I’ve always been interested in Japanese culture – both traditional and modern – and my recent trip to Japan has furthered my interest. But living in London means I am lucky enough to be exposed to Japanese culture and traditions on a regular basis, whether it’s through visiting the Japan Centre on Regent Street, getting my sushi fix at Hi Sushi in Soho (my favourite sushi restaurant in London) or visiting one of the exhibits at the V&A’s Japanese Collection or the British Museum’s Japan section.

One great example of how traditional Japenese culture can be applied to modern living is through a particular item of their clothing, the netsuke.

Traditional Japanese clothing was based on a simple wrap-over robe tied with a sash, the kimono (translated as “thing for wearing” – got to love the Japanese for their simplicity).

However, the kimono had no pockets. Women could carry things in their wide sleeves, while men used their obi sashes to hang various small accessories called sagemono (“hanging things” – again, Japanese is a very practical language). These included inrō (medicine containers), smoking sets, yatate (writing sets), purses and pouches for special equipment. They were hung by a cord kept in place by a small toggle called a netsuke.

Though most netsuke were less than five centimetres high, they were carved with extraordinary detail: the hairs of a tiger’s coat would be individually incised; hidden parts, such as individual toes on the underside of bare feet were all perfectly reproduced. The care and attention paid to the details reminds me of Steve Jobs’ obsession with the quality of parts unseen.

The netsuke photo included in this blog post is of Ashinaga (“Long Legs”) and Tenaga (“Long Arms”). This netsuke is part of the V&A’s Japanese Collection (their Japanese Street Style section is also worth a look), is made of carved and stained ivory and dates back to the 18th Century. There’s also a similar version in the British Museum’s collection (who have over 3000 examples of netsuke in case you’re interested in seeing some for yourself).

Ashinaga and Tenaga were two mythical characters were fishermen who lived by the shore and combined their curious anatomical features to excellent symbiotic effect. Ashinaga, with his long legs, would wade out to sea whilst Tenaga, with his long arms, would ride on his back and reach down to catch the fish.

For me, this netsuke is the very model of a symbiotic relationship. Someone with long legs can work alongside someone with long arms to the overall benefit of both. Together, they achieve more than they ever could alone.

Ashinaga and Tenaga remind me of the 1989 film “See No Evil, Hear No Evil”, starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. The premise is that one of the characters - Dave – is deaf, and Wally – the other character – is blind. They witness a murder, but it was Dave who was looking at her, and Wally who was listening. They team up and solve the murder mystery together. Here’s the trailer:

It’s a terribly cheesy film, but is a perfect example of how a symbiotic relationship can work.

This collaborative approach can also be applied to broader experiences. Take Casserole Club for example, where you can “do great with an extra plate”. Casserole Club works by having ‘cooks’ (as the people signing up to the community are known) cook an extra portion of their evening meal. This portion then goes to someone who has difficulty cooking for themselves, such as an elderly neighbour, who are known as ‘diners’.

This might seem like a one way street, but the older people who receive meals give something back too, as they get to connect to their neighbours and share their food knowledge. The diners love that they can also give something back to their cooks, like sharing stories over food.

It’s a symbiotic relationship that works on a bigger scale. The cooks and diners are versions of Ashinaga and Tenaga, but belong to the wider community of Casserole Club.

It’s Ashinaga and Tenaga’s symbiotic relationship that I often bear in mind when I am working collaboratively: “I have these skills and this experience, but I am missing this and that. Who can I work with who has what I need? And how can I help them, as they may be missing the skills and experience I have?”

The next time you’re working collaboratively, keep Ashinaga and Tenaga in mind. You’ll achieve more than you ever could on your own through symbiotic relationships.

David Foster Wallace is one of my all time favourite authors. From the hilarious and varied essays of  A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again to the incredible genius of Infinite Jest, he is likely to go down as one of the world’s greatest authors. Indeed, Infinite Jest was cited as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 by Time magazine.

Tragically, he committed suicide in September 2008. In an interview with The New York Times, Wallace’s father reported that Wallace had suffered from depression for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive. Unfortunately, in the time leading up to his death, his depression became more and more severe.

One of the most accessible and enjoyable pieces of Wallace’s work is his Commencement Address at Kenyon College given in 2005. It’s a short read, which shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes to get through, but gives you a valuable insight into his style, humour and brilliance. And it’s damn good advice for life.

So I was delighted to see that The Glossary have put a video to Wallace’s words, to fantastic effect. Here’s the description from the video:

“In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested.”

Here’s the video itself (watch the video in full screen and put your headphones on for a fully immersive experience):

Beautiful, no?

The full This Is Water transcript is below, in case you’re interested and want to re-read at a later date.

