I suppose I should start with explaining what I mean by competitor collaboration. You have competitors. There are other people out there offering goods and services that are similar to what you do. That’s your competition. As I’ve discussed before, though, the more you focus on a specific niche, the more your “competitors” become complementary service providers. If you are a programmer, you can work with designers, and vice versa.
I was recently pointed to a blog post (via Freelance Switch) that proposes some of the most important things you can spring for in your home office. The logic on all of these is that you are spending a lot of time here and need to be able to work comfortably and efficiently.
I recently did a redesign of my web design business site. Early in the process I visited the portfolio sites of a lot of other web designers. It was very inspiring to see so many different approaches to displaying examples of one’s work. I did notice one trend that was a little disturbing. Happily the majority of sites did not go down this path, but I saw it more than I expected.
This coming Monday is Blog Action Day, an event designed to get bloggers to make posts about environmental responsibility. I am jumping the gun a little bit, but since I usually only post once a week this seems like the best way to make sure I have an appropriate post up on the 15th.
I received an email not too long ago from another Indianapolis web developer who is working on building an online community for local freelancers. It’s only been up for a handful of days, so the traffic is still pretty light. For those of you interested, the URL is http://www.indylance.com.
The site got me thinking about how I’ve always viewed online networking and local networking as two separate animals. To meet people locally, I go to events and mixers. It takes up a lot of time, but it’s worth it. To meet people online, I blog and leave comments and participate in social networks. It’s comparatively easy, but I tend to have only fleeting interaction with other people.
So far my interaction on IndyLance has all been online. Everyone there could be on the other side of the earth for all it matters. But for some reason knowing that we could meet at a nearby coffee shop to discuss a particularly complex and interesting idea that gets brought up makes me more willing to participate in online discussions. I don’t know that such a meeting will ever really happen, but it’s invigorating to think that it could.
These online local contacts might lead to referred business, although that isn’t the primary reason I’m participating. Unlike some of my other networking activities, I see this as an opportunity to share ideas. I can ask questions of people who come up against the same challenges that I do and find out how they resolve them. For freelancers who often don’t have a room full of coworkers to bounce ideas off of, that is invaluable.
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