How to plan your career switch

Everyone is talking or considering at least once the month a 'career switch' nowadays. As a travel blogger, I read regularly successful stories of people that gave up their corporate life, packed a small luggage and decided to go around the world. The main incentive is to discover yourself, enjoy the beautiful world and end up the slavery of a 9 to 5 office work, regardless hot much 0s you have in your account.

Theoretically, I cannot agree more. I am also one of those who after more than 15 years of carefully planned career - I started to see my 'future' since the last years of high-school and carefully worked my way through it - decided that freelance writing work from home and more travel - after a lot of travels before - is what makes me happy and accomplished. 

My career switch was not tremendously dramatic, compared to those who decided to become writers after a career on the financial markets or engineering. After I've read the diary of Virginia Woolf at 16, I knew that I want to spend the rest of my life writing. It took me some time till I discovered what I really wanted to write about, but I did not waste any moment of my life to learn more and read even more. And to travel. 

After a master degree and a PhD, a short career in consulting and PR and even diplomacy, that helped to get skills extremely useful for my travel writing projects, I gave up the business life and for one year I did nothing else but reading for improving my English skills and imagination. Learning to breath and realize what are my real priorities was not easy, but I wanted to succeed and this is what it happened. Doing those things that I never had the time to do before as I was always busy, working to meet deadlines or simply killing time waiting till a messy boss is reading the 100th mail on the same topic sent in less than 24 hours. 

When reading the beautiful success stories about the smooth career switch, one can really dream that everything can be done within a matter of months or even weeks. But, believe me, especially if you want to jump from a profession to another, the first positive signs can be seen only after 2 full years of intensive work. Whatever tempting leaving your cubicle now may be, be sure that you don't jump into the abyss of poverty and financial and social limitations. As long as you have some savings and some ideas for a limited amount of time of work daily, you can start planning carefully your next steps. 

I will tell you a little secret: as long as you see how things are put into motion and your work is appreciated and you feel deeply happy and grateful for your decision, nothing can stop you to continue doing better and better. You should never forget though to be genuine and work hard. Career switch doesn't mean retiring, but working double to achieve your real potential.

Those interested to start a blogging career will be interested to check my coming next eBook, available on Amazon.com in maximum 10 days!

Keep in touch with good news!

Planning and writing

When I have to chose between writing and marketing my content, I feel bothered. I love to write and bring more interesting topics for my blogs, but after a couple of years of modest blogging, I realized that without a minimal plan of marketing my content I will not reach any audience at all. It could be sad, deceiving, a reason for infinite philosophical complains and meditation, but this is the reality and denying it is one's own risk. 

As I deeply hope that sooner or later my blogging career will bring me a significant income, I need to think more than ever to marketing tips. The problem is the amount of time I need to spend from a platform to another. And another amount of time to keep in touch with the latest discoveries in terms of SEO, Google Ads, content marketing. Also, I need to be at least one hour the day present on social media, to share interesting information and to engage my audience. Lucky me that I am a fast writer and reader, but at the end of the day, I realize that my writing plan was not kept and I still have a lot of delayed blog posts.

What is to be done? What can I do in order to achieve the right balance between quality writing and the best methods for reaching more and more people. At the end of the day, when I want to start a long term collaboration, my readership and ranking will matter considerably in a favourable decision. Enough with the autistic attitude that kept me away from a big readership. I need to be seen and read and I need more and more comments from my readers. But, I also need quality...

I had coped with those rhetorical questions for a while, especially in the last days, when I realized how much I want to bring more and more travel stories on my travel blog. I feel how the words in my notebook lost their patience and made me responsible for the delay of bringing them into the online life. Meanwhile, I was too busy updating pictures on Pinterest, and participating to chats on Twitter. Plus, I needed to see how my Google+ campaign is going - excellent, with a better dynamic that in the case of Facebook. 

In the morning, up early for finishing all my writing dreams till the middle of the day, I decided to keep quiet and follow my priorities. Which are offering more quality writing content that can be later on shared over and over again on social media. In order to build a strategy, I need to have the main elements of it, isn't it? This is what I promise to do in order to avoid the negative tensions of being unhappy with myself. Thus, I will spend one day writing intensively and updating my blogs and the rest of the week running around the web and find the right audience. 