I highly recommend you read up on Wallace, dive into his books, and experience more of his genius for yourself.

Now, back to tackling Infinite Jest…

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Transcription of David Foster Wallace’s 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address – May 21, 2005 (via Marginalia)

(If anybody feels like perspiring [cough], I’d advise you to go ahead, because I’m sure going to. In fact I’m gonna [mumbles while pulling up his gown and taking out a handkerchief from his pocket].) Greetings ["parents"?] and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story ["thing"] turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don’t be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.

Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I’m supposed to talk about your liberal arts education’s meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let’s talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think. If you’re like me as a student, you’ve never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I’m going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about. If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I’d ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious.

Here’s another didactic little story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: “Look, it’s not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in God. It’s not like I haven’t ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out ‘Oh, God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me.’” And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. “Well then you must believe now,” he says, “After all, here you are, alive.” The atheist just rolls his eyes. “No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.”

It’s easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis: the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people’s two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy’s interpretation is true and the other guy’s is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person’s most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Plus, there’s the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They’re probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us. But religious dogmatists’ problem is exactly the same as the story’s unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up.

The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.

Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realist, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

Please don’t worry that I’m getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being “well-adjusted”, which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education — least in my own case — is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.

As I’m sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let’s get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in day out” really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I’m talking about.

By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there’s no food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be but you can’t just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren’t enough check-out lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can’t take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line’s front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to “Have a nice day” in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn’t yet been part of you graduates’ actual life routine, day after week after month after year.

But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it’s going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

Or, of course, if I’m in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV’s and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children’s children will despise us for wasting all the future’s fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.

You get the idea.

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It’s the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I’m operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities.

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.

Again, please don’t think that I’m giving you moral advice, or that I’m saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it’s hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won’t be able to do it, or you just flat out won’t want to.

But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you what to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.

They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don’t just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

“This is water.”

“This is water.”

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.

The good people behind OpenTech 2013 posed a great question as one of their potential sessions for the event happening on 18th May in London: What should a 2013 not-for-profit look like?

It caught my eye a few weeks ago and I’ve been pondering it ever since, not only because I’ve had experience in starting up and subsequently handing over a not-for-profit, but also because I’m generally surrounded by all sorts of new not-for-profits, both those that FutureGov (my employers) are behind and those who get in touch, ask for advice, I read about in the media or who other people connect me to on social media.

So what do I think a 2013 not-for-profit look like?

There are several organisations out there doing great work and I’ve looked to them for the inspiration behind this post. Not-for-profits like Watsi, Charity: water, Child’s i, Akvo, WWF and Concern are my ideals in 2013.

My thoughts are below in no particular order. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

(I’m not presuming I’ll be “right” about some or even all of them, but they’re a good starting point to encourage discussion…)

People-centric

People should be at the centre of any organisation, but not-for-profits even more so. Any org that doesn’t treat their staff right, work with volunteers well, regularly inform their donors, or actively engage with outside supporters is behind the times. Great leaders understand people are their greatest asset. A not-for-profit in 2013 should say thank you often to the people that help them – and mean it.

Flexible, Lean, Agile

Society and technology are changing faster than they ever have been before. With that comes a need for not-for-profits to be adaptable to the circumstances and opportunities that they see in front of them. That, or they fail to adapt and fall behind. The Lean Startup is one popular methodology to follow, one which promises that you will “make better, faster business decisions” if you follow it. A similar but distinct model, Agile is more for software development but is increasingly is being applied in the business world.

Not afraid to fail

Following the Lean movement mentioned above, being able to be flexible means that you have to try new things or change course into uncertainty. Not-for-profits that embrace this approach will success because they aren’t afraid to fail. Yes, they’ll make mistakes along the way by trying new things, but they’ll be stronger and more durable in the end. The best way to minimize the fall-out of failure is simply to fail faster. Maximize the chance of success while minimizing the investment you’ve made. In 2013, it’s easier to do that than ever before.

Demonstrably achieves their aim

Mission-related results are the very reason that not-for-profits exist. But many not-for-profits set out with an admirable aim for their cause, but then don’t let people know how they are doing to actually achieve that aim, or what they have contributed towards that cause. It can be as basic as letting people know how much funds you have raised for a cause or a short success story or two. Effective charities have a strong focus on results; on the outcomes and impact resulting from their work.

Scalable

Yes, small is beautiful. But if your not-for-profits work is so good then it should be repeatable, either by the same organisation on a bigger scale, or replicated by different organisations in other regions or areas. If it doesn’t scale, the not-for-profit can still be great, but it won’t create as great an impact. For example, GiveWell seeks to distinguish itself from other not-for-profits through its focus on scalability, which it calls “room for more funding“.

