Going Gonzo With Your Network, Part 3: Freelancing
Moving on to Freelancing, this is what you could call the epitome of your Gonzo mindset. No rules, no specs, no authority other than your own mind to determine your next course of action, or no action at all, a time for scanning the scene and hearing the tune. Of course, that’s usually the dominant activity for any topical freelance writer, and writing it up only when the event is complete, or as in the case of HST, when you are complete with the event. “I think it’s best thing I’ve ever done, all I have to do now is, write it up.”
With that in mind, here’s some freelancing examples of going ballistic with your niche of preference, starting of course in homage to the godfather of gonzo.
Writing/Researching for a New Story, Article or Book:
Use an Odysen network as an all-purpose tool to help organize a few of your many activities.
- Notes: Helpful for a variety of uses, use for a short checklist of items needed for an upcoming trip, jot down different ideas or themes to be reviewed and re-organized at a later time, store meeting or interview notes, organize by topic or event in various sub-folders.
- News: Keep track of other writers and blogs that you appreciate, add keywords in the news search to stay aware of changes from a specific keyword or topic. Add tens or hundreds of news feeds as needed, organize in sub-folders to keep news sources easily accessible according to their theme, area or niche.
- Websites: Create your own website bookmarking tool, organize however you feel is appropriate for your working style. Add websites of potential publishers or distributors, DIY book making sites, or any of the hundreds of writing journals to regularly visit or keep informed with, you never know when they might be looking for an article or story that you’re a perfect fit for, whether updating a story you had previously done or something new that’s aligned to your experience and expertise.
- Events: Store daily, weekly, monthly annual and other events to help juggle your time, create an email alert for any events that might need a little more preparation.
- Documents: Store past work for reference or easy portfolio sharing, use for current work in sharing drafts or final versions, send an email notification to others once uploaded, they can provide feedback either directly in an email response or within comments.
- Actions: Make a checklist of actions or tasks to help put the pieces together.
- Updates: Get a snapshot view of all changes to your network, helpful if sharing the network with others.
Create different folders for your various projects, jobs, interests, locations or assignments, and once done, able to access whatever application as appropriate.
Other Freelancing Focuses
Here’s a few other examples for freelancing solutions, focused on an application suitable for the activity.
- Architects: Store past and new designs in documents, share with others in their own private folders.
- Artisans: Share photo’s of your latest creations in documents, others can view in slideshow mode and add comments.
- Consultants: Add different folders for different clients and projects, keeping them separated within your own private network, send email notifications of changes, actions completed, meeting summaries in notes, or other documents as appropriate.
- Event Planners: Store recurring events, separate in different folders for different groups or clients, see your own integrated view in the All folder or other parent folders.
- Home Healthcare: Create private folders for different people, keep track of history in notes, add websites for specific topics.
- Musicians: Share your basement of the basement tapes, others can play directly from Odysen or download to their own music player.
- Photographers: Store photos in notes, organizing in different folders for different events or places, others can view in slideshow mode and add comments for feedback.
- Programmers: Set up folders for different projects, add actions for appropriate milestones, share work proposals in documents, create event alerts for upcoming client meetings.
- Translators: Add folders for different projects or languages, store and share work done in documents.
- Travel Planners: Create tens or hundreds of folders for different locations, easily being able to access various notes, actions, websites, news and other content specific for that place. Use event alerts to remind yourself of the hundreds of different holidays and festivals celebrated within your destination portfolio.
- Web Designers: Use actions to keep customers aligned with progress, notes for new ideas, instructions or code examples, documents for storing images or websites of course to easily organize and access projects already done or in progress.
No doubt this initial list of freelancing types is just a tip the iceberg, scraping the surface of an increasingly independent culture. Regardless, whatever the niche, nook, need or dream, you can use an Odysen network to sink your teeth into the work or the moment, while not having to worry about keeping so many of your activities organized or accessible.
Getting Started
Start with a free Spark plan with access to all the applications, 1 GB of storage and ability to add up to 10 other Basic users. As your network activities grow, you can economically upgrade to the Creative plan for unlimited Basic users or the Cooperative plan for additional Advanced users.
If you have any questions or need help with using your network, you can take a look at some of the FAQs available or once you’ve signed up, let us know in the Help Desk inside your network.
Matt | Posted on | January 11, 2012 | Comments Off
Tags: Architects > Artisans > Consultants > Event Planning > Freelancing > Home Healthcare > Music > Photographers > Programmers > Translators > Travel > Web Designers > Writers