So You Want To Start Your Own Business: The Catch 22 of Free Wednesday March 2, 2011

Ah yes, I’m finally back with my So You Want To Start Your Own Business series. This time I’m talking about The Catch 22 of Free.

And while I do get into a bit more detail about my philosophy on working for free when you’re starting out in the VBlog, there are numerous good and bad things about the concept.

Over my time, I’ve had the chance to work on some fun and exciting projects with people for free and I probably wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. But as I mention, I do believe that it is a better option to find a project, a cause or idea that you are personally passionate or invested in – rather than to offer _free work for another person’s idea_.

Generally, and this experience isn’t universal, but the promises you receive from others never tend to pan out. What I have found is that a project you are personally vested in will be more beneficial in the future and your career.

Categories: so-you-want-to-start-your-own-business, The-Corporation,

So You Want To Start Your Own Business: Top 5 Freelancer Start-up Tips Monday October 11, 2010

As promised, I’m going to start something a bit new on the old c.t.overdrive.

So, welcome to a new series of Video Blogs called So You Want To Start Your Own Business. It’s a continuation of the discussions I’ve been involved with since partaking in the Leave Your Job, Start An Agency panel last March. Over the past few months, I’ve been asked numerous times to share some of my thoughts on how to get started as a freelancer. So over the next little while I’m going to address them in a series of video blogs.

The first one, is my Top 5 Freelancer Start-up Tips. You’ll also find links to all the sites I mention in the video clip.

… So here’s a quick synopsis for those interested.

1. Get some low-cost Branding.
2. Get organized by using some of the great online tools out there.
3. Pay for all of your tools. Invest in your career.
4. Start Networking early and often.
5. Read, Read, Read and read even more.

Update: Comments are now open on this post. I blame textpattern on that one.

If you have any topic suggestions or ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Categories: so-you-want-to-start-your-own-business, The-Corporation,

DCWeek Interview Thursday June 24, 2010

Last week my wife and myself took in Digital Capital Week, here in the nation’s capital. I went for some small exposure for the corporation”:http://www.armadillostudios.ca and my lovely wife went to get some ideas for her Masters work.

Anyways, If you’re interested in what the three days of DC Week were like, jump on over to the corporate blog to read about the 140 Conference and our experience at the National Geographic centre.

But for those who don’t want to filter through my corporate mumbo-jumbo-babble, here’s a video clip from a great DC firm we met called Captico. They were at the conference doing interviews about D.C. Week. So if you fast forward to the 4:00 minute mark, you’ll get to see us in all our conference glory.

Categories: The-Corporation, the-dc,

SXSW10: Leave Your Job, Start An Agency Monday March 15, 2010

First as always, SXSW has been nutbar.

So I do apologize for the lack of blog posts, but I’m starting to catch up on all the ideas swirling around my head from the various sessions. But more importantly, today yesterday my good friends Kurt, Joey, and Alex presented our core conversation: Leave Your Job, Start An Agency.

As you can see from the Kurt’s Twitpic, the place was packed for our unassuming little conversation. Which shocked the hell out of all of us. When Alex approached us to help him out, I imagined it would be for a room of 20 people, not 60-80.

The panel turned out to be a smash hit with the audience.

The room was filled with hungry, hungry entrepreneur who bombarded us with questions all looking to fulfill their need for inspiration, tips and some real talk. Luckily the four of us have a pretty no-holds-barred relationship with each other, which allowed us to be extremely honest and open with the crowd. It also allowed us to poke fun at ourselves and the barrage of mistakes that we’ve all fallen into during our tenure as self-appointed Presidents, Creative Directors, Web Craftsman and King Of Awesomeness.

Alex led the charge as the MC and focal point, while Joey, Kurt and myself tried to crammed as much in the chat as we could. We hit on some key topics like Do You Need A Lawyer to Is it okay to Outsource to What tools You Should Use?. It was a jam packed hour and we probably could have gone on for at least another hour.

You can see the twitter stream to get a vibe about the session and stalelife.com will be posting the video of the talk on their site shortly. When it’s up I’ll post it online.

Big thanks to Alex for letting me be on the panel and to Joe & Kurt for all their help. Without question, being at this was one of the highlights of my SXSW experience.

Categories: sxsw-2010, The-Corporation,

The New Dork Tuesday March 9, 2010

My cousin in-law Lyndsie forwarded this on and it’s too nerdy and too awesome not to post. It’s a promotional parody from Grasshopper.com called The New Dork. Which is essentially a slag at Jay-Z’s & Alicia Key’s New York.

But with SXSW around the corner this is just too good to not post.

Categories: The-Blogosphere, The-Corporation,