Статья: Freelancing is the new normal

4.5 million registered freelancers who have worked 35 million hours in total, as well as 900,000 clients who have posted 1.5 million jobs

it’s really about expanding the awareness of online work and hiring these virtual global teams as an alternative to traditional way of recruiting or building a company

Over the last three years we saw an explosion in non-technical work, everything from data entry to customer service to marketing, SEO, SEM, legal, financial

many people nowadays are looking for freelancers who know their way around oDesk itself and are able to keep a distributed team in order

Managing an online distributed global team takes different set of skills, a different set of tools, it takes a different level of discipline. You do have to be a little more specific, a little more organized

This increased attention from online freelance marketplaces to the Russian market may be connected to recent changes in PayPal’s status in the country

The hot skill you definitely see higher demand from is mobile development

The variety of ways and areas where remote work has become tolerated and even encouraged is widening rapidly

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Много интересных идей и инсайтов из собственной практики.

Если клиент отказался, это не значит, что он к вам не захочет вернуться

Есть деньги у клиента, — работаем

Доверяйте интуиции

Невозможно решить все проблемы сразу

продаем тем, кому наш стиль подходит наиболее всего

В ход должно идти все, что повысит доверие к вашей компании

Предлагайте опции по прайсу

Прикармливайте большую рыбу

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Статья - Почему надо писать

The Myth of Writers Block (and what to do when you're blocked)

Writing is one of the most important activities for successful consultants. Writing helps you capture and clarify your ideas. Writing helps you polish your presentations to clients. And published writing is probably the second most effective marketing tools in your kit. (First, of course, is recommendations from satisfied clients.)

Most often consultants stop writing because they do not understand the essential randomness involved in the creative process. 

You have the wrong number of ideas, and that bothers you, causes you discomfort, or even pain. To lessen the pain, you turn to some other activity—coffee, beer, sex, movies, books, sleep, or name your poison. This diversion relieves the pain in the short run, but eventually your mind turns back to that unfinished piece of writing (or other work). Now you feel worse because you've avoided the task. You might try writing again, but your mind keeps returning to what a bad, blocked writer you are. So, eventually, you turn to your relief—coffee, beer, sex, or whatever.

  Goldilocks Questions:
"What state am I in now? Do I have too many ideas? Do I have too few? Or, like Baby Bear's porridge, is it just right?"

the Fieldstone Method:
- first the gathering of ideas (stones), 
- then the organizing, 
- then the trimming and polishing

is not dependent on any particular order of doing things. Instead, Fieldstoning is about always doing something that's advancing your projects. 

have a variety of keep-moving activities:
- a handy list of tasks of all sizes, 
- plus the knowledge to match each task to your mood, 
- your start/stop time, 
- your resources, and 
- your total available time 

Observing Your Activities:
1. Choose a day or several hours that you plan to devote to writing.
2. In your journal (all professional consultants keep a journal) record the start-stop time of different activities.
3. Record your feelings at the beginning and end of each activity. Don't interrupt your flow, but just capture a word or two.
4. At the end of the day, look at what you wrote in your journal. Do you see an addiction cycle?
5. How did you respond any time you were temporarily stuck?
6. What other activities could you have done that would have served you better?
7. How will you remind yourself of those activities when you repeat this observation exercise in a month