtual Pearl-handled Revolver from the visualised case.

With the counselling over my customer was happier. He told me for all my time, effort, and support on this matter I will be getting a virtual cheque in the post.

For further information please contact Mike Bell: +44 7970 646705  www.mikebell.eu 

” Lover, lover, lover, lover..come back to me..”  Leonard Cohen.

A Leonard Cohen quote, you may think,  is not the best way to reflect upon the life of a freelancer – the life of a ‘Bird on a Wire’ – but perhaps the every-shifting lessons in love, preached by Mr Cohen, may give many freelancers  a useful guide to working this freelance (love) life:-

1. “Hallelujah”  = Yes, yes, yes….. a new client, new work, it is just like falling in love!
2. “I’m Your Man” = You have chosen me above all others, for that I am yours, together, forever!
3. “Tonight Will Be Fine” = Ah, yes, this new rush of love is also a rush of deadlines, I’m coming!
4. “If It Be Your Will” = Okay, can do what we didn’t agree to do, again, and make more changes that you don’t really want to pay for..
5. “Here It Is” = Voila – impressed baby?
6. “Is This What You Wanted” = Oh, more changes..
7. “Never Any Good” = But you were happy… All I did was say what I was thinking!
8. “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” = You never email me, you never call me, you never paid me………..

Freelancing is a relationship thing and so requires respect, trust, and honesty, it ages and changes, but if it is worth it (above money) you all work at it.

For further information please contact Mike Bell:

call: +44 7970 646705 mail: mike@mikebell.eu freelance experiential designer – freelance event designer – freelance exhibition designer

Twitter Ye Not (Recycle Bin)

My name is Mike Bell and I am a Twitterholic… #not. I have given up with Twitter (and also Facebook, although I never really tried hard with that one).

I have been twittering since the early days – adopting Tweetdeck, moving between Twitter web interfaces, and then running it on my tablet and ‘phone. It has, they have, all gone – binned. What have I given up? Well I could moan about many Twitter / social networking bad things (admit it, there are lots), and still cheer for twice as many good things about Twitter: I will keep it brief.

With shutting down the incoming streams of others-consciousness (via social networking) – and the channel for my own outgoing self(ish) conciousness – I suddenly feel more at ease, less involved in so many things that do not involve me, switched off from the chatter. It is akin to diving under the surface of a noisy public pool. All the visceral responses are dulled – sight blurred softly, hearing reduced, and the splashing and shouting far away.

My experiments with time tracking (see previous post) have opened my eyes to the amount of real time spent pontificating and being rather self-centred (okay, I will shut up soon) in less than 140 characters. So shutting off the social machinery seemed the simplest step.

Has it worked? I think so. My stress levels are way-down. I care more about the things that others don’t care about at all – my life and family, my work and my creative partners. I now work harder at promoting my skills, creating contacts, calling people – by doing that and not expecting Twitter to do it for me.

Am I happier? In less than 140 characters – #yes.

For further information please contact Mike Bell:

call: +44 7970 646705
mail: mike@mikebell.eu
freelance experiential designer – freelance event designer – freelance exhibition designer

Suddenly it is quiet, well for me it is quiet. Having been six days a week working for six weeks, I now find myself with a relatively empty calendar. As a freelancer I have the following options:

1. Panic
2. Rejoice
3. File for bankruptcy, or
4. Take a break?

My gut-feeling is number one, ‘Panic‘.. Where has the work gone? Has the recession finally caught up with me? Am I failing in my quality? Has was work gone East and cheaper?. My wife (aka ‘The Voice of Reason’) suggests not, and pats my gut back down.

She says ‘Rejoice‘, take this chance to relax and rest before RSI and failing eyesight do me in. But us freelancers don’t understand this limbo state. We still make plans for…

Bankruptcy! well, that isn’t happening, yet, but every (intelligent) freelancer keeps an eye of what is coming up in terms of payments.. and then worries again. So surely, you counsel me, take this opportunity for a..

