The London New Media Mafia
- 27th August 2004
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- Filed Under: Weblog
When I first went freelance everyone told me that I'd have trouble getting work with agencies because the industry was soooooo cliquey. 'Yup', said I, 'but I'll be fine'. I figured that I was a pretty decent coder and that would be enough to get me noticed. A month went by and I didn't land a single decent project - a few small things but nothing rock and roll. Nothing that felt like a 'career'. I replied to every freelancers.net ad, emailed all the web agencies I could find... Nothing. I had 2 years experience and some good work behind me; what could be wrong? I started to consider finding a proper job.
Eventually got a call from the good people at Nykris. They needed a CSS/accessibility developer for a big project they had starting the next week. I could do it and I was available so off I went. With that one behind me I've not really had to look for work - people find me. Why? I'm not necessarily any better... It's because I've joined the New Media Mafia. I now know enough people at enough agencies to be counted as part of the clique.
This only occurred to me the other week after two things happened. First, I was interviewed by .net magazine for an article about freelancing (thanks to Recollective) and I had to try and give advice to people who want to get into the industry. Second, a friend passed my email address on to a chap who was looking to get started and was looking for a few pointers. It's a really tough question. How did I get into it? A bit of luck. Do I have any advice? Be lucky. That's rubbish advice!
I think I need to think this one through properly and write it up because when I started I would have killed for some decent advice on what freelancing was really like. I actually registered juststartingout.co.uk (I couldn't sleep one night so I registered some domains) and I have plans to turn it into a freelancers advice site but I haven't had time yet... Nothing to compete with freelancers.net but a spot for some impartial advice and some links. The next time I get some spare time it'll be top of my list.
In the meantime the best advice I can think of is to know a lot of people and make sure they all know what you do. That sounds pretty anti-social but that's just how it works these days.
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