At the end of the day, everyone will be happy, I hope! 

Looking for motivation. And finding it

I am a very simple target-oriented kind of person. I like to set up objectives for the day, week, month. I work with a very straight forward agenda each day and my activity is carefully calculated for covering a lot of activities, hobbies, social obligations and network needs. As writing is my favourite pastime, I tried as much as possible in my professional life to find working opportunities in this domain. And, after a lot of work and training, I succeeded. I loved to do it so much that since I am 18, I hardly had one single month without writing and publishing something. 

All being said, I can consider myself a happy and successful person. I almost have everything I want - at least for now - and I always did almost everything I wanted to. You will rarely find in my recent life moment of deep depression because I hated my office work and my grey cubicle in the multinational company. I am simple enough to say a clear 'no' when I felt breathless because working in a domain or with people that cannot help me to grow. I am selfish but I am convinced that when I am happy with what I do I can share and help a lot of people so better move forward although the financial benefits can be a little bit more or less affected.

From time to time though, I feel the need to find out more motivation and a clearer direction for my daily activities. In nature, as in life, too much or too less are never good environments for a good work pace. For instance, as I always work intensively on Sundays, the usual 'start of the week' for more than half of the world is very often a very exhausting part of the week for me. As I travel on Sundays - with early and late work batches -, I am rarely on the road and I try - theoretically at least - to do as much as I can from my agenda. But I do not expect a high level of productivity, as the tortoise's pace is what I cope with, at least for the first half of the day. 

What I usually do in such unpleasant situations? The first impulse for my productivity is to start doing the easiest tasks from the to-do-list: answering simple mails, checking texts, editing photos, setting up the writing schedule for the day. I am also looking for topics of interest: I do have a look at the latest news about food and interior kitchen design for my foodie blog, I browse creative boards for Pinterest, I have a look on my notebooks to see if I do have organized notes for a very easy post. Once I start writing, I would love to write more and more and thus, my hunger for doing more things is revealed. Good move both for my audience and for my writing skills.  

Sometimes, I simply try to find out the best inspiration from people around me that may help me to have a fresh beginning with some of my projects. For instance, today, I was a little bit tired to think about some of my writing projects - maybe of them waiting to be took into consideration for a couple of years already. Not that I did not write properly in the last years, but due to my spontaneous nature, I often do some intensive writing and editing in the first 2-3 months of life of the project but once I do find some new inspiration, I prefer to put everything on hold for a while. In the end, I finish everything I have in mind, but somehow late. Unless I do not need to answer some very tight deadlines of a publisher - which does not happen in the last 3 years since I rather prefer to self-publish. 

The answer for more organisation was to start talking with a very organized and talented friend of mine, who is publishing almost yearly at least one book. We talked for a while, updating each other about the projects and what we want to do, or already did. A very simple conversation between old friends with a common passion. At the end of the conversation, I felt more empowered to continue what I started and eventually set up deadlines for the new ones. Being together with people with similar interests is very important. In case that you did not find yet your community, you still have a chance to get the proper inspiration while finding online communities and blogs that can offer you symbolic or even direct support for your endeavours. 

Good luck everyone and have a wonderful productive week!

See your online business grow

It is not the first or the last time when I say that I am living in the perfect possible worlds (for me). I am happy to be connected with people from all over the world and share ideas and suggestions. I love that I can use Skype for conference calls, new clients, friends and relatives. I love that it is possible nowadays to travel with the speed of light and see so many wonderful places around the world. I am also happy that nowadays with a bit of inspiration, courage and a lot of work I can publish my own books and articles and be completely independent work-wise. When I grew up in a communist country, coping with censorship, 2 hours of TV per day and frequent light black-outs I could not imagine that such a world exist, but the best in life is to expect the unexpected. 

In the last weeks, I dedicated almost all my time to my growing business of the travel blogs. Somehow, I find amazing realizing for how many time I was only concerned about writing and reading, without considering to organize a bit my time and my skills and launch something serious and clearly targeted. But it is not too late to get on the right track, even though I feel sometimes that I am centuries away from a real achievement.

