Frustrated because the magazine you were counting on for a big chunk of income this year folded?
Sick of nick picky editors tearing your work apart?
Find yourself complaining to anyone who’ll listen about how miserable freelancing has become?
Shut up and innovate.
That wake up call is brought to you courtesy of Tac Anderson, a tech industry source of mine who attacked the nation’s current whiny zeitgeist in an especially impassioned manifesto a couple days ago.
The economy, the layoffs, the stock market – what’s happening is out of any one person’s power to control, and the only thing you can do about it is act, Anderson writes. Look at what you do from a different perspective. Try something new. Don’t have money? Figure out something innovative that doesn’t cost anything.
What does this have to do with freelancers?
Lots. Freelancers are getting hit by a double whammy of a sucky economy and an industry that’s going through radical changes the likes of which most writers have never seen. So you can bang your head against the wall pitching to the same shrinking print magazine market. Or you can think outside the printed page for new markets, new opportunities and new ways of conducting your writing business. The need for good writing isn’t going away – people with good communications skills will always be sought after. But the medium, the format and the styles are changing. So adapt with the times.
Back to Tac Anderson. This week he’s following his own advice and leaving a job he’s held for the past two years heading up social media marketing for HP’s Laserjet division in Boise, Idaho, for a new gig with PR giant Waggener Edstrom’s Studio D division in Seattle. Chalk one up for innovation.
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Michelle, I think there is little more flattering than being someone’s inspiration, even if it’s just for a blog post
thanks.
I also have to say to you that there are few industries that are more ripe for innovation than media. Are your usual job sources drying up? Well guess what EVERY company is now or will be shortly a publisher. They may not be as sophisticated or as easy to deal with because they may not have all the processes in place but guess what? THAT is where innovation is most needed.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with John Battelle at Federated Media and he sees (and is taking advantage of) all the opportunity in this space.
I also couldn’t agree with you more, great communicators have never been in higher demand. That’s exactly why someone like me (I’m a horrible writer in the traditional sense) ended up at a PR firm.
Viva la Revolution!
great post Michelle. I think Tac’s shut up and innovate advice is dead on. It’s a scary time to be a writer, but it’s really exciting too because all the rules have been thrown out. It’s kind of freeing to just try new things and see what works. (and hopefully something will work:) I can’t say I’m making more money than ever before, but I am having more fun for some of the places I write for because they want new ideas and they’re listening, and in the past, that wasn’t generally the case.
You know, if they were truly innovative, then they could totally use Vois.com to freelance and it’s actually a Social outsourcing network so there aren’t any barriers.
[...] I did these calculations I didn’t realize how much I needed to innovate and beat the bushes for new relationships. Although it takes me out of my comfort zone – and [...]
I’ve known John Battelle since he started and served as publisher at The Industry Standard – I wrote for the Standard for much of its too-short life. He was and continues to be an innovator – definitely someone to track.
Thanks for the kind words.
MVR
Jennifer:
I couldn’t agree with you more. I talked to a writer friend today – after I posted this – who’s embarking on a new venture and it’s going really well, so well that even though it’s less than six months old she’s already hit all of the benchmarks she’d set up for herself. She says it’s like riding a rocket: it’s fast and she’s not sure where she’s going to land, but she’s definitely enjoying the ride. I can’t help but think that it’s people like that, and mindsets like that, who will have safe landings doing something incredible once the dust sells and the new media landscape emerges.
Thanks for weighing in on this.
MVR