The Opportunity

We’ve just landed a pretty sweet gig. We’re looking for a AJAX / JSON developer to join our team on a project for the next 2 months starting now. Help build a high profile full-scale Wordpress based site by creating a dynamic interface using the APIs of Yelp, Amazon, Eventful, blip.tv, Wordpress, and bbPress.
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The Opportunity

We’ve just landed a pretty sweet gig. We’re looking for a Wordpress Master to join our team on a project for the next 2 months starting now. Help build a high profile full-scale Wordpress / bbPress site with elements from various 3rd party web applications.
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As fun as it can be to let a project drag on for eternity, and as much as I thoroughly enjoy working for free, one of the best things I can do for my relationship with my client is to define a clear end point for the project. I need sign off.

The problem, is how do I terminate a project in such a way as to strengthen my ongoing relationship? Continue Reading »

in·tax·i·ca·tion [in-tak-si-key-shuhn]
noun

1. The physiological state produced by prolonged exposure to finances and tax preparation.
2. A sense of enthusiasm, frenzy, or madness arising from fantasies of spending a tax refund.
3. Poisoning by gigantic tax payment.

Examples: The government emptied my bank account, inducing a severe case of intaxication.

Hopefully you brush your teeth. You floss. You use anti-bacterial mouth rinse. You chew sugar free gum between meals. But if you don’t go to the dentist, you might end up having to get gum surgery like me. Go to the dentist regularly, it is worth the money even if you don’t have insurance.

As I did not have dental insurance, and personally have no love for the experience of visiting my dentist, I let it go for the first few years of running my business. I was broke after all. When I finally did get dental insurance last year and popped in for a visit, the hygienist looked at me with an aghast expression and asked how long it had been since my last visit. FIVE AND A HALF YEARS, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!? Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty. Two gum surgeries later, I am doing better. In retrospect, a $50-75 teeth cleaning visit, even just once a year, would probably have been wise.

Short blog, important thought. If you are running a small business or an independent contractor, make sure you fit in a few small preventative health care visits.

From the horses mouth.

I often find myself people watching as I work in coffee shops. A parent trying to explain to their toddler why it is not okay to scream at the top of her voice. The owner showing his employee how the coffee has to be brewed in a certain manner. The teenage girl offering coy glances to the guy next to me all dressed in leather and tattoos. The man in a suit to my right, chatting on the phone with a potential client, answering their questions. The puppy at my feet staring at me patiently hoping I might drop some crumb.

Too often, as contractors, we associate sales with the slicked back hair, polyester suit of the hollywood 70’s car salesman, when in fact you and I sell each and every day of our lives. When my wife and I decide to go to a movie this evening, I really wanted to go see 10,000 bc. I spent 10 minutes carefully steering us towards the movie I was excited to see. Any time you have an interest in the outcome of a situation, sales comes into play.
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Our good buddy Jonathan Fields has a pretty awesome book (Cash In On Your Passion®) coming out through Random House next year. After a bit a of cajoling, his editor has endorsed a competition for the cover. If you have the time, it would be a pretty sweet portfolio piece to have designed the cover of a NY Times Bestseller. Turns out though that the general Independent community decided he was trying to pull off some evil diabolical scheme. So sadly, no luck for you. That said, if you ask me - I’d still go to his site, chat him up and send him an email. It would be a sweet opportunity to get your work on the cover and now that all those grumpy people have removed themselves, it might be yours. But that’s my 2 cents. I happen to know the guy and drink beer with him.

Help Jonathan create the cover of his new book (and win big bucks and cool prizes!)

Lately we have been investing a lot of time and energy into sproutwire.com instead of sales. Meanwhile, our team has often been idle, developing their side projects, as we hunt for work. One great benefit and risk of working with independent contractors is that they are required to have other sources of income. This is great because it means we are not responsible for keeping our team working full time, but it is dangerous because it can easily lead to attrition. Eventually we all need to get paid. So how do we manage to keep together?
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pos·sum·ist [pos-uh-mist]
noun

1. a person who habitually disappears, passes out or feigns death at the nearest sign of trouble.
2. a person who consistently pretends ignorance of key critical issues
3. an adherent of the doctrine of laissez fair school of project management.

Examples: As a natural possumist, it took all my courage to click the answer button on my cell phone and work the issue through with the client.

One of the great challenges of working with a team of remote independent contractors is that there is no central office. People often say that by working with a remote team that is spread halfway across the globe, we are essentially missing hallway chatter. In other words, we’re missing a bond because we don’t run into each other and chat about things on a daily basis.

Since we don’t have a central office, we’ve decided to try a strategy of meeting with some of our most active team for a week in a Casa de Mar, a tropical resort in El Salvador (more photos to be uploaded when we get home and have a better connection). So far, I must say, the results have been spectacular (why don’t we have all our meetings in tropical resorts?)!

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