Some of my thoughts from a recent workshop I attended at The Werks, titled “Developing and demonstrating your reputation“.

The beauty of a workshop about this, is that it doesn’t apply to just web industry, see what points you think you offer and perhaps start working on the others!

Why do some people seem to get all the interesting projects to work on, and be able to easily go from one project to the next? Why are some people able to charge higher daily rates than others?
Here’s a list of reasons why :

1. Employers require from freelancers, that they are pleasant, eloquent and ‘get it’ – no matter what industry you are working in. Also get on well with their in-house full-time staff.
2. Clients want you to do job more quickly than full time employees – there is no shorthand way of communicating with a client or freelancer, it all depends on how are you working with them – you can make it easy, open or hard and slow.
3. You should be honest, and face up to problems by communicating when ‘don’t get it’.
4. Do it on time, especially if you have been drafted in to complete a tight deadline, but if you don’t deliver that will let you and your reputation down.
5. Do it well – quality of work – should be bulletproof, and stand up to audits and reviews, ie: accessibility (WAI) and semantic code (W3C) standards.
6. Price (not the most important in this list – if your reputation is good, you will be worth your costs) unless new clients find you on forum – like freelancers.net will be price only as they wont see the other thing.
7. From what I have learnt from quite a few years contracting and running my own business, you should be proactive with your clients and you suppliers. Be clear what you can offer clients as part of your services/brand.
8. Provide case studies of how you have worked in the past. Testimonials always help as clients can identify with other people hiring you for work.

What works for you? Let me know because this list is obviously not a holy grail, just a list of pointers to make you work more effectively with your employers by providing extra value for them and strengthening your reputation at the same time.

Fantastic link posted today by Jeffrey Zeldman, created a lot of laughter today on Twitter.

Every web freelancer must either sympathise with his thoughts, or can learn when to walk away from dubious projects with new clients.

20 signs you don’t want that web design project

In a matter of hours the blog post has around 80 comments and growing, it’s one of those posts where the comments are just as valuable, worth reading!

Ever wondered what the colours around you made you react, or feel . Well, without getting too ‘new age’ colour therapy has been shown to improve your life.

Just by adding a splash of colour to things around you, at home and at work can improve your state of mind and well being.

Walls – Putting up some orange can galvanise your brain. Studies have shown that people are more productive in orange rooms! Its a useful mix of energising red and creative yellow that does it apparently. Will it stop us wasting time on facebook and twitter? We will have to get the paint brushes out to see!

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People in business will lose a percentage of that business however successful they are, however good their service is, and however good their products are.

Changes in market trends are the main cause.. Today the current market trend being rumours around the big ‘R’ for recession.

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Work can all too often take over our lives outside the office with various ways to ’stay connected’.
However, I encourage you to make your office hours more productive by offering the following relaxation techniques every geek can use.. try the following tips that I use, you may find they will allow you to see things differently and achieve your work/life goals more successfully and more effectively.

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When I was leaving SxSw earlier this month, I picked up an American magazine called .Inc.

It caught my attention as it had Ev, the Co-Founder of Twitter being interviewed.

I definitely recommend you check out the Magazine, or the website which are both fantastic. On the website you will find a whole multitude of feeds you can subscribe to, depending on what type of business information you are looking for.

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Well, the creme de la creme Web Design and Development Conference in Austin, Texas certainly lived up to its formidable reputation.

And it’s hard to put into one blog post an event that encompasses so many aspects of the web, real time social networking, some marketing, and a lot of partying with new friends.

One interesting statistic was that it was thought 20% of America’s iPhone users were at SxSw. There were a lot of iPhones, and Apple products everywhere you looked. It felt like being part of a community just by having similar gadgets with these folks.

I really loved the openness of the event, it’s true – you can sit next to a Vice president of Yahoo! on one side and an A list web celebrity on the other.

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