The main encouragement is that I see each day how things are changing positively. At the beginning of each day, I try to find some new tools and quality communities and every two days I check the results - mainly the audience. Last week, I used extensively Google+, through the dedicated communities of bloggers and travel writers, as well as StumbleUpon (till now, only in a passive way, simply sharing my pages, without too much interaction). I see how things are improving and I feel that I am going on the right path.

The main sources of inspiration not only from the point of view of writing style, are the successful blogs: you can see, for instance, how to set up a professional media file (I am more than thousand visitors away from such an achievement, but I am getting ready), what could be the opportunities for sponsorships, what are the best networks to increase traffic, how to address different topics, what could be the opportunities for more visibility. My biggest problem right now is the look of my travel blogs (but of that one as well), especially my lack of understanding of the qualities of Wordpress. The plan for today and tomorrow is to get some crash course, unless I want to pack my articles and move to another online house. 

Another thing I should do as soon as possible is to set up a list of possible sponsorships that may help me advance some of my writing and travel projects. Usually, this is the weakest link in my professional evolution chain, but I hope that after I will have a tasty cake and a strong cup of coffee, I will be able to be more focused and bold.

The adventure continues! Keep in touch!

What are you writing for?

My blogging and writing activity goes very well, thank you for the question. It is a lot to do and explore - especially when working full time for travels and foodie blogs. But, as I said on several occasions, writing and living with the impression of doing extraordinary things it is not enough. The blogs need (a lot of) promotion and intensive networking. Sometimes, you also need also some serious resources, financial, especially first because I need to diminish my time spent with various freelancing projects and second because in some cases a little bit of advertising may help. 

Time-wise I need to learn a lot about SEO and ads and various tips how to use Wordpress as a pro. And in between I need to improve at least another foreign language I have in my pocket because I need to go as international as possible. The list is getting longer and longer each day.

However, if I start thinking mostly about what I need to do to promote my posts, I forget something the most important part of my online story: the content of my stories as such. This is why I have blogs and Facebook page and Twitter account: because I want to share stories. Being present only for the sake of the social media profile does not solve the issue of who will write my posts as good as possible to be considered by publishers and companies for getting more work and visibility. No one will go to find out interesting topics or to prepare interviews if I am stuck checking how many people unfollowed me. 

At the beginning of the online adventure, there may be a lot of time needed until getting to an acceptable level. Learning how to use some good tricks - I started to use recently Google+ and I have only good words for this decision; the same goes to StumbleUpon (hope to write more about those experiences in a separate post) - and trying to be as organized as possible when it comes to various online events - such as the Twitter chats that I love more and more instead to the lonely autistic way of posting on my own and connecting from time to time to some fellow Twitter friends. 

The objective of the next weeks is to create more quality content, end up some interesting advertising deals and learn some decent principles of using successfully YouTube. The more I write the more I want to spend more time for my articles and this is why I want so much to do what I am doing. All my work, time and valuable resources should be spend doing the single thing I always wanted to do: writing. The rest is part of the right appreciation that my (hope) quality work might obtain.

  

Using Twitter for more content

When I first joined Twitter, maybe 2 years ago, I used it mostly to satisfy my curiosity of a social media consultant in the making, without having any other secret plan than to change ideas and get the best news in real time. For a good time, this limited objective worked perfectly and the first work-related thing I was doing in the morning for weeks was to check my Twitter account and read the latest news. From time to time, I was also a news setter being among the first who launched on air some freshly pressed information. Even though I was not necessarily following a strategy, I got credibility and serious connections that brought me near an impressive threshold of 1,000 followers in 12 months.

Besides the conversations on general and generous topics and the choice of the right hashtag and some consistent #FFs, there were not too many 

However, after a while I got bored and realized that I have other priorities in life than to check my Twitter. I restricted the access and mostly abandoned it. Now I enter every 3-4 month to check if someone interesting sent me any message. Meanwhile, I decided to be more focused on a specific strategy and opened a business Twitter account. My aim is to connect with specialists and trend setters in my domain, to share my own opinions and thus, to get a good traffic for my blogs as well as to provide reliable content. 