Transparent

Being open with what you are trying to achieve and how you are performing when trying to achieve that aim is vital in today’s culture. Transparency builds trust, vital if you want the support you need to achieve your aim. People do not trust organisations that seem like they have something to hide. Make sure your organisation is transparent in its practises, the good and the bad. Intelligent Giving’s 2008 annual report is an example of exceptionally transparent and accessible communication that charities should follow – and that was 5 years ago.

Balanced administrative costs

People who choose to donate only to the charities with the lowest administrative costs aren’t necessarily using their donation as could as they could be, never mind what they think. It’s been proven that high-performing not-for-profits spend more on admin than the lower-performers. Not-for-profits need to stop talking about their administration costs and focus on telling donors where their money goes. Indeed, new research that came out just today found that good charities spend more on admin but it is not money wasted.

Commercially minded

For a not-for-profit to survive in the modern age, they need to be commercially minded. Gone are the days when organisations could rely on donations or trust funds to get by. Having a commercial arm or product as part of achieving their aim means that they will be more stable and have a longer lifespan through diversifying their funding. There are risks, but a 2013 not-for-profit will be ok with that.

Markets their cause

Charity: water is probably the best not-for-profit around at marketing their cause. Their videos, photos and social media marketing make a compelling case for people all around the world to donate to their cause. And their (open and transparent) figures show that people believe in their cause too.

Mobile optimized

Mobile phones are prevalent around the world. While not-for-profits don’t have to develop a fully fledged smart phone app, they could make sure that people can text them, phone them, or view their website on their mobile. A not-for-profit with a mobile presence can communicate with their supporters in a more cost-effective and direct way.

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What do you think a not-for-profit should look like in 2013? Leave your comments below.

(Photo by levork on flickr)

Building an excellent communications team requires lots of equally-excellent strategy, hiring, people management and culture building – and more.

I knew when I started at FutureGov that I didn’t have experience in this area, so reached out to the good and the great of the UK PR industry for their thoughts on what it takes to build a high performing Comms team.

There’s lots of fantastic advice here, so thanks to all of those listed below for their input.

Want to add your views on what makes a good communications team? Leave a comment!

Becky McMichael – @bmcmichael

Mix up skills and experience – 5 ex-corporate PR agency folks will give a single dimension.

Mix up ages and backgrounds – a part time working mum will have a different perspective on work to a 26 year old full time office based staff member for example.

Enable areas of specialty to develop – design/creative, writing, crisis etc. And let people really get to grips with it / develop along a pathway they enjoy.

Cultivate a team identity, be famous within the company, be helpful and spread your skills across other divisions like sales, marketing, leadership team etc.

And one thing we all forgot: shit hot business acumen. Too many comms people have a shockingly bad understanding of market forces, accounting and economics let alone their own industry. You can’t advise your CEO on how to position an earnings announcement if you don’t know your p&l from your elbow…

Phillip Follows – @phillipfollows

@benrmatthews Having good or working knowledge other teams’ needs and processes and communication value of comms throughout org.

— phillip (@phillipfollows) April 22, 2013

Zoe Amar – @zoeamar

Invest heavily in getting buy-in for what you all do from key internal stakeholders. Have a chat with them over coffee about how they expect your team to help them. The trick here is to show that you are listening and finding out how you can be useful whilst ensuring that the team is more than a service function.

In my experience a good communications team is strategic. It drives the organisation forward. The PR/website etc is just one element of how it adds value.

Always look for people who can add extra value, for example through a strong network or a great social media presence. If they can use their skills to ‘reverse mentor’ colleagues that’s even better.

Benjamin Southworth - @inthecompanyof

@benrmatthews for me, it’s finding the brand activist and letting them lead. Translation is a poor analogue for passion.

— Benjamin Southworth (@inthecompanyof) April 22, 2013

Tom Glover – @gloverboy

Trust in your team in the fast paced comms world of today is absolutely key, giving a communications team working flexibility and judging them on the work produced not how and where they do it. As is your ability as a leader to empower your team to be accountable for their own projects and areas.

I put great value in people who come to me with solutions. I don’t just want the problem.

Understanding that we can’t ‘sprint’ the whole time and that you need to judge when the team needs to peak for big bits of work (and communicating that) and when they should reenergise in the lulls.

In my 121s I try to focus on the three big things that really matter, the big ideas or campaigns that are going to have real cut through. I suppose this is a focus on fast delivery as it is so easy to get distracted on multiple tasks.

No process for process sake. It drags people down. Smart reporting and planning that adds value.

If there is a mistake, back the team 100% publicly so they know that you have their backs. But have the honest and straightforward conversation with them.

Make sure you make time for fun and always celebrate success – regular team lunches to mark great work, build up some traditions for things like birthdays etc.

