Ruthless balance: are you protecting your freelance business?

The idea of protection might sound like something that only applies to ‘proper’ businesses. If your only employee is your dog and your physical assets principally consist of a temperamental PC and a slightly wonky desk and chair that you bought at IKEA in 2008, what do you have to protect?

Well, first of all, if you’re a freelancer with one or more clients, you are a proper business, whether you like it or not.…

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PMP or PRINCE2: which is most valuable as an accreditation for an editorial project manager?

Arrows depicting a choice between two alternatives

PMP (Project Management Professional) and PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) are two of the most popular and highly ranked project management certifications worldwide. But how are they perceived in the editorial and publishing world, and which would be most valuable to an editorial project manager seeking work?

I’m planning to complete one of these qualifications over the next year, but I wanted to be sure I was choosing the right one for my industry, where I am in my career and my general development goals.…

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Keeping projects moving in a crisis by putting people first

Pause symbol and play symbol

As we’re all currently discovering, sometimes all the determination, foresight and savvy in the world cannot prevent a project from being brought to its knees – or, far less dramatically, being rendered irrelevant with breathtakingly savage immediacy.

But even in these difficult times, many projects are going ahead. And in more normal times too, a less existential but still very serious crisis can threaten to overwhelm a project that might otherwise have been able to proceed if some simple people-focused steps had been taken.…

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We are already surviving

Lighthouse

Working as a freelancer means inhabiting a strange world of paradoxes:

We must be solid and grounded in our professional self-sufficiency but fluid in responding to our clients’ needs.

We must strive for stability but embrace the inevitability of change – both self-imposed and thrust upon us.

We must invest in building and refining our skillset even when we’re wondering where our next paying job will come from.…

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