Since I've been the last time on Twitter things changed considerably and it is not very easy to win supporters/followers unless you do something (hard, very hard) to deserve them. As I remarked on another occasion in a recent post, I feel that I really deserve every single follower as behind the entry of any new member into my virtual community it is a lot of serious consistent work. Believe me, it is not that easy to expand your audience, but compared with the 'old good times' I feel that the growth is more consistent and thus is worth the effort. 

One of the most serious ways to be considered when looking to connect with the right people on Twitter are the Twitter chats. In most cases, there are weekly's fix whose date is known days in advance. The day of the chat, one may spot at least twice announcement of the event, or even some hourly countdowns that help those interested to gather online for a more than casual discussion. It may last 30 minutes or one hour with regular questions aired every 10 minutes. Each chat has a predetermined topic that has to deal either with the latest trends of the industry or with the people sharing the same interests with you. There it is your weekly or daily - if you have enough time - to share your practises and to convince the other participants at the discussion that you really have something to say.

As in many other cases, this is only one of the many tools one should use for increasing its online audience. Do not expect dozen of new followers after every chat. You better focus on getting the best content and writing nearly to perfection. This should be the main focus of any blogger, regardless of his or her domain. 

How to better use the social reading networks

I am an avid reader and I wish I can spend at least one month the year reading non-stop, with only 5 hours of sleep and one hour of cooking and shopping. It is an utopia, of course, but I try to find as much time as possible to read (almost) any kind of books: literature, travel, cooking, history, self-help, politics, history...You see? Almost everything.

As I also manage several blogs - travel, foodie, social media, and writing - and I am member of the respectable networks of Goodreads and Shelfari and I am always looking to expand my audience and increase my expertise, my book passion can turn into a golden mine for my diversified efforts. Trying to fight with the low social media presence for some of my blogs, I discovered that writing book reviews on my blogs that are later on shared on those social networks plus on Amazon.com could be an impressive free opportunity to raise the awareness about what I am doing as well as a way to attract more readers. 

I am trying as much as possible to have my posts free of a high concentration of key words and to offer honest reviews based of an analysis of the style, information and relevance. Even if I know personally or virtually some of the writers, I always prefer to keep myself at the decent level of evaluation and to not spare any criticism if needed. 

From my point of view, this experience is useful also for improving my writing, my page ranking as well as for preparing the ground for my own books. The motto of my life is to always be ready for challenges and to use my skills for new tasks and opportunities. And there are so many books to read!

Lessons learned of my first Facebook ad campaign + other details

If before officially starting to promote and launch my websites - especially the travel oriented ones - I had the (false) impression that I know enough about social media. In the last two months I realized that I need to dramatically review all my knowledge about how to use various tools for success, not only for fun and entertainment. 

After I've reached a certain threshold of 'likes' on Facebook for my page, I received a coupon allowing me to use a certain budget for increasing my audience. Worth 30 Euro, the coupon expires in around 3 weeks after assignment. Trying to reach an honorable 200 'likes' I considered that it is the right time to have my campaign started during the week-end. 

The main thing I liked about it is that you can shape your target audience, in terms of age and geographical representation. You cut your slice and wait to see what is going on. In the last days, I slowly reached my objective, with a modest budget of 8 Euro the day. My campaign is supposed to end in a couple of hours and for the moment I prefer to work the audience in a different way, trying to offer more content and diversity of perspectives. 

What I was not extremely keen about is the random audience that I reached. Till now, I was joined by people that looked interested in what I was writing and doing, but from now on, it is more a matter of random clicks that of clear interests. On the other hand, I am a blogger looking for audience and I should stop thinking in terms of elitist audience. I am no more in the academic world, remember?

As a general conclusion, Facebook Ads are very efficient and probably if used on a regular basis it helps to have a big audience in a relatively short time. I don't know what to say yet about the price, but as I plan to use such methods only short term, I am not afraid that my budget will be seriously challenged by that. 

On the other end of the priority list, I have a lot to learn about: creating professional YouTube video, how to get a proper Google indexing rate, increasing my Twitter audience and how to play right the SEO cards. For the next days, I will try to offer as much original content as possible and set up Google+ pages, at least for my foodie and social media blog. 

