Going Solo

I should have written this post long ago (I thought about it so much that I was actually certain I’d already written it). Although in my mind the audience for this conference is quite clear, I realise each time I talk about Going Solo to a new person that it’s actually far from obvious.

The people I have in mind can be described as “freelancers and small business owners working in somewhere in the internet industry”. I’m defining an audience through the intersection of a way of working (loosely called “freelancing”) and an area of work (the “internet industry”).

More details, on the “freelancing” part. Who do I include?

• freelancers, obviously
• small business owners/partners (people who are mostly their own boss)
• people who are thinking of going solo/freelance, or might be tempted one day (students, employees, or unemployed)
• any person who is “their own boss”

Now, for the “internet industry” part. I’m casting a wide net here:

• anybody who either “builds” the internet or uses it as a “media channel”
• designers, developers, photographers, social media people, consultants or all shapes and sizes, event organizers, PR and marketing people, independent journalists, bloggers, podcasters, startup-ers, writers, artists, thinkers, tinkerers… and I’m forgetting loads

In addition to that, I believe that anybody who works with freelancers will find this event interesting. And any freelancer, even outside this loosely defined “internet industry” will get something out of this day.

Geographically, now, who is this event intended for? People who are comfortable in English, of course (although Going Solo will be held in French-speaking Lausanne, it will be entirely in English), from all across Europe. It’s open to people from further away, of course — but I’m aware that flying over the Atlantic for a one-day event might be a bit of a stretch for some people ;-). So, let’s say Going Solo is European-centric.

As you can see, I’m describing the attendees from an “insider” point of view. I’m part of this group. But seen from the outside, what would we have? Without expecting every single person to fit the description, I think we can say that the people coming to Going Solo are an audience which is:

• internet-literate
• cutting-edge in what they do (something which pushes many towards freelancing)
• highly connected and networked
• influent
• willing to learn, find solutions, evolve
• enterprising

I hope this post helps make things clearer. Leave a comment with a question if there are murky areas left!

This is some copy I wrote a while back, and which I wasn’t quite happy about. I’m publishing it here, however, because it contains a little theory of mine about why there are so many soloists in the internet industry. Reactions welcome.

The internet industry generates an important number of freelancing professionals. There are two reasons to this, both related to how fast the world of technology is evolving.

First, formal education inevitably tends to lag behind cutting-edge developments. Though this is true for any industry, it is of particular consequence for a very fast-moving one like the web. The most skillful people in such an industry are often passionate amateurs, who at some point decide to turn their passion into a full-time job.

Second, large companies suffer from the same kind of inertia as education. Many highly competent professionals feel frustrated by the fact that the institution for which they work is not yet ready to take full advantage of what they could offer, and as a result, can be tempted by the more stimulating prospect of going solo and freelancing—or setting up their own business.

The fact that education and corporations move more slowly than pioneers is something which is inherent to their nature. To some extent, it is a problem we must try to act upon, but mainly, it is simply the way things are.

Many freelancers find themselves in this business because of a passion for what they get paid to do. Unfortunately, having great skills in an area there is some demand for is not sufficient to sustain a successful freelancing career. One also needs to be good at dealing with the business side of things: setting rates, finding the right clients, defining what has to offer in the current state of the market, dealing with accounting, taxes, and various laws, as well as managing to find a sense of balance in a life which is very different from a 9-5 with a clear distinction between work and non-work, holidays, and a regular paycheck at the end of the month.

Most freelancers go solo because they are good at doing something that people are willing to pay for, and attracted by the freedom of being one’s own boss and the perspective of possible lucrative earnings. Business skills are not usually paid much attention to until they are suddenly needed, although they are what will determine how successful one can be in the long run. At that point, it’s common for the soloist to feel lost and isolated.

Going Solo is a one-day event that was designed to address this issue. We will gather 150 soloists and small business owners around a core group of speakers who are experienced freelancers and will share their knowledge on a variety of business topics. We also want to give freelancers an occasion to come in direct contact with others like them and build a European community where they can support each other.

Cross-posted to Climb to the Stars.

Here’s something I’ve been waiting to be able to announce for a few weeks now: I’m excited to let you know that Going Solo is now open to discussing sponsorship opportunities.

If your company is interested in taking advantage of the unique marketing opportunity offered by the Going Solo conference, contact Lily Yacobi at lily@going-solo.net. Lily is managing sponsor relations for Going Solo, and will present you the variety of sponsorship opportunities we are providing. We’re waiting to hear from you!

