The Freelancers' Show

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:28 - Working From Home Distractions Environment 07:35 - Pros of Working From Home Animals Purr Programming 2.0: Lance Gleason Schedule/Flexibility Naps Deliveries/Home Repairs Commute 11:57 - Focus & Productivity Renting an Office 14:22 - Cons of Working From Home Office Neighbors/Noise Pollution Furnishing an Office Cabin Fever 22:37 - Working in an Office Social Outlet Others’ Opinions 25:31 - Overcoming Distractions Family Comes First Making up Time 29:54 - Staying on Task Shifting your Work Set Hours Pomodoring Setting Boundaries 37:35 - Fixed Number of Hours xkcd: Ballmer Peak Picks Hydrofarm Thirsty Light (Chuck) Powermat Power Dual 1200 Rechargeable Backup Battery (Chuck) PVC Pipe in Plants (Eric) iPad Mini (Evan) Transcript ERIC: Replace Chuck with a recording robot. [Are you a busy Ruby developer who wan

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:41 - Employment History 06:58 - Perks of Being a Freelancer Variety of Job Areas Choose Your Work Flexibility & Freedom 15:22 - Paycheck Security Unemployment Contractors Vs Employees 20:54 - Coast-Along Employees 21:50 - Health Benefits 23:34 - Marketing & Selling Providing Value to a Company 27:27 - Business Skills 29:37 - Self-Direction & Motivation 32:48 - Loans 34:51 - Going Back to Work (after freelancing) Picks Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself by Daniel H. Pink (Eric) Powermat Home & Office Mat (Chuck) Une Bobine (Chuck) Transcript ERIC: Hold on, I got to shut my door. My dog opened it and I don't want the cats to come fly in here. [Are you a busy Ruby developer who wants to take their freelance business to the next level? Interested in working smarter not harder? Then check out the upcoming book “Next Level Freelancing - Develo

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Discussion 01:16 - Keeping Passion for Work Alive Happiness vs Money Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 04:14 - Making it a Craft 08:45 - Client Fit Raising Rates 10:41 - “Safety” and Satisfaction The Ruby Freelancers Show 012 – Getting Starting as a Freelancer 13:41 - Self-Actualization Community Exposure Praise 25:04 - Practice Every Day Mastery by Robert Greene 27:08 - Having Outlets 31:31 - Change & Creating New Habits Balance Tiny Habits w/ Dr. BJ Fogg The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg 38:34 - “Serious Practitioners” Picks Functional Programming for the Object-Oriented Programmer (Jim) Multitenancy with Rails by Ryan Bigg (Jim) Writer’s block and the drip: Seth Godin (Eric) Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard (Evan) Transcript EVAN: Eric, you there? ERIC: I'm chewing... EVAN: I don't believe I've

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:39 - Addressing Team Issues Implementing Change Stand-Up Meetings 04:44 - Stand-Up Meeting Issues 07:37 - Organization Politics Expetise Experience 11:21 - Idea Resistence People Problems Control 18:16 - Problematic Coworkers 20:26 - Team Communication Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Skype Hubot Campfire GoToMeeting Adobe Connect Google+ Hangouts tmux 28:10 - Assigning Tickets & Stories 36:22 - Finding Solutions to Problems You Don’t Understand 38:04 - When Change Doesn’t Happen Satisfaction Level 40:01 - Management Issues/Changes 42:43 - Team Planning Planning Poker Estimations 48:17 - Ideas for Integration Leveraging Experience Picks Poor man’s guide to managing Ruby versions (Jim) Extreme Programming Pocket Guide (Eric) Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz (Chuck) Transcript ERIC: Helloooooooo! [Are y

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:18 - Planning For the Year New Media Expo Consumer Electronics Show MountainWest RubyConf Rails Ramp Up 06:57 -...

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 02:33 - Designers Referrals 12:00 - Bookkeepers Accountant recommendations/preference 19:44 - Virtual Assistants ...

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code) Discussion 01:28 - What do you do when prospective clients only want to hire you full-time? Employees vs Contractors On-site work 08:35 - How to get clients from a different country or timezone Enforcing contracts Marketing 13:49 - Do people hire you because you’re specifically a “Ruby” freelancer? 21:02 - What types of jobs do you accept and what types do you refuse? Will the project be successful? 30:35 - What types of jobs are you getting from Ruby on Rails? 33:35 - How do you deal with uncertainty or risk when writing a Statement of work? Identify risky areas Be as specific as possible 39:25 - Building LinkedIn recommendations Testemonials 43:32 - Working on a retainer Support Agreements/On Call work Picks Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone (Eric) Nexus 7 (Evan) SCOTTEVEST Fleece 7.0 Jacket (Evan) Twitter Bootstrap (Chuck) Downton Ab