Little by little, the priority list gets bigger and my excitement for the new experiences is pondered only by the careful need to review periodically the stakes and tactics.

Social media is easy, isn't it?

One of the most aired stereotypes, that I am also guilty to nurture from time to time is that social media is a very easy trick. In other words, you need to read a couple of books, set up profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and who knows where and spend half of your life online. And after a short while, you get hundreds of 'likes' and 'followers' of all colours. Of course that the SEO is the piece of cake you can eat and have it too and your income will sky rocket and you will be in a short amount of time the start of the web.

You know what? It's stupid wrong to think that. If you continue to tell other people such a platitude you are disqualified from using your Facebook account even all you want to share with the worlds are pictures with your cat. 

In the last 2 months I decided that I have the time and energy to launch some nice travel projects that I always wanted to do but always avoided too because assuming I am busy making money. I got rid of this illusion and started to plan carefully my posts, and trying to be as marketable as possible. Almost two months of intensive work, sometimes till late in the night, I am still thousand of kilometres away from being a success story. Of course I did follow the social media path being very active on Twitter and posting lots of pictures on Pinterest and creating content and even doing some guest posting. I tried as much as possible to swim in the unknown, without using too much the support of friends that may help me to spread the word about my wonderful project. I wanted to test the water on my own and see how far I can do from the grassroot level.   

I don't know where I am exactly, but I know that it is a lot to work from now on. Things are moving, but I feel somehow that every 'like' or 'follower' joined me because I did something in exchange. There are no free presents and I am happy that things are not that easy. I see how things are growing up, little by little by steadily and it's no better lesson, especially in the world of social media until is first tested by the teacher. I wish I have more time and energy to do even better.

Tips to avoid scams on Freelancer.com

I will refer to Freelancer.com as for the moment is the only network of freelancers I am using regularly for getting new projects. The main advantage is that they target the biggest market of this kind and from my personal perspective, I already have enough reviews and a professional profile for getting more orders without too much difficulty. After all, I worked hard for over a year to arrive there, isn't it?

The main problem that I cope with more frequently at the beginning of my experience as a freelancer, in that network and in general, was the high concentration of scams. Scams are those dishonest people that have a anonymous profile and are aimed to use your brain for...nothing more than NOTHING. Now, either the administrators of the site are more careful to ban them or I am more experienced, I do not see them quite often, even though I can feel the smell of a scam in some of the very attractive offers posted by individuals from all over the world. No, the scams are no a Nigerian label and surprisingly for some of you maybe, one may find more scams covered under the Western flags, especially US and UK.

Despite my assumed experience, I got scammed again 10 days ago and was angry enough on myself to keep myself quiet for a while. Now, partially recovered and with other projects going on in my pocket, I want to share some of my modest experiences that may help the readers to take the right decision when it comes to freelancing. I use my experience on Freelancer.com, but it may be used for any kind of projects advertised through the networks.

1) Don't look for easy work. As I was told when I was learning in yeshiva, if it is too easy for sure it is not good.When a project mention that you can have a lot of money without too much effort - eventually with many !!!, go further, it's not good.

2) Avoid as much as possible the typing projects. I have not a single idea if people doing it are ever paid or what this work is all about. It sounds for me as a huge hacking enterprise using naive and poor people and I promise that one day I will use my journalistic skills to investigate the issue. Anyway, you better don't try to do it.

3) I don't want to disappoint you, but in general, people looking for work via Freelancer.com or for outsourcing in general do not have too much money. In the case of long-term, and full time projects, the remuneration is considerable, but such golden mines are posted twice or three times the year, if ever. If you find out some well paid project for writing, you must be very careful, it can vanish once you deliver the project. 

4) Don't accept to write any single word without a Milestone! Don't! Especially if it has to do with writing or ghost writing student papers. You know what the risk is? That once you deliver the paper you end up without anything in your account! Be aware!

5) If the country mentioned for the potential employee does not matter, the language used, and especially the grammar are a very good indication of the quality of the person. He or she may look actually for a good English writer and you can help them, but sometimes, it is important that you prefer to work with people with a proper language. The way you write tells something about the way you think.