Break! So I break, not down, but up – my negative thoughts. I look back on some of my recent projects, and look forward to some more of the same, promising myself that going the extra mile, working late because a client has cocked up, thinking deeply and designing cleverly, making beautiful that which should be beautiful, and doing detail – which I know only I will notice – doing all this will kick in again – soon! So take the time out..

I am going for a dog walk, I may be some time.

Working alone isn’t a lonely activity – after all there is social networking, the radio, online newspapers, and a whole ream of trips to/from the letterbox, kitchen, bakers, and then back door to let the dog out. Obviously these attempts to remain sane result in less work being undertaken. Not so good! It would seem my choice is madness or loneliness.. there is no water cooler to gossip alongside, and if there was I would be chatting to myself (more madness).

At the end of a working week I look back on my timesheets (thanks to freeagent) and am pleased with the amount of work that can be billed, and happy with the results, usually: but there is always a nagging doubt about my efficiency. Did that 40-hours of billable design, layouts, renders and sketch work really mean I was at my computers (note plural, how sad) just for 40 hours… no, more likely 60 to 80 hours… if you include the faffing, reading, and general diversions.

So to clean up my work act (inputs rather than outputs, which are “inspirational” – apparently), I have taken on (in a very short and useful period of time) Rescue Time – “..a service that helps people understand how they spend their time on the computer”

Already it has told me that I have spent the past hour being 53% efficient which is not going down well with the boss! I will keep at it for a week and compare it to billing time, and perceptions and will report back soon!

For further information please contact:
Mike Bell +44 7970 646705
mail: mike@mikebell.eu
twitter: @mikebelldoteu
freelance experiential designer  freelance event designer  freelance exhibition designer

Before the internet we knew nothing, wasted no time, had real friends, and worked for a living. Ever since the web has gone from 56k side roads of streaming to the current 100mbps highways of broadband things have improved for us professional Prevaricators. We can find so many ways of not starting what should have been started. Working from home the whole ‘Art of Prevarication’ has taken on new heights of delay.

If you wish to achieve Full-Prevaricationism just embrace the following:

- Facebook – the entire event industry seems to be here. When you do a show, a well-managed one, you meet a whole range of freelancers, bond, work, and unbond. Well you used to. Now FB allows you to stay in touch and complain about the crew food for months after the show

- Pinterest – here you can look at endless pictures of things you cannot afford/achieve/ever have

- Twitter – event people love to gossip, ’nuff said (in only 28 characters)

- BBC iplayer – you switch it on to listen to The Archers, and work, and end up flicking on Eastenders… Less ‘Daaaaaaaviiiiid’ and more ‘Rickyyyyyy!’

- Google Chrome – bugger, a web browser with games….

- iPads – it is amazing how many ‘free apps’ are required on an hourly basis to add to ‘productivity’..

And in sitting here, writing this blog, I have put off that design I was meant to have started 3 hours ago

“Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it’s misinterpreted.”  Harrison Ford

As a freelancer I am often  faced with the greatest challenge of all – humour-loss. It has happened throughout my career – from early days rigging for audio companies through to later days coaching CEOs in presentation methods. Now designing solutions – across every live format – my humour losses are rarer, and my humour-quotient is higher.

I maintain my 75-85% Official Humour Level through a series of simple exercises, now known as Mike’s Mirth Management (available in itunes, Amazon and Kindle formats) – a self help book you get to fill in yourself (helps keep the price down). Here is a quick summary of what sometimes shift my happiness levels:

- Acknowledgement of emails – sometimes I feel as though I am alone in the world, such is the burden of the work-from-home freelancer. So after I have ploughed my mind, body, 3d mouse and time into your design project, a little ‘ Thank you, got that’ email would be nice.

- 5GB image files – these are for print people for printing big pictures, you don’t use them for anything else, and you don’t email them to me.

- ‘Pencil some time’ – yes I am available next Tuesday for some work. But by 3pm on Tuesday, when I haven’t heard from you, and my other clients (yes, they exist) have come up with ‘help now!’ demands you are then lower in the queue… Unless of course I bill you for Tuesday upfront and wait for your command.

