Going Solo

Promoting an event like Going Solo is a huge amount of work — often more than what you’d imagine (and more than what I imagined initially). That’s why everything the community does to help counts.

We don’t have a team of online marketers to get the word out there. It’s basically down to me, and of course to what all the kind people supporting Going Solo are willing to do.

I’m a blogger and a busy person, and so I know how easy it is to “want to do something” but not actually get around to doing it. Or how easy it is to think that what I can do won’t really make a difference.

So, I’ve tried to make it easy for you to “do something” to help get the word out about Going Solo Leeds (to your readers/network/community/friends) if you feel like it.

First, logos and blog badges which you can easily insert in a blog post or a sidebar by copy-pasting the code we provide, like these two for example:

<a href="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/" title="Going Solo Leeds Conference: 12th Sept."><img src="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/files/going-solo-leeds-logo-yellow-rectangle.gif" style="height: 75px; width: 150px;" alt="Going Solo Leeds logo." /></a>

<a href="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/" title="Going Solo Leeds Conference: 12th Sept."><img src="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/files/going-solo-leeds-badge-180x260.gif" style="height: 260px; width: 180px;" alt="Going Solo Leeds Badge." /></a>

(You can find others on the Promote Going Solo page.)

Second, the Going Solo Leeds home page provides you with the main information and links, as well as a brief description of the event if you’re looking for some stock text (we encourage you to speak in your own voice, of course, but sometimes it’s handy to know what the key points are).

Third, the videos and photos of the Lausanne conference are available (and embeddable — Flickr and DailyMotion) as illustration material. I guess this is particularly relevant if you were present in Lausanne and want to point out one of the highlights of your Going Solo experience to tempt others to follow in your steps.

Fourth, there are events on Upcoming and Facebook (as well as a Facebook group) to which you can invite your friends very easily (you certainly know how it works if you’re on one of those two services).

Fifth, if you’re into offline stuff, you can ask me (steph at going-solo dot net, or @stephtara on Twitter) to have a box of Going Solo MOO cards sent to you, or print out our posters and plaster them all over your neighbourhood:

And sixth, so that you don’t have to figure it all out for yourself, there are two links you can use to point people to registration:

• http://goingfar.expectnation.com/gsleeds08/public/register/order is the direct link
• http://leeds08.going-solo.net/registration provides some extra information.

While we’re at it:

• http://going-solo.net is the Going Solo blog
• http://leeds08.going-solo.net is the Going Solo Leeds website

Happy blogging, thanks in advance, and let us know if you don’t see your post appear in the coverage list soon!

Update 01.08.08: bloggers and community managers can now ask for their discount/referral code.

Enter the twisty roads of branding. Going Solo Lausanne ’08 was branded simply “Going Solo” (and a bit in a rush!) — so with the preparation of Going Solo Leeds ’08, I’ve been wondering how to deal with the website (I’m figuring it out, thankfully, as you can see if you start clicking around) and also, what to do about the logo.

Those of you who were already around at the time will remember that the badges and logo for Going Solo were whipped up in a bit of an emergency by the lovely and talented Stephanie Troeth, who in addition to being a precious advisor to Going Solo, also took part in the panel Solo in a Networked World in Lausanne.

I decided to keep the logo for the Leeds event (Steph tells me she wasn’t expecting it to stick around so long!) with a slight modification to indicate that it is not the Lausanne event anymore. Corinne Stoppelli (Exoconcept) came up with the Leeds stamp you can see below:

The logo also exists as a square, and on a white background. Sébastien Baudet kindly took over the rather ungratifying work of exporting the logo (and badges!) from Photoshop over and over again in various shapes and sizes. The “Promote Going Solo” page (lovingly put together by Virginie) will give you access to all the different versions, with handy copy-paste code so you can easily use this material on your site.

Oh yes, there’s a hint here. Now that you have shiny visual material close at hand, we’re expecting to see many a blog post!

As you probably know, Going Solo Leeds has a group on Facebook. The conference is of course present through an event page there. It has now also been published on Upcoming, so if you are staying away from Facebook, add it to your events!

On Upcoming:

• Going Solo Leeds on Upcoming

On Facebook:

• Going Solo Leeds Facebook event
• Going Solo Facebook group

Newsletter:

• Going Solo Leeds newsletter, if you prefer e-mail!

 

Wanted: sponsorship salesperson for Going Solo conference

Going Solo is looking for an enthusiastic salesperson to negotiate and finalise sponsorship deals. After a very successful first event in Lausanne, Switzerland, the conference is taking place again in Leeds, UK, on September 12th. There are plans to produce the event elsewhere in Europe and in the US.

Availability: as soon as possible
Remuneration: 20% commission on cash sponsorships
Profile: skilled in negotiating and closing sponsorship deals, knowledge of the tech/freelancing world a plus.

What we provide:

– leads (past sponsors and fresh contacts)
– sponsorship materials

What we expect:

– discuss and amend existing sponsorship offerings
– follow through to closure on provided leads
– other leads can also be explored freely.

If you’re interested or would like more information, get in touch with
Stephanie Booth (steph@going-solo.net, @stephtara, or steph-booth on
skype).

Cross-posted from CTTS.

I’m always glad to learn that Going Solo inspired others to put something together to help local freelancers learn from each other. Flying Solo (in addition to being a book on going solo which the authors kindly sent to me to read) is a one-day unconference for solo entrepreneurs and freelancers which is taking place in South Africa.

• Cape Town: Saturday 26 July 2008, 9.30am – 5pm at the Wild Fig restaurant, Observatory
• Johannesburg: Saturday 2 August 2008, 9.30am – 5pm, venue TBA

If you’re in that part of the world, visit the Flying Solo SA wiki and take part! There is also an online community on Ning.

Update: the link “sign up right away” was wrong and gave the impression registration was not open — actually, I messed up and posted the link to the Lausanne ’08 event registration (which is, obviously, closed). It’s corrected now, and you can really sign up right away 🙂

It took some time, but Going Solo Leeds (Sept. 12th) registration is open. Hop along to our partner Expectnation‘s site to sign up right away.

Here’s the deal:

• Early Bird (first 25 tickets — hurry up some have already been sold!): £150
• Normal: £220
• Late Bird (will kick in approx. 10 days before the conference date): £300
• On-site (if you really want to play it ‘last minute’): £350

A comment or two:

• for the Lausanne event, the first 25 tickets were sold in under a week
• there will be advanced seminars (3h workshops) on the Saturday morning — more about them shortly, but know already that if you have already registered for the main conference when they are announced, you will get a special discount on them (they will be open only to conference participants)
• Jet2.com is a low-cost company that flies to Leeds-Bradford International airport
• Leeds is 2.5h from London by train (book early, and you could pay as little as £22.50 return)
• the programme for the main conference is going to be very similar to the Lausanne one (don’t change a winning team) — videos are online for you to have a preview if you wish
• the Going Solo team is pretty excited about all this!

Looking forward to seeing you in Leeds 🙂

As you might notice, things are slowly moving on the website. The Going Solo blog is not moving, but the Lausanne ’08 site has been archived at http://lausanne08.going-solo.net and the Going Solo Leeds ’08 site is (still in the making) http://leeds08.going-solo.net.