Why FREELANCE?

What you are about to read is a forwarded message i recieved on mail. It is not my work.

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I received this email from a friend of mine in lisbon and forwarding the same to the group... whats your say on this?____________

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It’s Thursday, early evening, and I am sitting on adock in cottage country with my laptop while othersare just getting home from work. I have been asked towrite about what it’s like to be a freelance creative.I spoke to the staff at the magazine and I asked, whatpart of it do you want me to cover? They replied…themoney, the difference between working in an agency andon your own, how you get clients, etc. It was decidedthat I would write several articles because there isno way to cover everything in one unless you thereader, have an hour or so to kill.So here I am, with the screen open in front of me, andI think the only logical way to begin is to explainwhy I became a freelancer in the first place. It wasreally quite simple. Security and freedom.Security. You are most likely asking yourself howsomeone without a full-time job can consider theirlife secure? After working for nearly a decade as anart director and copywriter in several advertisingagencies, I can honestly tell you that I never feltlike my job was secure. How many of you in thisindustry actually do? Look around your agency…how many40 year old creatives are you working with?It was only when I bumped into a senior mentor from mypast that my potential future hit me like a load ofbricks. You see, he had won awards during his longcareer employed in different agencies, and here hewas, working in a big box superstore, complete with a“Hello my name is” nametag pinned to his shirt,directing me to aisle 36. I came home and had asleepless night wondering if I was doomed to the samefate.Where do all the creatives go when they reach middleage? We all know of somebody that suddenly disappearedfrom the industry one day never to be heard fromagain. The question remained in my head…what am Igoing to do to ensure that this doesn’t happen to me?Do I want to be a middle-aged creative peddling myportfolio around town, competing with 20 years oldsfresh out of school that will work for beer money?I decided that morning to go off on my own and startbuilding my clientele. My thought was that with myexperience, maybe in 5-10 years I’d be establishedenough to have several large clients giving meconsistent work so that I’d have a career doing what Ilove to do, and make the money I had always dreamedof. I started hustling. It took me one year.Freedom. One only has to read my first sentence tounderstand what I am referring to. It is a great timeto be in this business; the internet has changedeverything. You can work from anywhere and everywhere.I can leave the city whenever I want. Gone are bigboardrooms and presentations. Everything can happentoday with three letters. Let me explain. The clientchecks out my WWW. The brief comes via FAX. My specsare sent to them as JPGs. The final files get uploadedto an FTP site and finally, the invoice is sent as aprintable PDF. All this and I never had to meet withthe client. It’s a beautiful thing.My schedule is mine. I work when I want during the dayor the evening. Have you ever been in a supermarket at10:30 in the morning on a Thursday? How about playinggolf at 9:00 on a Tuesday morning? Everything is emptybecause everyone’s at work.Here are a few more questions I asked myself: Did Iactually want to become a creative director for anagency? What were my chances of getting there? Did Iwant the hectic schedule that goes along with theposition? If I didn’t become a CD then what?I recently spoke with Heidi Ehlers of “Black Bag”, anexecutive recruitment company in Toronto, and I askedher what happened to a few senior creatives I used toknow that dropped out of sight. She replied “they’regone…they didn’t have a plan. I don’t care whatindustry you are in or what you do, you must have aplan”. Extremely wise words indeed. Words I will neverforget.So thank you Heidi and here’s my plan. I plan to getmore clients. I plan to do great work for them. I planto still be around when others are gone. I plan towatch my daughter grow up, to enjoy life, to playenough golf this year that I break 80, to stop andsmell the roses, and finally, at the end of thissentence, I plan to take one more slow paddle aroundthe lake and listen to the loons before the sun goesdown.

by Ronnie Lebow

"Technical Skill is the mastery of complexity, while Creativity is the mastery of simplicity....."

working for a desiGN company..

Right from the start of my stay at IIT Guwahati and having enroled myself in the bachelors of design program I knew one thing for sure.
NO WORKING ON A SOFTWARE JOB.
The saying was tough indeed and the going tougher. Atleast I can say so after joining the industry where India has had a major role to play and on which thrives the current Indian Economy. However the picture was clear. NO SOFTWARE JOBS.
Programming some how is not my cup of tea either hot or cold.
Having bagged two software jobs at the campus placements at IIT; also at times did put a doubt in my mind as to whether that was what was going to happen and me taking up one of those. When I look back today; I find that there were moments of anxiety, anguish, high adrenaline, low confidence,frustation, inspiration and above all HOPE.
Where I was heading to was unclear to me as well.
Sometimes I wanted to take up photography, the one thing in the world that I LOVE the most.
Sometimes my mind would want me to make movies on the lines of the short films made in due course of my stay at IIT.
Sometimes the mind would want me doing Graphic Design and Corporate Identity stuff.
Sometimes this, sometimes that....Not being clear of my goal was one major reason why I was indeed having so many difficulties.
But still the saying was clear.. NO SOFTWARE JOBS!!!!
But then one has to look for other opportunities... if not software then what??
What are the career options that are open??
Usability??? UI Design??? Multimedia??? HCI Related work??? Video??? etc etc...
But wait,, what did u say u were expert at???
NO ANSWER!!!
STOP!! Who are u trying to fool? Not the world for sure. There is just one person who is effected by the consequences of this and that is just YOU.
Yes.... It was me who was being actually effected due to the uncertainty in my mind and it was literally killing me from within. Not being able to enjoy anything ...even the company of near and dear ones was unwelcomed...
I had to decide onto something .. and that decision had to come fast.. before it was late.
Well it was only untill then that something else started creeping in.. DESIRE.. the desire to earn.. call it the lust for money .. not greed definitely ....
There was this another factor that was actually bothering me...
STRUGGLE is the synonym of life many say...and struggle indeed it was.. a more of a mental struggle... of me sitting idle at home doing nothing...of my friends at school and college doing something and leading their lives in a happy and peaceful manner as their choices.... OR IS IT WHAT THEY WANTED??
The chances that YOU will always get something that you WANT and DESIRE is indeed less.. and thats where compromise comes in. One has to compromise on situations. One Cannot go on rebel saying WHY COMPROMISE .. its the wise after all who do compromise...
So here I am ...
There could be anywhere my first job could have been, but look where I have landed. Currently posted as a User Interface Designer at Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore; a SOFTWARE company.
Although I did not land up in a "design" company but I did land up at a DESI-gn company! As the words go around here I work for a DESI company...! But still the desire to do things that I LOVE is there.. the fire keeps burning within... just that the length of the flames are a bit small this time...
and the saying is still clear.. NO WORKING ON A SOFTWARE JOB!!!!

JESUS lived in INDIA??

Jesus Lived in India?? Did he??

There are not many instances in life when something catches your attention so often. One such instance happened just yesterday.
I was in this bookshop Landmark in Forum at Bangalore, and was just going through the religious writings section where this one caught my attention.

"Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion by Holger Kersten "

But of course I had to lay my hands on this one.

My interest in Christianity had been imbibed long back having studied in a Jesuit school most of my life and more recently having read Da Vinci Code.

The startling relevations surprise me and the book did set me wondering.
Not too long was the time gap and there comes this book. Another SHOCK to me!!!

Haven't started reading the book yet as I am yet to finish off having the Conversations with God that I am having through Neale Donald Walsch.

But I hope that it turns out to be a great book.

Well Life is indeed full of surprises!! Just hoping that this is a pleasant one!