The GB rowing team have a ‘hot wash up’ after a race – immediately having an honest conversation about what went well, what could have been better and lessons learned. I’m trying to do this after key campaigns and projects.

Goes without saying, but you can’t do any of this if you don’t have talented people and there may have to be hard decisions about exiting people who are not up to the job. I also think you have to focus your energies on your best people.

Keith Johnston - @keithajohnston

@benrmatthews when hiring look out for @cipr_uk membership status and involvement in the profession

— PrivateWealthComms (@keithajohnston) April 22, 2013

Chris Lee – @CMRLee

Tick all the boxes: social, search, content, PR, analytics.

No slackers, no divas.

And read this: How to be an Amazing Digital Marketer

Ruben Govinden - @RubenGovinden

@benrmatthews cakes is always good and if anyone starts using jargon, avoid

— ruben_govinden (@RubenGovinden) April 22, 2013

Ged Carroll – @r_c

I would add being numerate into the mix on this.

This may also help: 29 Things for PR People

Katie Moffat – @KatieMoffat

I always liked the advice, never work with anyone that you wouldn’t invite home for dinner.

Damien Clarkson – @DamienClarkson

I have always enjoyed working with people who are passionate and creative. Almost everyone you interview will be capable of doing the job but you want the people who will innovate and inspire you, not just tick boxes.

Marayuma Park in Kyoto, Japan

Japan was always a must-visit country in my travels. And my two weeks there was everything I’d dreamt of and more. But many people are put off from travelling to Japan because of the expense. Yes, it is expensive, but there are ways to make visit Japan on a budget and still see a lot of the top attractions that this amazing country has to offer.

Here’s how we did Japan in two weeks on a budget, including tips from fellow travellers.

Our Two Week Japan Itinerary

Day 1 – Arrive in Tokyo
Day 2 – Tokyo
Day 3 – Tokyo
Day 4 – Tokyo
Day 5 – Tokyo to Takayama (first day of JR Pass – see below)
Day 6 – Takayama to Kyoto
Day 7 – Kyoto
Day 8 – Kyoto
Day 9 – Kyoto
Day 10 – Kyoto to Hiroshima (half day) to Miyajima
Day 11 – Miyajima to Tokyo (last day of JR Pass)
Day 12 – Tokyo
Day 13 – Tokyo
Day 14 – Fly back from Tokyo

Alternative Japan Routes

Our trip started and ended in Tokyo, but you could easily fly into Tokyo and fly out of another city in Japan, such as Kyoto or Osaka.

We only bought a one week Japan rail pass, which limited our time exploring out side of Tokyo. You could buy a full two week ticket and get to see more places – although you might feel you have to move around a lot to make the most of your ticket!

On Day 11 of our itinerary, many people fit in Himeji, which has a pretty spectacular castle. The castle is currently undergoing reconstruction and is covered in scaffolding, so we missed it on this trip and spent more time in Miyajima.

When you travel to or from Takayama you could make a stop at Nagoya to see the Sakura at Yamazaki-gawa or just visit some of of the local sights before traveling on.

Instead of heading up to Takayama, you could carry on down south to spend more time in Kyoto, visit Osaka or Kobe, or go past Hiroshima to the south of Japan

Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass)

If venturing out of Tokyo then definitely buy a JR Rail Pass before you leave your country.

This will be a life-saver whilst travelling around Japan as it is so expensive to buy individual train tickets when you arrive.

Their website also has an excellent forum, where you can ask questions about your visit and pick up tips from other travellers. Their team is very responsive, replying often within a few hours of posting.

Here’s the advice we got when planning our trip to Japan.

Cheap places to stay in Japan

When in Tokyo, I recommend staying in Ueno as it’s downtown and so relatively cheap compared to places like Shinjuku.

You can get off directly at Ueno Station from the main airport (Narita) and it’s easy to navigate through Tokyo from Ueno station.

Try to stay in Ryokans or Hostels, as Japanese hotel rooms are not only tiny but very expensive. Ryokan are Japanese style inns, so a more authentic experience as you sleep on tatami matt floor, futons, onsen steam bath – very comfy! You usually also meet fellow travellers over a delicious Japanese breakfast (rice, eggs, fish, etc).

If you are staying for longer than a week in Tokyo or want more independence, then look up the very reasonable Weekly Mansion aparthotel in Ueno (it’s also in every Tokyo district).

Two useful sights for booking accommodation - HostelBookers.com and HostelWorld.com. Simply pick the dates you want, how many people and then you can view all available listings. Map view gives you an idea of where hostels are located (nearer transport links is preferable), you can sort by rating to get the best places to stay at the top, and you can also read past visitors reviews to get a feel for each place.