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code) Discussion 01:47 - Static sites vs Wordpress Jekyll 03:33 - Important parts of a Website Placeholder sites Contact information 04:27 - Getting contacted Wufoo 07:43 - Blog Posts theAdmin.org 08:45 - Portfolios Eric’s Portfolio Landing Pages 11:05 - Testimonials 11:55 - Mailing Lists/Newsletters Trustbuilding Waiting list of clients 14:13 - Landing Pages Small pages Guide people to their goal 16:33 - Social Media 17:22 - Logos LogoWorks 19:22 - Static Site Generators 21:07 - What do you want people to do when they visit your site? Welcome Gate: LeadBrite Contact Me littlestreamsoftware.com (Eric) intentionalexcellence.net (Chuck) 23:40 - Products/eBooks 25:49 - Landing Pages Headline Subheadline Call to action 29:23 - A/B Testing for Wordpress Optimizely 30:33 - Analytics 31:23 - About Pages Use “I” not “We” 34:07 - SEO 36:35 - Project Inclusion in Portfolios Picks Arkon Porta

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 01:11 - Optimizing your sales and marketing pipeline Lead generation (marketing) Lead conversion Project delivery 08:54 - Follow ups 11:24 - Lead categories Want to work right now Trying to decide Decide against you 12:26 - Closing a client (sales) Not just going for wallets Leads who take advantage/getting something for nothing “Velvet Roping” Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port 15:57 - Client fit Qualifying 17:36 - Marketing Mailing lists Open-source contribution Being active in communities 19:31 - Referrals Where do they come from? 22:05 - Recruiters Responding to recruiters Dealing with recruiters 28:01 - Website traffic analyzation Google Analytics 31:41 - Newsletters Listening vs reading Getting newsletter subscribers MailChimp AWeber Autoresponders 47:09 - What should I do? Where do you wa

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Dicussion 02:50 - Overcoming Isolation Working from coffeehouses Lunch dates 06:25 - Recruiting others with similar interests 07:40 - Talk on Twitter 07:46 - Evan’s Apprentice 09:46 - Pairing Remote vs Physical 11:19 - Personality Types 12:13 - Coworking Spaces Creative Work Busy Work 14:51 - Walking and Driving 15:33 - Meetups and User Groups 17:53 - Commiserating and Ranting 19:08 - Attending Conferences 23:26 - Working Onsite for Clients Picks Strong VPN (Eric) Cloak (Evan) OS X Server (Evan) The Ruby Object Model and Metaprogramming by Dave Thomas (Chuck) New Media Expo 2013 (Discount code Wood20) (Chuck) Transcript EVAN: What's the background noise that... Is there any? CHUCK: I hear people talking. It’s OK. EVAN: OK. Why can’t I crank my volume up louder than this? What the hell? Oh, well that might be why. Now say something. CHUCK: So

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 02:02 - Picking topics Passion Frustration Driven Development: Evan’s WindyCityRails Talk 2012 Listener questions/interest Lynchpin by Seth Godin “Doing what you love and sharing with other people” 07:08 - Speaking at User Groups vs Conferences Practice runs Keydown 09:46 - Twitter inquiries 10:16 - Topic proposals Marketing Abstracts 13:28 - Marketing to conference owners/marketing to the audience Making memorable talks 16:32 - How speakers are chosen Individual merit/”Hero Worship” Keynotes by invitation Past experience 20:56 - Preparing for a talk Practice Keynote / Keydown 25:04 - Writing a book/writing a presentation Flexibility Stream of consciousness writing Markdown Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds 31:37 - Code in slides Syntax highlighting Wrapping lines Screen resolution

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 01:36 - Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch (Eric) 04:51 - Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (Chuck) David Allen Company Podcast 06:30 - Time Management for System Administrators by Tom Limoncelli (Eric) 08:47 - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Chuck) 12:26 - Get Clients Now!: A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, and Coaches by C.J. Hayden (Eric) 15:08 - Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port (Eric) 17:09 - 48 Days to the Work You Love: Preparing for the New Normal by Dan Miller (Chuck) 48 Days Podcast 20:10 - The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. (Eric) Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco (Eric)

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 01:58 - Brownfield Projects Contrast to Greenfield Legacy Code 06:50 - Labeling and defining a Brownfield Project Age Decrepitude 08:37 - How to handle Brownfield Projects Upgrading Modernizing Tree (Unix) The First Step of Refactoring a Rails Application Socratic Method 15:48 - Rescue Project versus Brownfield Project State of the Client versus State of the Project Urgent Need 20:02 - Technical Problems     Business Leadership Problems Conway’s Law Working Effectively with Legacy Code: Michael Feathers 26:56 - Refactoring and Testing Show, Don’t Tell (Leading by example) Redesigning Agile: Part II - Introducing Intridea Forge 31:46 - Educating team members Correcting mistakes Learn how others work Lead by example 36:57 - Pushback Trying new angles Leave the project Lower standards Picks Rails Co

Panel Evan Light (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Discussion 01:30 - Dealing with unrealistic expectations 03:13 - “The Iron Triangle” Cost Performance Schedule 04:02 - Bad management 05:07 - Establishing expectations Prioritizing Schedule & Budget 08:08 - Rescue Clients & Projects 11:34 - Developers are not interchangeable 12:03 - Approaching a project 13:55 - Business owner and end user communication 16:58 - Client Communication Trade-offs Hired guns 21:47 - Amateurs vs Professionals 24:04 - Managing communication expectations 28:57 - Engagement & Evaluation of process 34:24 - Wrapping up a project 38:36 - Types of projects Clearly defined outcomes Ongoing 42:23 - Client domains 47:33 - Influencing clients and teams towards better practices 50:30 - Clients that don’t want your input Picks Kalzumeus Blog (Eric) gfxCardStatus (Jim) The New CTO: Uncle Bob (Jim) Verizon LTE (Evan)

