Freelancers BoF at Drupalcon Barcelona

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Freelancers of all types had a BoF session at Drupalcon Barcelona: below are the rough notes.

(Originally on this Google doc.)

Attendees

  • Saranraj (saranraj.G)
  • Shankey (Shankey Thukral)
  • Martin (Martin Mayer)
  • Nicolas (nicobot)
  • Gustavo (gutagomez)
  • Sven (svenryen)
  • Christian (bumblebee)
  • Boris (boris sondagh)
  • Oriol (omasjuan)
  • Cezary (cezary.walas)
  • Antje (ifrik)
  • Stefan (stefan_nistor)
  • Niels (nelp)
  • Julien (juliend)
  • J-P (jp.stacey)
  • Marcelo (capynet)

16 in total; 3 groups of 5 in breakout sessions with J-P roving.

Rough notes

Initial ideas for discussion

  • Have this at the beginning
    • so we get to know each other
  • How do we cooperate more?
    • when we have too much work?
  • Trust, communication, visibility (who available when), skills, reputation, common vision, rules & processes
  • Website for collaboration: currently just profiles (solves visibility)
  • Community

  • What to put in contract to client

    • do you give them mobile?
  • How to work with other freelancers
    • expectations
  • How to contract with other freelancers
    • esp in different countries
  • Rates [gasp!]
  • Yesterday’s BoF by Martin
  • Freelancer “team” - one person or many as:
    • contracted with client
    • contact point with client
    • insured [whatever that means in different jurisdictions]
    • team organizer(s)
  • How to establish trust
  • Examples of existing networks

Results of breakout sessions

  • Portfolio: when project is secret
    • humans.txt
    • discuss before e.g. contract or start project
  • Reputation
    • contributing a module is a difficult process (approval not transparent)
    • contributing on issues
    • (core) documentation
    • ask a module maintainer for credit
  • Insurance
    • different countries
    • national pension
  • Rates!
    • USA €90 ($100: superstars?)
    • N Eur €65–80
    • M Eur €50–...70
    • S Eur €15–…
    • E Eur €10–30
  • Hourly billing: what do you bill for?
  • Accepting a lower rate sometimes worth it for a longer contract
  • Daily rates makes things easier
    • Which is expected differs between countries, types of work
  • Process between freelancers
    • One contact point per domain of skills
    • e.g. design is a separate contact point
    • Talk about methodology & tools
    • Have clear comms within freelancer team

Lessons for the next BoF

  • Have this BoF as early as possible in the conference, so get to know each other
  • Have a signup sheet separate and people sign in their own time, not in group:
    • name, d.o name, email address, contact prefs
  • Go to breakout sessions as quickly as possible
    • Make sure people introduce selves during breakout
    • As per Community Summit, maybe appoint: note-taker, monitor/time-keeper

Forums to keep in touch

  • As promised, I activated forums on the http://opensyndicate.net webite. I created some categories like Trust, Contracts, Reputation etc. according to the topics that came up at the BOF session. If I forgot any, you would like to have more or encounter any problems please let me know.
  • I suggest you also fill out your Drupal related profile. Then we can see each others specializations and make contact when we look for someone to cooperate in our projects.

Comments

Forum is up!

stefan_nistor's picture

Hi everybody!

In case you missed it, we are happy to announce that we have installed the forum on our website, and we encourage you to register.

Feel free to invite your fellow freelancers and start new topics you are interested in on our new forum.

We are always interested in hearing your suggestions and opinions, so feel free to provide your feedback.

Here's the forum http://opensyndicate.net/forum

Thanks,
Stefan