Re: FN-FORUM Designers

date posted 21st January 2002 23:35

On Mon, 21 Jan 2002, Andy Kruger wrote:

> Hmmm... does it becone a bit of a worry when you start clasifying
> people's skills in terms of User Friendly characters? :)

Probably. ;-)

> Most of the posts I've read on this list seem to indicate that there are
> quite a number of freelance AJ type people about (please don't take
> offence, by "AJ type people" I mean talented designers). Now I see
> myself more of a Mike or Pitr type (System Admin/Programmer techie
> type). So long as it's a Unix or Linux based solution, I can take a
> client from having nothing to having a full Internet access
> infrastructure with firewalls and a server farm (including building most
> of the server machines), including the server-side code to pull web site
> content from a database, but my site designs are plain ugly (or should
> that just be "plain"?).



> Until recently, I wasn't realy a freelancer as such, making use of
> contracting agents to find short- to mid-term contracts sitting at
> client sites doing Unix type stuff. That is basically a life of filling
> staffing gaps while the client looks for a permie to do the job, which
> has become rather difficult since many contractors have gone permanent
> (IR35 and all that fun). So... I decided to have a look at freelancing
> when my last client decided they didn't want to use contractors any
> more.
>
> Problem is, how does someone with my skill set get into the freelance
> world?

[snip]

> I'm no marketing man, I simply have no idea how to find clients,
> especially as most clients would only realy think of freelancers when they
> need web design, not when they need someone to build and support servers
> for them.

Some ideas from my Big Book of Plans:-

- join the local chamber of commerce and attend events
- follow this list and a selection of USENET groups and contribute
- call round friends, former colleagues and clients
- get some press exposure, either by writing /pro bono/ or passing comment
on current stories.
- attend shows, expos and what-have-you and network, network, network...

> (And yes, I should take those Microsoft references off the web site
> soon, my Microsoft guy went and found a "normal" job.)

Ah!

Best Regards,
Alex.
--
Alex Butcher Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Berkshire, UK Is *your* company hiring UNIX/Security/Pen. testing folks?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950 http://www.cocoa.demon.co.uk/cv/