- ‘Here, look at the website, can we have a full exhibition design for this client by 2pm?’ This is so normal that I should not complain..  So I accept it now as standard practice.

- ‘You did this before, it is for a different client, just change the logo!’ erm…

- I won’t mention delayed payments, because I love to work on tight deadlines for unknown payment dates.

I could go on, but I won’t, because I may get upset, and my Happiness Levels have to be maintained.  I suppose if we could work without striving to achieve happiness then we would all be a lot happier.

For further information please contact Mike: +44 7970 646705 // mail: mike@mikebell.eu // twitter: @mikebelldoteu

“Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat” Jean Paul Sartre

My life has been a various forms of To Do Lists (TDLs) – written on post-its, back of envelopes, Gtasks, and always useless. As a freelance spatial designer (kinda odd summary term for anything that needs to be shown in 3D) I can be working on any number of to-be-started, started, part-finished, awaiting-feedback projects. I have been striving to find a solution (it is on the list).

Todoist (https://todoist.com/mobile/) has come to my rescue – and may well save your bacon too, whatever you do. It runs across all the platforms/devices and works like a little magic marker against everything that you need to keep track of.

Here’s a sample of my usage:

- Email comes in with new brief – click on Todoist on toolbar and it puts a link direct from that email into the Todoist app (syncing to my Android phone, iPad and on my PC), so no need to dig back through my Gmail to find it..
- Timesheet needs to be updated – again web link to that project it added to the list, so no need to dig through projects on Freeagent
- Project postponed – just sets it to next day
- Find something I want to blog – again adds to do with a link
- Order by priority
- List with labels
- Analyse ‘success rate’ (which I claim now!)

I am using the paid version, but the free one works well enough and across platforms.

So if ‘To Do’ is not getting ‘ta-dah’ (done), then try working with this little app…

For further information please contact Mike: +44 7970 646705 // mail: mike@mikebell.eu // twitter: @mikebelldoteu

1. Upload a picture of you, you are not an egg - people connect with people, and then with brands.. try to get personal with a profile picture, one of you, rather than your pet, helps your connection with the Twitter world.

2. Use the Bio too - a picture may be a thousand words, but the ‘Bio’ is only 160 characters – so write it well, take a look at how your peers make use of this text section to create a bigger picture.

3. Design & personalise - Twitter backgrounds are worthwhile updating, although the growing access of Twitter via mobiles reduces their importance – whatever you do treat your Twitter front-end like one of your web pages and give it due attention.

4. Name Game - Your user name (@mikebelldoteu) needs to be catchy, on-brand, of you – you can change this over time, without changing your account, but best avoided.

5. Following - of course you will start by following celebrities, but it soon becomes dull. Check out who your peers are following, and also look at followers of trade mags (eg https://twitter.com/#!/Eventmagazine ). This will also help you consider your profile as you look at others in the same industry.

6. Followers - you will get some, slowly, but you need to work at it. You will most certainly be followed by nubile ladies, but best left alone. If you mention ‘ipad’, ‘diet’, ‘Android’, ‘iphone’, etc. you will be spammed. Click on links wisely, and block the nutters/spammers.

7. Tweets - never, never, never tweet ‘Away for next 2 weeks’… or the word ‘bomb’… If you are a freelancer you can get on and be yourself, freely tweet about anything (except the above), as long as you are comfortable about the opinions would-be employers may form about you. If you are representing an agency/brand/company then it is a another game, one to tread more carefully.

8. Re-tweets (RT) - this is another way you reflect yourself on Twitter, so a bit of care if it is contentious, rude or defamatory.

9. It’s public! - the only safe tweet on Twitter is an unwritten tweet. Tweets can be mis-read, re-tweeted with changes, misconstrued and de constructed. If in doubt say nothing.

10. 140 Characters - the best thing is the limitation on length. Stick to it, don’t use ‘twitlonger’ etc, there is joy in 140 characters – it helps you write less. See.

For further info contact Mike Bell +44 7970 646705 // mike@mikebell.eu // @mikebelldoteu