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion 01:26 - Topic: Pivoting Into New Development Areas 02:00 - Taking time off as a freelancer 02:39 - Business of Freelancing: Eric Davis & Brennan Dunn 03:52 - Podcast Answer Man: Cliff Ravenscraft 04:14 - Chuck’s Intro to CoffeeScript Webinar 04:58 - Pivoting from one technology to another 05:12 - Jim’s experience with ‘pivoting’ 08:20 - Clojure 08:39 - Partial pivoting Learning new skills Trying new programming languages Satisfaction & what works best for you 12:08 - Eric’s experience with ‘pivoting’ 14:47 - Chuck’s experience with ‘pivoting’ 17:09 - Client requirements 18:43 - Transitioning to something you don’t have expertise in Diving deeper Find a tool that is similar to what you’re already doing 22:13 - Billing yourself as an expert 23:20 - Repercussions of pivoting into a new technology Shortages of work Jack of All Trades

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Discussion 01:07 - Jim Gay is a new member of the Ruby Freelancer’s regular panel! Author of (upcoming) Clean Ruby Cofounder of Arlington Ruby Co-organizer of DC RUG 02:03 - Freelancing and Experience 03:48 - Radiant CMS 05:34 - Liability Insurance 07:52 - Kinds of liability insurance Professional/errors in omissions General liability Umbrella policy 10:15 - Disclaimer: The Ruby Freelancers are not insurance agents, attorneys or financial advisors 10:45 - Putting liability back on the client 11:47 - Seeking advisors and professionals who specialize in your needs 13:20 - Proof of insurance 15:07 - Following best practices 16:26 - Insurance brokers versus salesmen versus financial planners/advisors daveramsey.com: Endorsed Local Providers 20:02 - Health Insurance Personal Plans versus employer plans 24:31 - HSA: Health savings accounts Cafeteria pla

Panel Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript) Discussion Preparing for lean times Cash on hand Marketing (BCP - Business Continuation Practices) List of productive activities Bank account fuel meter Emergency funds Acquiring skills Small but consistent jobs $15,000 In Income From An EBook, How I Did It: Jim Gay Prioritizing your expenses Changing your style of living and knowing what to cut Networking Reviewing expenses Wish list of companies User Groups Knowing what’s coming before it does: line up work Get Clients Now!(TM): A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, and Coaches: C.J. Hayden Focus on sales Cash flow vs income Getting paid up front/deposits Getting organized Having next steps CouchDB and Me: Damien Katz’s RubyFringe Presentation Picks iPad + Linode, 1 Year Later: Mark O’Connor (Eric) Damien Katz Relaxing on CouchDB (Evan) Regrets of the Dying (Evan) The 7 Habits of Highly

Panel Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Summer Camp) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Discussion Requires Time and Effort No Time vs. Not A Priority Learning Takes Energy Make a list of things to learn, set a schedule. Learning GNU Emacs Books vs. Screencasts IRC Mailing Lists The Third Tribe The Podcast Mastermind Evan's Cat The Main Modes of Learning The Learning Pyramid Picks The Learning Pyramid (Eric) Pragmatic Thinking and Learning (Eric) Downcast (Eric) Ruby Rogues - DHH (Eric) Evening on Backbone.js/Views w/ Q&A with David Heinemeier Hansson (Eric) ViewSonic VA2431WM (Chuck) 75 to 100mm VESA Converter Plates (Chuck) LG Tone Bluetooth Headset (Chuck) Go Groove Blue Sync Bluetooth Speaker (Chuck)

Panel Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Summer Camp) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Sammy Larbi (twitter github blog) Discussion Setting Time Boundaries Use Goals Dividing time between client work and product dev. Educating clients, RE: time Subcontractors Set up an emergency fund. Entitled Clients and Pricing Competing With Low Quality Developers Fixed Bids Ask questions and qualify potential clients. Picks A List Apart - Habit Fields (Eric) 8th Light - Fixed Feature (Eric) Radio Shack (Chuck) LG Tone Bluetooth Headphones (Chuck) Evan Light (Sammy)

Panel Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Summer Camp) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Avdi Grimm (twitter github blog book) Discussion RubyTapas Confident Ruby Error Handling in Ruby Dan Miller Time Spent Marketing Blogging Selling eBooks Writing - Research to Finished Product Document Formatting Speak, Publish Transcripts Free Content Destroy All Software Word of Mouth Build your own site or use an existing service for video? Picks Two Steps from Hell - Archangel, Invincible (Eric) If This, Then That (Jeff) Epic Soundtracks (Jeff) Learning GNU Emacs (Chuck) Emacs Rocks (Jeff) O'Reilly Pocket Guide for Emacs (Eric) Brother MFC7860DW Printer (Avdi) Good Strategy, Bad Strategy (Avdi)