Tidbits from my daily-life

Today Vivek Mahbubani came to talk to us during the FYP session. (For those that don’t know, FYP = Final year Project)

Vivek is a “new media designer / developer” (cf name card), a drummer and a comedian. I first heard of him on youtube. His clip was about a competition he won in october 07′.  love that clip esp because he uses simple terms (so i can understand the jokes in cantonese) and he just is plain funny~

The main reason he was here was to talk to us about Freelance. He is a graduate of the School of Creative Media ’05 and has been freelancing for about 3 years.
He gave us a rundown of the things we had to keep in mind and a little bit about his parcour. It was an honor to have so much knowledge and insight given to us. Following are some notes taken during his presentation. All in bullet points…

• Book to read: Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Assume clients are idiots
• Never be affraid to ask queastions to clients
• HK mentality is to fin it: for example in class no-one will raise his hand if he doesn’t see someone else doing the same
• “if you fit in, you won’t stand out”
• GTD: Getting Things Done
  • Time management
    • PC
    • PDA
    • Remember the milk – Todo lists
    • Gmail
    • MS Outlook
• Understand your skills
  • You cannot know everything
  • Know your weapons
  • Know what service you are able to offer
  • Know your limits
  • Combine your skills:
    • Programming -> web programming
    • Design -> web design
    • Both -> web solutions
• Personal vs Professional
  • Setup rules for yourself
    • get a life outside work
  • Separate clearly personal and professional life
• Experimental
  • Be curious
  • Step into new land
  • Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
• Willing to constantly
  • Vivek used to borrow between 20-30 books at one time from the library.
  • Have access to all the resources you need
  • Pick the best way for you to learn:
    • Reading: library, web, www.sitepoint.com
    • Videos: www.lynda.com
    • Teachers
• Open-Source / Free tools
  • At the beginning we don’t have the money to buy all the software, so use free tools:
    • OpenOffice or Google Documents instead of MS office
    • Aptana instead of Dreamweaver
    • Bamboo Invoice
    • Gmail and Google Calendar instead of MS outlook
    • Gliffy for flowcharts
    • www.colorcombos.com for color swatches
• Don’t ever feel intimidated
  • Companies don’t know everything
  • They just fake it better because they seem more professional with a company name and staff
  • Study your competition
  • Study your market
  • Read: The art of war (business aspects)
• Find out market rates
  • Ask the competition
  • Read the book: Art of deception
  • Pretend your are a client
  • Ask people for a quote
  • Don’t tell lies, just don’t tell the truth (don’t say you are fresh graduate for example)
  • www.freelanceswitch – to calculate how much you should charge vs how much you need
  • Estimate the number of hours needed for a project
• Know your tools perfectly
  • Someone might already have solved your problem\
  • Google it
  • Post issues on forums
  • Hire someone to do it for you can be cheaper sometimes
  • Don’t re-invent the wheel
• Begin with the end in mind
  • Keep track of invoices
    • Bamboo invoice
    • Excel spreadsheet
  • Review every 2 weeks all the outstanding payments of clients and remind them (gently)
• Crazy Clients
  • Most clients think you are only working on their project
  • Most clients think you never need to rest
  • Most clients think everything is very simple
  • Avoid replying emails after office hours (so that they don’t think you are available at all hours – can be done by scheduling emails in outlook or saving as draft before sending later)
  • Never be afraid to “fire” a client
• Be personal
  • Use a contact management system
    • ACT! by Sage
    • MS outlook
    • www.Keepm.com (free)
  • Remember personal things about your client like their hobbies and what food they like.
  • Imagine you were a client, how do you want to be treated
• Know yourself
  • forget any real-world limitations
  • What excites you everyday
  • How can you make money from your interests
  • Calculate the costs
  • “create once, use forever”
    • Libraries
    • free Tools
• Are my things easy to duplicate
  • sell your design style not a design
  • sell you communication style
  • sell your sense of humor
  • Personal aspects cannot be copied
• Sell yourself
  • Name as a brand
  • www.vivekmahbubani.com
  • create a personal relation with the audience
• Templates
  • Templates are not evil
  • www.templatemonster.com
  • www.templatewise.com
  • Learn to modify templates, you can make a lot of money from them
• Ready-made tools
  • Research first (ie dun re-invent the wheel
  • modify and sell end product
• Get noticed
  • SEO
  • get your name branded on a product (link at bottom of page)
  • Word of mouth is important
  • People trust their friends more than a fancy website/name card/ad
• Study audiences: Google analytics
• Keep in touch
  • Be proactive
  • “it was really nice meeting you”
  • Write down interests and how you met
  • Offer them a next action: what they should do or when to meet
• Be one step ahead
  • make them feel under control
• Keep track of progress
  • Project manager
  • Clients have final say
  • Basecamphq.com
• Aftersales service
  • project never ends
    • suggest potential services
    • monthly subscriptions to updates/services
    • creates stable flow of income for the freelancer
    • you know your project best
  • updating the copyright info on 1st of jan every year
    • with happy new year message to owner to remind them you stil exist
    • suggest services they may find useful
    • add something personal to the message
• Motivate yourself
• Enjoy your freelance life
  • Satisfy your 5 senses at work
    • Sight
      • Mentally adjust into work mode (lighting)
      • Light should hide personal space
      • Associate this light with work mode
      • You will, by habit, feel like working in this situation
      • Use the lighting to hide things that remind of non-work related things
    • Audio
      • Listen to good music
      • Lounge music: Buddha bar
      • Free online lounge radio
      • disconnect from the rest of the world
      • Brainsync
        • Get your brainwaves in the right mode
        • Control your mind through sound
    • Smell
      • Buy scented candles
      • Make your room a certain smell for work
      • Enjoy fresh air
      • Different smell for different “modes”
    • Taste
      • Eat healthy
      • Need energy to keep going and keep focused
      • Chocolates, candies, red-bull, are going to drain you
      • Eat 5 small meals instead of 3 big ones
      • ~ every 3 hours eat something
      • Plan your meals the day before
    • Touch
      • get comfortable
      • spend a good amount of money on a good chair