A word of warning – book your accomodation far in advance of your trip,  at least a month. The best and cheapest places book up very quickly, especially in blossom season!

Japanese eating on a budget

Sushi Joint – Find a conveyer belt sushi place, which are cheaper than normal restaurants, and enjoy powered green tea and sushi!

Street Food – Japanese street vendors are everywhere and the food is very varied. From steam buns to yakatori, there’s something for everyone to fill up on for a lot less

Sushi Triangles – Mostly sold in convenience stores such as 7-11, these are small triangles of sushi wrapped in sea weed. They come in an intricately wrapped package (pull 1, then 2, then 3) and are a cheap and delicious way to feed fatigued tourists. Oh, and 7-11s have free wifi and toilets, which comes in very useful at times.

Okonimiyaki – This is a Japanese savoury pancake containing a variety of ingredients. The restaurants that call themselves Okonimiyaki are cheap and serve lots of other delicious Japanese meals – not to mention that some let you cook your own pancake on heated grills installed into your table!

Alcohol – Drinking is expensive in Japan, especially in bars and restaurants.

Cheap/free things to see in Tokyo

Tsukiji fish market (free) – Its due to move location next year and will be much harder to get to. You have to go Mon-Fri around 4-5am for the best time. Then go get Sushi from the Breakfast Sushi bars by the market (cash only at most – Sushi Dai is the one I went to with locales – lines to get in at 5am)…

Harajuku Station area (free) – A number of things to do here a) Walk through park to Meiji Jingu shrine. b) Harajuku Girls on the bridge by the station – especially on a Sunday afternoon c) Takeshita Street just across from station is the main trendy fashion street – well worth a stroll down and people watch. The area around here is full of high end shops to but don’t waste your time – Takeshita Street is the one for people and strange store viewing!

Shibuya Crossing (free) – This is the major pedestrian crossing just outside the station be aware all stations in Tokyo are absolutely massive and if you leave by the wrong exit you could be literally miles from where you want to be! (Hachiko exit for this one) Grab a coffee at the starbucks that overlooks the crossing – incredible place to sit and watch everything happen.

Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo (free) – nice walk down to it as well.

Find a all you can eat and drink Shabu-shabu restaurant (cheap) – Here you book a table for a fixed amount of time and its all you can eat but more importantly all you can drink! Load up on beer, sake and try the Shoju too. This is a good first step to going to a Karaoke room.

Take the Yamanote subway line and ride its loop all around the inner city core (cheap) – Get off at Akihabara for the electronics district. Visit Yodobashi store here – the biggest electronics store in the world it seems.

Take the last train home some night on the Yamanote line (cheap) – Remember last trains leave early, around midnight, so you either want to go then or just stay up until they start running again around 5am.

Maiden Cafe (cheap) – Visit a Maiden Café in Akihabara for a cup of coffee and cake

Go to Shinjuku station at rush hour (free) – busiest, and largest, railway station in the world. A trip on the Yamanote line in rush hour is also quite the experience.

Oriental Bazaar (cheap) – On Omotesando Street in Harajuku, this is a good and inexpensive place to pick up souvenirs if you want any.

Ginza (cheap/free – if you don’t buy anything) – From the Imperial Palace in Tokyo you can reach Ginza, which is worth strolling through as it’s where all the posh shops are (Japanese version of London’s Knightsbridge). Stop off at Doutor coffee shop (opposite Mitsukoshi department store) at the crossroads, an amazing spot for watching the world go by.

Day trips out of Tokyo

Nikko – a world heritage site of ancient Buddhist shrines.

Hakone – a good weekend break from Tokyo, very picturesque lakes with wonderful views of Mount Fuji.

Kamakura – Pretty much Zen central, famous for the enormous Daibutsu Buddha statue.

Rest of Japan

Kyoto – Lots of the main temples and tourist attractions are grouped together in the east of the city. We travelled to the south east, starting at the Seikan-Ji Temple, then walked our way through to the north east of the city. Once you finish the Philosopher’s Path, catch a bus back to central Tokyo. It’s a long day, but worth it!

Nara – A day trip outside of Kyoto, this city has a huge park full of deer, temple and one of the biggest statues of Buddha in the world

Hiroshima – The peace museum and park is so moving, but also a cheap day. The museum is only 50 Yen to enter and you can wander around the park for a few hours.

Miyajima - When visiting Hiroshima, definitely take the boat out to Miyajima Island, one of the most beautiful islands in Japan. You can do a big walk around the island and to the top of the mountain there. The boat across to the island is also included in the JR Pass.

Kobe – a vibrant city where younger generations live and of course home of yummy Kobe beef. If you have time, there is a great Onsen town called Arima Onsen just a bus ride away.

