Going Solo

So, here we are: Going Solo on tour. Take the same concept, the same great speaker team, the same programme, but another city.

(When I say “same”, I mean “almost the same: little changes here and there, improvements based on lessons learned, but basically, the same idea.)

Going Solo Leeds will take place on September 12th, 2008. I’m letting you know straight away (I had confirmation this morning for the venue, the Old Broadcasting House (BBC) where met:space is located) so that you can book dates and start making travel arrangements if you want.

I’ll be publishing information about Leeds and making promotional material available as soon as possible. Registration will also open… as soon as I’ve set it up :-).

Now that Going Solo is going on tour, the website is going to have to evolve. Instead of having a 1D website (one event and that’s it), the Going Solo site is going to have to become multi-dimensional: add time and space, and you have a 3D site. Different cities, different moments in the year. Even if it is not “planned” that Going Solo will take place in Lausanne again next year (it’s not that kind of event), who knows — it’s perfectly possible that it’ll come back some day.

So, how do I archive the “Lausanne” event? This isn’t as simple as 2008, 2009, 2010 subdomains. Or subdomains with city names. “lausanne.2008.going-solo.net”? Blogs are easy, for that: just keep on writing.

Also, what about visual branding? Keep exactly the same logos and colours (and update city/date information on them), or make a subtle change (which one? add “Leeds” somewhere?) so that people realise it’s not the same event?

Also, tags: goingsolo, goingsololausanne, goingsolo2008lausanne, gs2008lausanne, gs2008leeds, goingsololeeds — heck.

I suspect I might have to move away from wordpress.com to find an acceptable solution. While I’m perfectly capable of hosting a blog (I do that for CTTS), it’s quite nice not having to worry about maintenance and downtime.

Ideas and suggestions welcome — for Going Solo Leeds as well as for the website.

At the risk of repeating myself, one idea which is at the core of Going Solo is that even though we may be soloists, we are never completely isolated. We learn a lot from our peers or mentors, and this is something that I wanted to achieve with the conference. Experienced freelancers sharing some of their insights, and a place to take the time to think about our business skills.

It became clear at the event that there was extremely good interaction between participants, be they attendees, staff or speakers, and in looking for ways to prolong this community richness online, the e-mail discussion list seemed the obvious way to go.

I am therefore happy to introduce Going Solo Together, a discussion list for web-enabled freelancers, soloists and small business owners to share stories, advice and problems with their peers.

Though of course the material provided through the Going Solo conference is going to be a topic of discussion at first, the objective of this discussion list is not be concentrate on the event itself, but more on the various issues that arise when being a soloist. Share tips, advice, or ask for them.

Archives are members-only, which gives some amount of “privacy”, but keep in mind that anybody can join the group. If something is really private, you should probably not be sharing it on a public e-mail list. However, we do ask list members to keep the issues discussed here reasonably confidential.

At the difference of the Going Solo Newsletter, which is a one-way form of communication (I send out newsletters, people read or hit delete), Going Solo Together goes all ways. Everybody can participate, so the traffic could become heavy. If it’s too much for you, be sure to visit the mailing list site and switch to “digest”, which collects multiple e-mails into one big one, thus saving you from inbox flood.

You may also subscribe by sending an e-mail to going-solo-together-subscribe@googlegroups.com.

Many thanks to Daniel Schildt who came up with “Going Solo Together”, a name I immediately liked.

It’s been a week now since Going Solo, and judging from immediate and more delayed feedback, it was clearly a success. I’ve been travelling a bit this last week (I’m now settled in Leeds until next Thursday) so I haven’t had as much online time as I thought I would — but all in all it’s not a bad thing as I need some time to recuperate. I came out of Going Solo positively boosted and full of ideas (almost too full!) about “what to do next”, so these next weeks are going to be a bit about sorting that out and making certain things happen.

A survey made with SurveyMonkey, which I found really easy to use, has been sent to all registered attendees. Most people have filled it in and I’m finding the feedback from the responses really interesting. If you haven’t sent in your responses, please do!

If you haven’t seen them yet, do check out the videos of the conference (all the talks are online now!), the interviews Charbax made during the day, live-blogging notes by Suw, Jaap and Urs, as well as the photos (official or not) — and give a hand with the tagging if you feel so inclined. If you understand French, you can also check out this interview of me on Culture Pod. You’ll find more posts about the event on del.icio.us.

