Another good reason to freelance between full-time jobs

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A report in the London Telegraph by way of For Immediate Release states that

A study from the Royal Economic Society underlines the received wisdom that the longer someone is out of a job, the harder it is to get work.

…Using new evidence from the German jobs market, the researchers discovered that the wage offered to someone who has been out of work for six months was on average 14pc lower than they previously received.

After a year, the amount they can hope for is 19pc lower, and it is some 33pc lower after two years.

This erosion of potential workers’ pay prospects occurs quickly, and those who are unemployed for just three months could see their salary prospects fall by 7pc.

The research found that although unemployed people do not necessarily look for fewer jobs as time goes on, the higher paying jobs gradually become closed to them.

Public relations practitioners are in the lucky position that we never really need to be “out of work.” In fact, many résumés of PR practitioners that cross my desk show a history of interspersing freelance work with full-time jobs.

Neville Hobson speaks about the difference between people who adopt the mindset that they are out of work and looking for a job vs. those who engage in either volunteer or ad hoc project work while conducting their job search. He says that this tells you something about the person and affects how they are perceived by others, including potential employers. Shel Holtz adds that, given that better paying, more senior positions take longer to land, communicators are well-advised to position themselves as consultants and attempt to pick up freelance assignments while looking for a permanent position.

I think that Neville and Shel are absolutely bang on in their observations. And while they are talking primarily about people seeking corporate positions, their observations are even more apt for those looking for positions with consulting firms.

In fact, public relations practitioners who use the time between jobs to pursue and land freelance work can increase their value to consulting firms. When reviewing CVs, I interpret freelance time as an indicator of initiative on the part of the job applicant. Moreover, I feel that having to handle the business fundamentals – negotiating a contract, setting a fair rate of compensation, tracking time and issuing invoices and, yes, managing receivables – gives the freelancer valuable insight into the business of PR. It can also translate into better service to our corporate clients through communications practitioners who can relate to the business realities facing those clients.

So, my advice to those who have just found themselves out of a job: Hang out your shingle and pursue freelance assignments while you are looking for the right full-time job fit.

OECD conference tackles Digital Rights Management and User-Generated Content

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Michael Geist comments on the discussions at the OECD’s Future of the Digital Economy conference in Rome. In Geist’s view,

…the discussion pointed to two competing approaches for the distribution of content in the Internet era, one based on DRM and the other on user generated content. I conclude that the conference ultimately sent a mixed message about the future of the digital economy. The Internet has sparked a remarkable outpouring of new creativity and provided conventional content owners with exciting new marketplace opportunities, yet legislators may be forced to intervene to ensure that consumers are protected from onerous DRM restrictions and that ISPs are precluded from using their positions as Internet gatekeepers to harm innovation.

Corporate Blogging Best Practices

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Steve Rubel reports form the Word of Mouth Marketing conference on David Binkowski’s advice to corporate bloggers. According to Rubel, corporate bloggers should:

– maintain a consistent tone
– have strong and newsworthy content
– disclose intentions and sources
– post frequent updates
– deal with comments
– keep innovating

That’s a good start. Other points that I suggest prospective or new corporate bloggers should keep in mind:

  • Study the blogosphere to determine if it is right for your company. Don’t get in today if you aren’t ready or if you don’t see the benefits. But keep paying attention. Things are changing fast. More and more people are finding their voice in the blogosphere. Your customers, your target audience or your competitors are only one click of the Publish button away from having an impact on you.
  • Ensure that your blog has a clear, single purpose. Remember, blogs are a discussion of current events and current thinking. They differ in this from the traditional web, which represents an encyclodedia. Let your corporate website catalogue all of the information you want to present. Focus your blog on the things with which you are personal engaged.
  • Your blog should be part of a grassroots strategy. Don’t let it stand alone. Once you have engaged in a dialogue with your audience, you should leverage this interest in as many ways as you can to build a lasting relationship.
  • Establish and maintain a regular tempo of postings. That doesn’t mean that you must post every day. But maintain a minimum period of postings to establish and then meet your audience’s expectations.
  • Bloggers need: Passion and a Voice. A blogger must have something to say, a willingness to write it, and the perseverance to keep at it.
  • Blogs will be credible only if the voice is truly the voice of the author. Blogs are not corporate speeches. It’s fine to ask people to edit and comment on a draft posting before it is published. However, if the blogger is not really originating his/her own material, find another blogger.
  • Blogging does not need to start from the top. You can start with someone who has a point of view and expertise in an issue or area related to your organization or business (e.g. Customer service, your industry, product design).
  • Write in an informal, chatty style. Avoid “corporate speak.”
  • Make each blog posting short in order to increase the likelihood that people will read it.
  • Define who owns the blog. If it is a corporate blog, postings can be screened and approved by management. If it is a personal blog, provide some blogging guidelines regarding the boundaries of acceptability.
  • Keep corporate blogging guidelines to a minimum. Count on common sense.
  • Finally, learn by doing.