Kanazawa – Some of Japan’s most beautiful temples and most famous garden Kenrouken.

Takayama – Wonderful as it takes you into the heart of traditional Japanese life, with a beautifully persevered old Japanese town.

Himeji Castle – What many people don’t know is that just outside Himeji City is an amazing 1000 year old temple complex called Engyo-ji high up in Mount Shosha, which can be reached by a 30 minute ropeway journey. Recently it was made more famous as parts of The Last Samurai film with Tom Cruise were filmed there.

That’s my suggestions on how to visit Japan on a shoestring. What advice would you give for first time travellers to Japan?

When applying for the role of Head of Comms at FutureGov, I knew that the job posting would attract a lot of interest and high quality applications. Indeed, there ended up being several dozen people applying for the job.

I needed to make my application stand out.

Yes, I made sure to have a top notch CV, Covering Letter and References. But I wanted a little something extra to put my application on top of the pile.

I thought to myself, “How can I create something to catch their eye? To show myself as a great communicator who is up to speed with the current trends?”

Having looked at the skills needed, I jotted down how I met those needs next to each one. I then had the idea of creating an infographic to demonstrate how I was right for the job.

Having discussed with idea with graphic designer Paul Carpenter, he suggested creating a simple two-Colman graphic, a call-and-response view of why I was perfect for the job.

Below is a the final result. More of a “Visual CV” rather than an infographic, don’t you think?

It seemed to work anyway, as I got the job!

Hopefully by posting it here it will serve as an inspiration for other job hunters out there to add a little extra to their job application, especially in a tough and competitive jobs market like the one we are in now.

Want to create your own Visual CV? Take a look at these free and easy services offered by Visually and Vizify.

What do you do / have you done to stand out when applying for jobs and freelance work? Let me know in the comments!

So, it was December 2012 and I was travelling in South America (La Paz, Bolivia, to be exact). And I was on the interwebz, checking Twitter, as you do. And I saw a job post for a company called FutureGov.

The job was for Head of Comms, which sounded good to me. The skills required were things like PR, Social Media, Blogging, Events – all of which I can do. Plus it would be working on projects that do social good, a lot of social good. Which I loved.

So I applied. And promptly forgot about it all as you are likely to do when travelling around such an amazing continent as South America.

And then I got an email. And then when I got back to the UK from South America, I had an interview. Then I was told I had a job.

Say hello to the new Head of Comms at FutureGov.

I started at the role this week and can honestly say it’s been as fantastic and exciting as expected. Not only do I get to work on interesting projects such as Casserole Club and Patchwork, but I also get to work with a bunch of passionate, clever and sociable people. And Dominic Campbell.

I’m already getting my mitts stuck in deep to the good stuff at the heart of FutureGov, learning a lot as I go, so expect to see and hear more from me over the next few months.

If you need to reach me or desperately buy me a coffee/beer to get the lowdown on all things FutureGov, email me at ben@wearefuturegov.com

Look forward to hearing from you.

As a freelancer, maintaining work life balance can be a hard task. As well as juggling lots of clients and projects at once, there is the added pressure of taking care of all the housekeeping that comes along with freelance life. From finances and new business, to updating your social media profiles and chasing client payments, it all comes down to you.

So how do you make sure you get your work done and keeping your clients happy, while getting time to relax and see your family and friends too?

Jon Gill, who freelances under the name Playful Communications, gives this advice: “I’m convinced that being at work ‘all the time’, because you have your own business, is a choice. It doesn’t have to be that way. One promise I made to myself was that being ‘freelance’ is a ‘perk’! When I’m no longer seeing the family or if I’m worrying too much about bills then it’s time to get a ‘proper’ job!”

Other ways to make sure you see the family is to finish work at an appointed time in the evening, no matter what. Not only will you be more focussed in order to get finished on time, but you’ll also be able to relax in the evening and get a better night’s sleep. You can always get up early the next day to finish off anything urgent, but your mind will be more refreshed and you’ll finish the task quicker than if you plow on into the night.

Another hard fact of freelance life is that you often take *less* holidays than if you were in a full time job. The pressures of earning your own way and keeping clients happy (not to mention finding new clients) often means that it can feel extremely difficult to take time off.

Sarah Stimson, a freelance PR trainer and writer, thinks that it’s absolutely true that you tend to take less holiday when you are freelance: “You are also, generally, worse off if you have a baby – no employer paid maternity/paternity leave – as I discovered last year. The best bit of advice I’ve had is to to treat your work day as just that. Take a lunch break. Then, occasionally, skive off for the afternoon (and in my case go to the beach a few minutes walk away). Remind yourself why being freelance can be so good for your soul.”

