Going Solo

A few people recently have asked me for news about Going Solo. After a very successful conference (Going Solo) and a no less successful unconference (SoloCamp), I’m now concentrating on stabilising my “normal work“.

There will probably not be any Going Solo event in 2009, but 2010 might bring surprises! If you want to be sure not to miss it, you should make sure you are subscribed to the Going Solo newsletter or the facebook group. Any important news will be sure to be announced there.

In the meantime, if you would like to contribute to this blog like Henriette just did with her article on mainstream PR and marketing, or if you have ideas for the Going Solo community, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

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!

I’m quite a fan of Seesmic, though I use it irregularly. Yesterday, I gave a little news about Going Solo in video format, so I thought I’d share it with you here too.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.480716&w=450&h=380&]

Here’s a little status update — because although a lot is happening and things are making good progress, it’s mainly progress. So it looks like nothing is happening (from my point of view), but in fact, we’re getting close to some really exciting stuff.

• Registration: I’m working on setting up the registration site right now (it’s a tad more complicated than I expected), but it shouldn’t be very long. If you want me to inform you directly when registration is open, just leave a comment.
• Design: we have pretty badges and a logo now, and the design of this site will shortly be adapted to the new visual identity. Dealing with the whole design issue was em way more complicated and painful than I anticipated (there’s stuff to blog about there, later maybe).
• LIFT08: as I mentioned my open stage speech at LIFT08 was received very positively. Many people came to ask me if it was still possible to register (yes it is, once registration opens!) and I’ve had promising discussions with a bunch of interesting (possible) partners. A little overwhelming but very exciting.
• Pricing: pricing was a headache, like many other things. I want to write a more detailed blog post about this, but basically, you can say events fall into 3-4 categories, as far as pricing is concerned. (1) free (most barcamps and unconferences) or (1b) a small cover fee ($20-$50), then (2) “affordable”, meaning “not cheap, but which can be afforded”, and (3) high price events with fees around/above 1000€ or more (TED is $5000). Going Solo is in category (2), meaning some may find the price expensive, but I’ve done what I could to ensure it was an amount that can be paid by freelancers.
• Audience: there’s been some confusion about who this event is for, and I want to blog about it in more detail. In the meantime: it’s open to everybody (we’re not refusing anyone) but the content is geared towards freelancers or very small businesses somewhere in the internet/tech industry. I personally think that any freelancer or small business will find it invaluable.
• Programme: in addition to Stowe Boyd, Suw Charman, and Martin Roell, we now have a fourth confirmed speaker. Laura Fitton will be in Lausanne on May 16th to speak about how taking care of your online presence will help people find you. (I’ll find a better way to phrase that later.) I have roughly half my speakers, so now is time to go back to the programme drawing board, sort out who is going to talk about what, and look for people to talk about the specific topics that are still uncovered.
• Partners: I don’t yet have the fancy PDF to hand out to prospective partners, but it’s near the top of my priority list (up there with all the rest, hehe). As I said, things look good on the partner/sponsor front, particularly after LIFT08. Possible media sponsor found, looking for others. “Packages” (I don’t like that name) for Gold, Silver (etc.) partners have been defined, so don’t hesitate to contact me about it. As soon as the presentation PDF is ready I’ll create a special “Partners” page.
• Video: from what I understood, there was some miscommunication between LIFT08 and Nouvo, who filmed the talks, and the open stage talks have not yet been edited and put online. It will happen (the tapes are safe) but I don’t know when. In the meantime, you should read my speech notes and watch the interview I gave Robert Scoble.

Now, I’ll go back to fiddling with CSS and setting up the registration site 😉