I have been working freelance for more than 4 years now. Yet many of the same difficulties keep on appearing. So here’s my slightly tongue-in-cheek guide about how to work with me, to make sure everything runs smoothly. Continue reading
Aircraft engine - CC / Flickr
A good friend of mine works for GAIA / No Burn, an organisation that makes the case for alternatives to incinerating waste. The problem is that for his work my friend there has to fly all over this place – this year already to California and The Philippines – all for the sake of promotion of something green. Contradiction, no? Not as far as he is concerned – all he would have to do would be to convince a single local authority somewhere to not build an incinerator and bingo, he wins, all the CO2 from his flights for the whole of his life have been more than offset. In short the wrong – CO2 from flying – has been relativised.
So could I apply the same to ethical questions, and particularly how I spend my days and weeks?
Essentially the problem is as follows: I’m so busy doing website projects for causes and campaigns I believe in that I’m too busy all the time. All the things I do pay a pittance, but I have to keep on doing all of them just to get the bills paid at the end of the month. In addition I don’t spend enough time on each project and the quality suffers and, importantly, I don’t have time for any really interesting and ethical stuff that might come along (equivalents of the Atheist Bus Campaign) because I am just trying to complete all the small things that pay a bit.
So could I possibly do some ethical offsetting? Essentially contract to some large firms for a couple of days a week and, as a result, give myself financial security to then do really ethical projects pro bono for the rest of the week? OK, there are limits – I am not going to work for tobacco or arms firms for example – but could it work as a concept? If of course anyone would ever employ me to do web strategy for companies anyway…
In Brussels Bente Kalsnes (bentekalsnes.wordpress.com) and I have been brainstorming projects for a campaign for a nordic NGO. We have some fun ideas, we have some funding, we have very little time, and we need help! We have 2 specific programming tasks that need to be completed by 6th March at the very latest, and we need people who can give us some quotes for doing this programming work.
(1) On-load Lightbox Code
We need a system where 1 line of code can be pasted into a blog entry in Blogspot, WordPress.com or normal WordPress (the latter should be easier) that will trigger a lightbox effect. Essentially when the page loads an image will appear on the visitor’s screen, with the rest of the page darker. All the code to make this work must be able to be hosted elsewhere – each blogger must need to only paste a single line of code into his or her blog. The effect can be generated with lightbox.js, Flash or whatever technology you prefer, but must respect the WordPress.com code rules http://support.wordpress.com/code/ and any equivalents for Blogspot.
(2) Image overlay avatar system
Users should be able to visit a particular website and upload a picture of themselves, and then apply an overlay onto that image (the overlay will need to be resizable). Once the avatar with the overlay has been generated it should be possible to export the image that is created to Facebook for use as a profile picture, to Twitter to use as an avatar there, and to other social networks too if possible – as much as is possible to accomplish with APIs. It’s the same sort of idea as simpsonizeme.com only would generate an image rather than a cartoon.
Please forward this info to anyone you know might be interested, or contact me if you have further questions!