Another area that often gets freelancers working overtime is when you have too much work on. It can be hard to turn down lucratively paid work, even when you have plenty on already. Ben Serbutt, a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, recommends that “while it may be the hardest thing to do, learning to say “no” to work is really important! Otherwise it can be very difficult to maintain a sensible work/life balance.”

There’s plenty of ways of maintaining your sanity while freelancing without working late nights and weekends. Just make sure you remember why you went freelance in the first place – preferably while taking a walk in the middle of the afternoon while others are slaving away at their desks in their stuffy offices.

What tips do you have for achieving work life balance as a freelance?

Leave them in the comments below!

Networking is an essential part of freelance life, both to keep yourself known that you’re looking for work, but also for meeting other freelancers to swap ideas, tips, potential work and even to have the occasional grumble with. Freelancing can be a lonely experience!

Even if you’re based outside of  a city  (London, for example) where lots of networking events take place or don’t feel that you have time to network,  it’s possible to do some very effective networking online – without leaving the comfort of your sofa.

Here’s some ideas to get you started on building your freelance network online.

Twitter

This has to be one of the simplest and quickest ways to get networking online as a freelancer. Go to Twitter.com and sign up with your desired username. Add a photo and a bit about yourself, then your away! For a basic beginners guide for how to tweet and get the most out of Twitter, Twitter’s official guide is a great place to start.

If you want to find people to follow who work specifically in your area, use a tool like Tweepz which allows you to search for keywords in people’s bios. Think ‘Designer’, ‘Consultant’, ‘Freelance’ or whatever keywords are associated with you industry.

Get started by following me at @benrmatthews and looking at who I follow on Twitter here.

Twitter Chats

Themed chats have become a popular event on Twitter recently. Taking place at a set time and date (with a timezone if location specific) and using a specific hashtag to ensure that all tweets around that subject are grouped together, Twitter Chats are a great way to meet other professionals and influencers in your industry.

For example, CommsChat is the home of Europe’s most popular communications conversation on Twitter. It looks at all aspects of comms including PR, marketing, reputation management, internal comms and all things digital. CommsChat broadcasts using the hashtag #CommsChat at 20:00 on Mondays (UK time). To get an idea of the kind of conversations that take place, transcripts of previous broadcasts are made available in their chat archive.

Search for a Twitter chat in your field and then take part next time it happens – it’s a great way to meet others in your line of work and been to connect with the wider industry. And if there isn’t a Twitter Chat in your area, why not start one yourself?

Twitter Lists

Another way to network on Twitter is to set up and share Twitter lists that are useful for the industry. For a guide on how lists work, check out this article in the Twitter help center. Lists are useful to keep track of who’s saying what in your industry and helps to make sure you’re following the right people.

As an added bonus, every time you add someone to the list, they’ll be alerted to the fact (if they’ve signed up to receive the notifications) and check your Twitter profile out in return. This means that the right people to know will be aware of who you are – always useful when you’re looking out for work or new clients.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the social network for professionals and if you haven’t got a LinkedIn profile setup, I’d recommend getting one set up straight away. You can connect with other freelancers and people working in your industry very easily – just send them a personal InMail saying why you’d like to connect (something along the lines of building your freelance network) and if they can give any advice on their freelance career. They will likely connect with you and may offer you some advice – or even work! – if you’re lucky.

Once you’ve connected to a few other freelances in their area, take a look at how they market themselves. How do they describe their skills? What experience do they have and where? What else do they list in their profile? Use this to build your own profile and you’ll eventually have a fantastic LinkedIn page to use.

From there, take a look at the jobs section of LinkedIn. There may not be a lot of freelance work going, but you may be able to find a few opportunities or find out what skills are in demand in your industry.

You can connect with me on LinkedIn here.

LinkedIn Groups

The other activity you can do on LinkedIn to help build your network is to join LinkedIn Groups. These are essentially forums focussing on specialised areas, with every group member a professional working in that field.

So if you were a freelance comms consultant, you might search for PR, Marketing or Social Media groups. Once you’ve joined a few, make sure to introduce yourself and say why you’ve joined the group. Then take part in conversations being posted to the group. Lastly, connect with the other group members to grow your LinkedIn profile and build your network. You’ll also be alerted whenever someone posts a job to the group – so make sure you’re one of the first to reply if the right opportunity comes along.

L for small, specialist groups that do the work for you, rather than assuming all your work will come via networking events and referrals. Here’s a search on LinkedIn for freelancers to get you started on finding the right groups for you.

Blogging

Writing a blog can be one of the best ways to promote yourself as a freelancer and build your network. It couldn’t be easier to get started – go to a blogging platform such as WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger and follow their sign up process. They are free to use and simple to get started, so this is the recommended route if you’re new to blogging.