    • What do you think? Are there points I’ve missed? Have you found other useful guidelines for prospective and new corporate bloggers?

    Great relationships can start with brief encounters

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    Effective communications consulting must be based on relationships of trust between the client and the consultant. And these relationships can begin in a variety of places. What is common to them all is that a personal connection is made.

    In his Canadian Entrepreneur blog, Rick Spence points to a story in Canadian Business offering tips on how to break the ice and have meaningful contact with business prospects in even the most casual encounters.

    Good advice for anyone who understands the importance of building a network of contacts. (And that should include every communications consultant, from the most senior to the most junior.)

    Another CEO uses his blog to level the playing field with a reporter

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    Mathew Ingram has written in today’s Globe and Mail about Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, using his blog for an online tussle with Business Week reporter, Tim Mullaney. Ingram concludes:

    “… the ability to post your comments on a story to your blog, as Mr. Cuban did, or to post the interview and your responses even before the article runs, as Mr. Byrne did, is a pretty powerful tool. And they are not unique: as journalist and blogger Dan Gillmor notes, the U.S. Defence Department has been posting full transcripts of its interviews with journalists for a while now. As Mr. Gillmor notes on his Citizens’ Media blog, journalists are effectively having “transparency imposed on them” by the Internet.”

    Sanity Check has published the complete exchange between Byrne and Mullaney.

    A PR Blunder in the Making: Microsoft, say it ain't so!

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    Arstechnica reports that “Windows XP Home will leave Mainstream Support and enter online support on January 1, 2007?in less than a year.”

    Microsoft. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Think of all the folks who just this Christmas bought Windows XP Home operating systems with new computers for their school-aged children. What will you tell them when they find that, less than one year after they bought it, their Microsoft operating system has been relegated to the world of MS “online support.” For many users, “online support” means, “pay us more money to upgrade your product now!”

    I’ve read that Microsoft’s blogging policy is something like “Blog Smart.” Well, it’s time for Microsoft to “Be Smart.” Nip this problem now. Say it ain’t so.

    Manager Tools – practical advice for leaders

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    David Jones tipped me to the Manager Tools podcast. Every week, Michael Auzenne and Mark Horstman discuss techniques and practical tools that listeners can use to become more effective managers.

    Topics of particular relevance to building an effective public relations consulting team include the importance of the one on one meeting, giving effective feedback, delegation, coaching, effective hiring, and performance reviews.

    Manager Tools. It’s worth a listen.

    The Impostor Syndrome

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    Virginia Gault’s article in today’s Globe and Mail provides good advice on what both management and employees can do to combat the impostor syndrome.

    The impostor syndrome – “the constant fear of being exposed as a fraud despite a solid record of achievement” – afflicts “any demanding workplace culture, where high achievers are left on their own to sink of swim,” according to Diane Zorn, a faculty development director at York University.

    High achievers left on their own to sink or swin. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, this is the reality in all too many consulting companies. And I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit that it is also a challenge for my company.

    So, what do we do about it?

    First, we have replaced the standard performance review process with a career development process that puts a tight focus on our employees’ own objectives. We bring employees together with their managers no less frequently than every six months to discuss what is going well, what is not going as well, what each employee wants to achieve in the coming year and how we can support this.

    But career growth is a day by day affair. So, we encourage managers to meet regularly on a one to one basis with the people for whom they are responsible. And we make employee retention and career growth a criterion on which managers’ own performance is assessed. Managers have part of their compensation at risk based on their success in retaining employees and helping them to grow on the job.

    We also have established a relationship with a career coach. When people indicate an interest in having a career coach, the company will engage the coach to work with that person. We established this relationship about six months ago and we’re hoping that, by having a relationship with one coach, she will gain extra insight into our work environment that she can apply as she coaches our employees.

    These are just some of the things we do to create a supportive environment that will counter the “sink or swim on your own” culture. We know that we’re not perfect and that we have much more to do. I’d be interested in hearing about what others are doing in this area.