Last Thursday, I went over to the Seesmic offices for lunch and ended up being the CEO Loïc Le Meur and his partner Vinvin’s guest in their daily show, Seesmic du Jour. I got a chance to briefly present Going Solo before rambling on about GTD. Here’s the video:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=5MwGxSFLeLU]

Going Solo also got a mention on Loïc’s blog (in French too). I’d like to insist on the fact that if I was typing on Loïc’s keyboard, it was because he started out by asking me to dictate — typing directly seemed less painful 😉

I’d like to draw to your attention two events which are being organized by friends of mine, and which will both take place in October.

The first is SHiFT, which will take place in Lisbon, October 15-17. It’s organized by Pedro Custodio and the other members of the SHiFT association. I attended the first edition in 2006 and really liked it — a human-sized conference as I prefer them.

The second is Singularity, which will be like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s the first large-scale online conference and it will take place everywhere (!), October 24-26th. It’s organized by Aral Balkan, whom I met at LIFT08 (and then again at BlogTalk and SXSW — seems we’re on the same conference circuit). I’ll be speaking at Singularity.

Cross-posted to Climb to the Stars.

When I came up with the pricing scheme for Going Solo, my expectation was that most people coming to the conference would take advantage of the Earlier or Early Bird prices.

My initial estimation was that 1 month of Early Bird price was more than enough to get the word out — only I left out of my calculations that I would spend three of those four weeks travelling and conferencing. As a result, I’ve hardly done any Going Solo promotion during that time, and as promotion rests largely on my shoulders, well, Going Solo hasn’t been promoted much.

So, good news for everybody: I’m extending the Early Bird deadline until the end of the month of March, which means that I get relieved of trying to cram a month’s worth of promoting the conference in the space of two days, and more people will have a chance to hear about it and register for the cheaper fee. Yay!

I posted some thoughts about attending conferences over on Climb to the Stars, now that the madness of SXSW is over. Writing this post has brought me back to the reasons for which I gave Going Solo the format it has. Of course, a “small” conference is easier to organize (this is my first event), but that’s not all there is to it.

Going Solo is a 1-day, 1-track, limited-audience conference. A few words about each:

• 1 day: most conferences are multi-day conferences. If people are going to fly in for your event, more days makes it easier to justify the travel.

  However, I’ve noticed that sitting in a whole day of sessions and doing the same thing the next day means that my brain fries. So, what do we do, when we go to a 2- or 3-day conference? We don’t attend all the sessions. Which is cool, because it gives us more networking time, and we all know that the most we get out of conferences is on the networking/contacts/hallway conversation side.

  But on the other hand, if I put a great programme together, wouldn’t I want the attendees to my event to get the most out of it?

  There is a choice to make here: either you make a conference longer, and expect attendees to be present in a diluted way throughout it (from a “content” point of view), or you keep it short, and expect attendees to pay full attention to the official programme.

  Going Solo being an almost training-like conference — meaning that I expect attendees to get a lot out of the programmed content — I think it really makes sense to have it concentrated and short.

• 1 track: most conferences are also multi-track conferences. I had a brief conversation about this with Laurent Haug, who organizes LIFT — when I told him how happy I was that LIFT08 was going to be “one track, everybody in one room”. He told me it took them three years to take the plunge and do it. For a conference organizer, providing a single track means you take full responsibility for the programme. There’s no wriggling out by offering alternatives. If people aren’t happy, they can blame you for your choices. But honestly, I think it’s part of the job.

  One of the things that made me give up on attending panels at SXSW was the fact that there were so many competing sessions to choose from for each time slot that I just didn’t have the energy (and stress reserves) to make the decision. Conferences are already in the realm of too many choices, and going for a single track means that as the organizer, you’re taking some of the burden of choice off your attendees.

• limited audience: more people present does not necessarily mean that you get more value out of the networking or the event. With about 150 people present, Going Solo really wants to be human-sized. I was at BlogTalk 10 days ago, and really liked the feel of a conference where it is easy to interact with a large proportion of attendees present. There is less frantic networking, there are less “tourists”, the people present are more involved and the speakers are more accessible. This is the kind of atmosphere I want for Going Far events.

I’ve been drowning in conference-land (BlogTalk, SXSW) for the last 10 days or so — before I have more interesting things to say, though (like a more precise outline of the programme, and announcing some sponsors), let me remind you that the deadline for early bird registration (register here) ends in a few days: March 16th.

If you haven’t yet blogged about Going Solo, told all your friends about it, added a badge to your site, now would be a good time to do it!