So, what’s next? Here are some of the things floating in my mind:

• write a proper round-up of blog posts, videos, etc. related to the event and the talks
• collect quotes that make Going Solo look good 😉 (if you have something quotable, e-mail it to me!)
• secure venue and date for Going Solo Leeds so that ticket sale can open and discussions with sponsors can start
• discuss how the programme will evolve with speakers and advisors (it will be very much the same, but we can make it even better)
• get a discussion mailing-list started for freelancers in Europe, so that we can continue exchanging tips and experience in the spirit of Going Solo
• think about how the Going Solo blog can evolve into a real community ressource
• write about the Big Wifi Adventure (both a disaster and a success story for Swisscom, from different angles)
• analyse the survey data
• see if my workshops-the-next-day idea leads somewhere (and continue tossing around other similar ideas for Going Solo development)
• tie up some loose administrative strings (welcome behind the scenes) like paying bills, etc. 😉

Anything I’ve forgotten?

A quick quote sent to me by my friend Kevin Marks. To be honest, I’m too knackered right now to read the whole article, but it looks interesting:

The most compelling statistic of all? Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time job. Today, 80% of the colleges and universities in the U.S. now offer courses on entrepreneurship; 60% of Gen Y business owners consider themselves to be serial entrepreneurs, according to Inc. magazine. Tellingly, 18 to 24-year-olds are starting companies at a faster rate than 35 to 44-year-olds. And 70% of today’s high schoolers intend to start their own companies, according to a Gallup poll.

An upcoming wave of new workers in our society will never work for an established company if they can help it. To them, having a traditional job is one of the biggest career failures they can imagine.

Much of childhood today is spent, not in organized sports or organizations, but in ad hoc teams playing online games such as Half Life, or competing in robotics tournaments, or in constructing and decorating MySpace pages. Without knowing it, we have been training a whole generation of young entrepreneurs.

And who is going to dissuade them? Mom, who is a self-employed consultant working out of the spare bedroom? Or Dad, who is at Starbuck’s working on the spreadsheet of his new business plan?

The Next American Frontier

Quick news: the main session videos are up; help us tag the photos on Flickr; a survey has been sent out to participants (let me know if you didn’t get it) — thanks for filling it in as soon as possible; if you wrote about Going Solo and it’s not in the coverage list, let me know (e-mail or Twitter message); make sure you’ve signed up for the newsletter if you want to be sure not to miss news about the upcoming Going Solo Leeds (and elsewhere!) and the online community developments we’re planning (I’ll blog about it too, but right now I really need a nap… tiredness of these last months is really kicking in!).

Wow. I think I can say that. Your response to Going Solo exceeded all my expectations. I’m taking the week-end off but will be back on Monday with online news, cooking up a survey for participants, and collecting links to blog posts and photos.

In the meantime, check out:

• talk videos on DailyMotion (more being uploaded this week-end, thanks Sébastien!)
• official photos on Flickr (thanks Guillaume!)
• live notes by the legendary live-blogger Suw Charman
• live notes by Urs
• live notes by Jaap
• more links
• sign up for the newsletter or join the Facebook group to keep in touch with the Going Solo community if you haven’t yet

Thanks to everybody who came, everybody who helped out, and everybody who supported this project during the last months. I couldn’t have done this without you.

A special thanks to the speakers, who delivered a really really great programme.

See you in a few days!

So, here we are. Going Solo is now. Some practical information and links, for attendees and those of you following from afar.

• media coverage & backchannels (IRC, Twitter, goingsolo tag)
  
• be nice with the wifi
• info for the evening
• watch the talks on DailyMotion
• goingsolo tag on Technorati
• links to going-solo.net on Technorati
• photos tagged goingsolo on Flickr
• the programme, session descriptions, and speaker bios

Make note of the wifi access code before you hit the venue (it’s a long story, please don’t ask until next week):

• network name: lvm-73326
• WPA Personal key: 59jh-uwmn-hc2s-xtew

Just a quick reminder: everyone, registered or not yet to Going Solo, is welcome tonight at Darling Pub in Lausanne for a few Pre Conference Drinks.

Weather is un peu printanier aujourd’hui en Suisse, as we say in French. Les averses et les éclaircies se succèdent capricieuses dans un ciel aéré. Il reste un peu de neige sur les sommets. Les tulipes ont fané mais les glycines sont en pleine floraison.

Le pire est attendu pour samedi, qui devrait être bien pluvieux. Plutôt un plan musées à prévoir pour ceux qui auront la chance d’être en ville encore le jour après la conférence que barbecue au Parc Bourget, a priori. Mais sait-on jamais…

De nombreuses animations sont prévues à Lausanne en cette fin de semaine. Quelques suggestions: Samedi, il y a le marché en ville. Un des plus anciens d’Europe croit-on. Avec le Guet de la Cathédrale, qui sonne les heures depuis le Moyen Âge, c’est une de nos jolies traditions qui perdure dans les rues piétonnes du centre-ville. Faire le plein de légumes frais ou de fleurs pour vos mamans, flâner dans les librairies de seconde main et musarder sur les terrasses est toujours un bonheur.

