What freelancers really need - How can technology help freelancers to thrive and where do we desperately need to improve?

I am interested in what open source tool others use so they (we) can get away from depending on Google and Microsoft.

1 Like

Another question is related to how you as a freelancer markets yourself. Online networking provides revolutionary opportunities for individuals to market themselves and many create their own personal brand which gets them paid. Cory Doctorow is an obvious example of this. So is Howard Rheingold. Since I know both of them personally and for decades I can say that both of them have cranked out material for someone in the public to digest practically every day for years and years. This activity is built into their working day. And there are plenty of other examples in all walks of endeavor, including construction and vehicle repair people who make how-to videos and give them away.

What do you do and what tools do you use to do it?

2 Likes

curios to learn what are the best admin- & collaboration-suites out there?

1 Like

If you are interested and want to join the event comment here. Share an experience or a question about your relationship with technology tools as a freelancer:
I am a tech founder and would be curious about how other companies are addressing iterations and new versions and when to put them in the marketplace.

2 Likes

If you are interested and want to join the event comment here. Share an experience or a question about your relationship with technology tools as a freelancer:
Technology seems to be very promising but I don’t think I know all there is to know to make my life and business easier. Google definitely is my friend, from the internet space to the interface as a whole the drive is where I store and share my portfolios from.

2 Likes

If you are interested and want to join the event comment here. Share an experience or a question about your relationship with technology tools as a freelancer:
Trying to find the right tools to help productivity but not too much tech that it takes over being a human

3 Likes

The first wave of links for the zoom call is now sent out via email. Will sent out a second round 1 h before the event for those who register late.

1 Like

If you are interested and want to join the event comment here. Share an experience or a question about your relationship with technology tools as a freelancer:


If you are interested and want to join the event comment here. Share an experience or a question about your relationship with technology tools as a freelancer:
Want to know about tech.

@atelli will you be joining us? If yes I’d is happy to ask you to share your experiences as a digital knowledge worker for a few minutes.

Unfortunately on the road. Happy to give feedback to your notes after the meeting, though. Pls. keep me in the loop. Thanks @MariaEuler

1 Like

If you register after this point we can not promise you will get the zoomlink in time.

If you are interested and want to join the event comment here. Share an experience or a question about your relationship with technology tools as a freelancer:
Technological Singularity is upon us.

Thank you very much @bxdcomm, @Danifrim and @matthewmottola for a great conversation!

I want to note down a few points here already since the summary post will take a few days:

  1. The main move now necessary to increase the impact and effectiveness of freelancing and to grow the space in a healthy way would be to focus on enabling teamwork and collaboration between freelancers. Today the big platforms and tools are built for companies, not for networks of freelancers.
  2. To start ou there are many free tools and learning platforms, but the more you professionalize, the more you will gravitate to whichever tool does it best.
  3. there are different types of “monopoles”, some are through merit, some through lack of alternative. The former seem acceptable, the later unavoidable for a single freelancer.
  4. Our thought experiment about what type of tools we would wish to lead us to:
    • Something that bundles different communication platforms so that one can have all conversations with collaborators and clients listed together in one place no matter which platforms and tools they are using on their side.
    • A tool that also generates a comprehensible story of your previous conversations, issues and solutions with a certain collaborator to keep track of your collaboration history.
  5. Collaboration over Competition as in point 1, is the future in freelancing to focus on collaboration? leading from this I just was thinking further: How could freelancer organise? Would it make sense to have freelancer unions? Would that be possible? Would that make any sense? In different disciplines or even across?
  6. Freelancing has been on the rise in the last few years, but Covis has increased this development. This makes solving the challenges faced by freelancers not only more pressing but also more attractive.

If you have any concrete recommendations or comments you would like to add, please do so!

More will follow soon.

Freelancer unions: https://www.freelancersunion.org/

Cryptpad for archive and collaborative document edit purpose, Trello for teamwork and evernote for note-taking. Mindmeister is useful for mindmapping, but not fully freeware. Could recommend Gephi for social network visualization and mapping, also
open-source.

2 Likes

As Maria points out, @matthewmottola made the observation that he has projects where he works with other freelancers. He laments that there is not a good software suite designed for his purposes when it comes to working with other freelancers. Specifically he noted that the problem arises when he wants to share certain files and documents and details with the others, but doesn’t want to share everything. The problem with selectivity causes problems. (I think I am saying this correctly.)

1 Like

I think Trello and Slack would partly solve this problem since they both allow selective sharing and work with multilayered colab work. Of course, the interface usability is a personal issue.

Useful points, thanks @MariaEuler. How about coops like Faircoop that aim to create decent labor conditions for freelancers as a complement to unions? Any freelancer unions in mind for other geographies? The one in your notes is based in the US.

Good point @atelli - unfortunately the permissioning in project management tools like Trello/Asana/Notion don’t do this well when team members are temporary in nature. They’re great with full time remote teams, but not environments where members need access in days or weeks, or when members need restrictive access like just one task.

1 Like