Once you have your blog set up, make sure you fill out an ‘About’ section, so that people can find out more about you, as well as the ‘Contact’ section, so people know ho to get in touch with you. You might also want to add links to your previous work as well as your other social networking profiles – Twitter and LinkedIn, at least.

Once set up, try to blog at least once a week on a topic in your line of work. It could be a post about what direction you think your industry is headed in, or the tools you use in your every day work and what other sites you would recommend other freelancers use. How about reviewing someone else’s work or campaign (be nice!) or writing a list of other blogs worth following in your area (take a look here for an example). If it helps, spend half an hour writing down every blog post idea that comes into your head. You should come up with at least 10 ideas, which will give you a few months worth of content.

And whenever you publish a blog, post it to your Twitter and LinkedIn profile so people can see that you’re blogging.

Guest Blogging

Writing for others people’s blogs or on magazine websites can be a quicker way of building your network than going to the effort of writing your own blog. They have an established readership that will likely be a lot larger than yours, plus they’ll have the associated social media profiles to help spread the word about articles.

To get started guest blogging, find the most read sites and blogs in your area. Read through their articles, looking for any guest writers that have been published recently. Get a feel for what kind of subjects they write on and try to come up with some ideas that you can approach them with. Send their editor an email explaining a few ideas and offering to guest blog for them (or use the contact form on a blog). You might not get a reply from everyone you contact, but you’ll likely get some responses to work on.

Agree on a subject, word count and deadline – and make sure you meet all three! Ask if you could get a link back to your own site and if they could mention your Twitter username when promoting the blog post. If you do well, you may be able to guest blog again, or you’ll be able to approach a bigger site with an example of the kind of writing you can do.

Freelance Forums

Forums are an oft-overlooked goldmine of information relating to all areas of freelance life, from setting up to finances to keeping clients satisfied. Start off by looking for forums in your industry, sign up and begin to read and comment on more established members posts. It can also help if you have any questions to ask them in forums – you’re more likely to get a response here. But make sure you take a good look through the forums first – your questions may well have been answered elsewhere already. Take a look at the forums on Freelance Switch and Freelance Folder to get started.

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That’s my tips on how to network online as a freelancer. How do you build your freelance network? Feel free to share your advice in the comments.

Following on from my guide to being a freelance consultant, I’ve pulled together a list of essential freelance reads and top blogs so you can get up to speed on all the latest freelance thinking.

These are presented in no particular order, but feel free to add your own suggestions by leaving a comment!

Freelance Advisor

Packed to the rafter with top tips on going freelance and being successful when you take the leap. From weekly digests of freelancing news to helpful tax advice, this site really does contain everything you need. The five-years old site is aimed at UK freelancers, but will still contain useful information no matter where you are.

Freelancers Guide 2013

Brought to you by Clients From Hell, your daily digest of freelance horror stories. Its primary focus is to inform interested readers and help them avoid the sometimes unbelievably bad stories found on the site in their own professional careers. Dozens of interviews across a variety of fields were conducted in the making of the book, as well as hours of research into news, reports, and blogs about the industry. This is a simple, quick, but essential guide for freelancers everywhere.

Freelance Switch

A blog that aims to help you make the switch to becoming a freelancer. From getting started as a freelancer to pricing your services, finding clients and jobs to dealing with clients once you have them, Freelance Switch has everything you need to get started in the road to success. They also have a useful forum and a page where you can look for freelance jobs that are up for grabs. Worth a look just for that alone!

Freelance Folder

A must-read blog for all freelancers containing well written articles by influential writers. Similar to Freelance Switch but slightly more established, Freelance Folder also has a forum and jobs page, though mainly with jobs from the US. Check out their post on 20 Must-Read Blogs For Freelance Writers for more blogs to read.

The Creative Enterprise Toolkit

Brought to you by Nesta, an independent charity with a mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. This a step-by-step interactive resource that can help you plan, build, and start your new freelance career, including four handbooks to help shape your creative idea into a business. Specifically designed for creative people; the contents and activities are focused on developing both you and your business idea. The worksheet activities help you to explore, visualise and plan key business issues, including: consider what future success looks, identify your customers, map develop your marketing messages, and use financial tools to ensure you are in control of your business finances and can start to build a plan.

Creative, Inc.

This excellent little book is written primarily for the US market but it contains many truths that are useful for freelancers everywhere. Freelancing pros Meg Mateo Ilasco and Joy Deangdeelert Cho explain everything from creating a standout portfolio to navigating the legal issues of starting a business. An inspiring read, jam packed full of great advice and written in a way that won’t daunt someone with no marketing/business experience.

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That’s my suggestions, but what about you? What are your essential freelance resources? Add your own suggestions by leaving a comment!