Vendredi après-midi et samedi sur la Place Saint-François, une quarantaine de vignerons vaudois viennent faire déguster le nouveau millésime. Le Luna Park est ouvert à Bellerive, les piscines aussi. Si le temps s’arrange, pourquoi pas un petit tour en bateau solaire Aquarel sur le Léman ou sauter sur un navire de la CGN pour admirer le rivage? Sans oublier Balelec pour les braves.

Quel programme… Sans mentionner le Off Programme de Going Solo!

A tout à l’heure, see you tonight at Darling!

Anne Dominique

Well, there we are. Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow! I can hardly believe it 🙂

This has one consequence for those of you who may still be thinking of making a last-minute registration decision: we’re closing online registration tonight around 8pm. We’re really happy we managed to keep it open until now, but at some point we need to lock the numbers and print the badges.

So hurry up and get it done today. If you miss tonight’s deadline, you may still show up at the venue, but

• the walk-in price is 700 CHF
• we will ask you to pay in cash (there is a cash machine next to the hotel)
• you will have to write your name on your badge by hand
• if you are in possession of a discount code, it will not work
• of course, you’ll get all the other benefits (including goodies) like any other attendees, no fear 🙂

This is where you can register online. See you tomorrow!

We will have power outlets. We will have wifi.

One word of caution, however:

• the power outlets are Swiss — not European, Swiss
• we have one wifi base station and lots of bandwidth, which should be fine — but please be gentle.

Some details.

Swiss power outlets look like European ones: two round holes. But they’re slightly smaller holes than some (if not most) European outlets. Bring an adaptor.

We’ll try to put outlets all over the place in the main hall, so there should be plenty for everyone.

Conference wifi is one long painful topic. I’ve given a hard time to more than one conference organizer for their flakey wifi, so I’m quite prepared for a return of justice and you lot giving me a hard time if things go wrong. However, I’ve seen the numbers of the setup Swisscom is providing us, and I think we’ll be just fine. I’d like to remind you, though, of some “play nice” practices for conference wifi:

• quit Skype: yes, I know many of you are addicted to Skype group chats — but Skype is P2P and with lovely conference bandwidth available, chances are the network might pick you as a supernode, routing a whole lot of traffic through your little computer — and the conference broadband. Use the IRC backchannel instead (download mIRC for Windows or Colloquy for OSX if you’re not set up for IRC yet).
• don’t use P2P: Going Solo is not the day to download music, videos, or start torrenting — there are way more interesting things to do there!
• keep your bandwidth usage conference-related: feel free to upload photos and videos of the conference, but catch up on your general Flickr upload backlog or surf YouTube from your hotel room or at some other time, thanks.
• blogs and e-mail are fine: these are not bandwidth-heavy activities, so go ahead (we hope you’ll find the programme compelling enough to leave your inbox alone for a few hours, though ;-))
• if things flake out, wait: if you can’t get on the wifi, or the internet access seems clogged, give it a few minutes before trying again.

Thanks for your help!

There have been a few questions on Twitter, so here’s some information for the Big Day.

First of all, aside from Sébastien who will be filming and uploading the talks, Charbax who will be conducting video interviews, and Ernst-Jan who will be live-blogging for The Next Web blog, Swiss podcaster Thierry Weber of Culture Pod will also be present with his camera to report on the event.

And then, there are all of you, the people formerly known as the audience ;-), Going Solo attendees, bloggers, podcasters, videobloggers, photographers or reporters in your own right. You are most welcome to blog, photograph, record, sketch all the happenings of the day. We’ll do our best to keep track of everything that pops on our radar, but you can help us by:

• tagging your various productions goingsolo
• sending a tweet @goingsolo with the link or an e-mail to steph at going hyphen solo dot net

We encourage you to use a Creative Commons license, by-nc-sa for example, but of course you’re free to do what you want with your work. If you produce video material, we’d be really happy to be able to include it on the official Going Solo DailyMotion page (with a link to the original, of course), if you’ll let us.

As far as the backchannel is concerned, Twitter is of course the place to go (use @goingsolo in front of your message if you want to make sure we see it). If you don’t have an account yet, open one now!

There will be folks hanging out in channel #goingsolo on the Freenode IRC network, too. I’m already there – come on in.

Update: if you’re on Twitter, join the Going Solo community on SixGroups. Give them your Twitter name and @sixgroups will start following you. Any of your updates using the hashtag #goingsolo will appear in the SixGroups livestream.