Watch this to see someone doing awesome stuff.

When watching it many people think or say they are going to give up Coke/Pepsi.  It would be nice if it was true.  It would also be nice if people could think about other corporations dominating our lives and how they will probably only go away if WE DECIDE AND CHOOSE  to stop consuming their not so superior products.

Victorian economists calculated that the average English peasant in 1485 needed to work fifteen weeks a year to earn enough money they needed to survive for the year.  In 1564, it was forty weeks.  Now of course, it is questionable whether we can afford a reasonable life at all without two salaries all year round.

From:

The Idler – Smashing The System

Essay: “Economic Thought in the Middle Ages” by David Boyle

My wee company schux has signed up for the Sussex Internships.  If you are interested in what we do. Want to get a feel for the industry. Fancy a chat or a cuppa. Meet other people within the industry…

Then here is an offer: from January onwards come to and cowork and Lewes Werks for free.  Hopefully you’ll have a laptop (or equivalent) so you can get on and do some of your own work.

Get in contact with me if you are interested.

I came across Freelance Switch and Theme Forest a while back and discovered that they (amongst other websites) are run by Envato.

Following is an interview with the founders. I found it interesting as it is the direction I’ve (slowly) been heading in.

No matter how socialable people are. Or how much support they get. It’s still easy to feel lonely, lost and question everything.

Wondering why the **** am I doing this? Why do I bother? There must be an easier way?

From the outside everyone says positive stuff and you feel like you have to put on a brave face and say everything is fine. On the inside it feels positive, but far from ideal, a step in the right direction but still far from the goal posts.

When I look at myself, it often feels like I’m holding a magnifying glass.  Focusing on the small things. Failing to see the bigger picture, which is probably much better than the little buggly bears.

It sure is a hard (fun) slog at times, but it’s nice to read about other people writing about similar experiences here and here.

Maybe it’s not so lonely or hard afterall

A couple of years ago I started the Software Testing Club.  It is a lovely community at the moment.  It has truly blossomed into something special and unique.  A real community of practice for software testers, me thinks.

The dilemma I faced after a couple years of running it and 3,500 members later was – what next?

It was taking up a fair chunk of my personal time.

I didn’t want to go down the advertising route.

I didn’t want it to turn into yet another online community and have to struggle with spam, yuck, yuck.

I didn’t want to continue it at a cost to me and a benefit everyone apart from myself.

So I changed plans

Though truthfully, I didn’t really have a plan to start with

One thing I did was to stop letting just anyone in.  Now members have to pay OR show a true interest in Flash Mob Testing.

The second thing I did was put some focus onto Flash Mob Testing – which is our version of crowd sourced web testing.  Currently we have tried the concept out on a few clients.  Our aim is to make it as easy as possible to get a website or web app tested.  We know it’s the part of the development process that always gets neglected.

This is how it works:

• Someone has built a website which (oops) they haven’t had tested
• The client fills in a form that answers a few questions about the testing needed
• We quote
• Client says, ooh, yes, yes, yes that sounds fab. Lets do it.
• Local clients are invoiced. Anyone else pays in advance.  We don’t mind offering a money back guarantee.
• We organise a mob of testers.  This is usually at least 5 testers, though depends on the situation and it is possible to hire just 1 or 2 software testers.
• Testers raise bugs
• Client gets list of bugs.
• Client gets ease of mind.
• Client is surprised at the amount and variety of bugs raised.
• Testing ends. We can be hired again at short notice
• As the service develops we would like to work out a way to offer a subscription for those that need regular testing done.
• At the moment it is all a managed service and are quoting on each project individually.  Once we have a few more projects under our belt we will probably publish a ‘guide price’.

Could you do with some testing?  Email – rosie[at]schux.com

There are third and fourth things developing too, though am not ready to talk about any of it (mostly because we are pondering them for the time being).

The more I look at the web in relation to building online services, the more I see most of it just doesn’t work (well).

I’m referring more to scenarios like people job hunting, finding clients and finding talent.  There are many other scenarios this could refer to – but basically it’s about finding the people you want in a trustworthy and non spammy way.

There are god knows how many jobsites out there. There appears to be never ending (ok, well perhaps quite a few) amount of project boards.  There are obviously lots of talented people (and CV databases) out there too, but why is it so hard to find them?  And why is so hard to get your skills noticed?

There are people I know job hunting.  The process of finding a job is horrible. Send CV after CV after CV with little or no response.  Does a CV really show how good someone is at their job?

Networking events can be useful, but within their title and visual perception they naturally have this given pressure to meet, meet, meet people.  Even if I don’t personally have the pressure, many of the other people I speak to do.

Twitter is a good example of what can work.  It’s not a jobsite or a project board, but people do find work and friends through it.

Do we need to stop thinking about building the better tools? Would it be more wise to think about how we can work together better – as social human beings?

A while back, about 18 months or so ago I wrote a blog post on Freelance Software Testing.  I shouldn’t have because now every week I get a handful of impersonal and full of spelling mistake requests from so called testers asking me to hand work to them on a plate.

It is very annoying.  Especially as I don’t do testing anymore.

It wouldn’t be so annoying if more than two sentences were put together without any errors in them.

So, don’t write about freelance work unless you want an endless stream of email work requests.

It’s my son’s 4th birthday in November which reminds me I’ve not been an employee for around 4 yrs.  For those that don’t know I’ve not been unemployed either.

Time does fly.  Here are a few points, thoughts and experiences about doing business the Rosie way.

Experiences:

• Working late
• Getting up early
• Having not one, but two kids
• Juggling kids, childcare, labour(!)
• Hating accounts, loving my book keeper.
• Struggling to find work
• Struggling to keep up with the amount of work
• Happy customers
• Difficult people
• No social life
• Networking, networking, networking

Thoughts:

• I’m going to quit, resign, give up.
• I might as well just keep going…why do I bother?
• Push, push, I must get through this dip
• Ah, I’m at the top of the hill.  I love running my own business
• Oooh, that looks like a nice permanent job
• I work too much
• I should be in bed
• My eyes are going square
• Think I’ll just sneak a nap while my boys watch TV
• My boys know what *email* is and that I check it alot
• I want to be a full time mum
• I’m so glad I’m not a full time mum.
   

Why Rosie does business:

• Bad experiences with employers
• No flexibility with employers
• I need flexibility – I can put in the hours, just not between 9-5 everyday
• I love to work
• Commuting is BAD
• I’m good at what I do, I can do it better than others
• I like to be in (more) control
• I like/need to see my boys more than just at bedtime and weekends
• Local community is important.
• It’s not just about the money
• Good business ethics are important.

It’s bloody hard work, but I do believe it will be rosie at the end of the tunnel

Opening in November 2007 in London, easyOffice (flexible office space) from the easyGroup.

Should have seen it coming really.

The Future is Flexible.