6) As in the case of the employees, the companies or individuals looking for hire do have a list of credentials. I am always happy to contribute with proper reviews of the employers shortly after the project ends because it is important to offer a hint to other people interested to deal with the person. 

7) Don't accept communication outside the network, or at least, keep the Freelancer.com account as the main tool of communication. Sometimes you may need to skype or to send big documents attached - by the way, dear Freelancer.com, sometimes the 'attach option' is not such smart as I would expect - but communicate as often as possible via the network, especially when it comes to the financial matters and to problems directly related to the progress of the project. In case that it is a conflict, you will use the tools offered by the network and in general, the customer service work quite well and fast. 

Keep those in mind and happy freelancing, wherever you are!

Calculate your revenue

Changing your status from a full time employee to a freelancer may be a challenge for many. For instance, you should be aware that, unless you have some healthy savings put aside or some big big projects going on for at least one year, your revenue may not be as secure as it used to be.

I mentioned several time the problem of being paid late even one month after the project was finished, but also about the special situations when you are not paid at all, as the proud employer deleted his/her account on the network of freelancers or simply did not answer your e-mail. It happened for me very often in my first year of full freelancing, and it still happens - more about spams in a next post.

One of the biggest questions when you start freelancing is how to evaluate your work. For instance, do you need to set up some prices that may be negotiated with the employer or not. 

If you are part of a network of freelancers as Freelancer.com that I use regularly, some projects do have already the price set and it is up to you to accept or not the quotations. At the beginning, when I was very enthusiastic to put my writing skills on trial, I accepted quite law payments for my articles, but after I realized that one month and several dozen of articles later my revenue was the equivalent of a modest pair of Converse, I put on hold all the attractive and cheap projects - 0.50$ for 100 words sounds familiar to you?

If you have a trustworthy employer and a good system to evaluate your work, working per hour is a good opportunity. Honesty, I prefer to use this system because I am quite good to time management and I am more than scrupulous when it comes to the strict counting of the hours and minutes. Especially for my PR and customer service projects I love such a counting. 

However, when it comes to translation and proof-editing projects, my preference is for pay-per-page calculations. In the case of proof-reading it is very easy to show how much did you work with the help of the track changes. The translation projects are also suited for a pay/word, but in the majority of cases, most employers will prefer for the sake of simplicity a very clear counting.

As for the price itself, even though you are a very beginner, the evaluation should be realistic: be sure that your evaluation covers a minimum of needs that will bring you the necessary energy to continue the project - meaning that you will not starve or work in a park because no more money for food and/or rent. Even if you do such jobs for your perfect fun, be aware that once you set the stake low, your example can be used against freelancers auctioning on the market and it is not a good advertising for the freelancers' rights.

As a junior and middle level employer, you will need to wait a couple of months, or more than one year till you will be able to really enjoy your freelance life. Make sure that your career advances with decency and stability.

Good luck, freelancers!

When content is really king

We often use words and expressions whose deep truth is revealed only through direct contact with the reality. No, I am not about to enter a mantra-type of PR consulting. I am talking about the simple reality of a communication consultant trying to promote her own business or ideas.

As I am testing the waters with a new communication project focused on tourist and travel information, I did follow the usual steps: a lot of reading and online connection, careful planning of the posts and networking to get the best information from the best people, blog posts and social media tools - Twitter and Facebook page and the exploration of other opportunities, such as Pinterest (which, by the way, is a little bit addictive). 

One month after, the results are modest - less than 100 'likes' and 'followers', after quite a lot of work, that even brought me close to the burnout. The reason? Don't believe in 'social media wonders'. Especially now, when specifically in the domain of travel, it's hard to make a simple selection of blogs and sources of information, the content provided is what matters the most. Your readers and followers need to be offered quality information, regularly and preferably as diversified as possible. The more you offer them deals and good discounts, the better. 

The best strategy is to set up modest goals, unless you have a strong pressure from the investors to jump up in the sky in only a couple of days or weeks. Start to build your credibility and your brand, engage with your audience regularly, answer their questions and avoid as much as you can the monologue. Three, two years ago maybe it was easy to have a Twitter account and post autistically what you wanted to read and say. Nowadays, such an attitude will not bring you anywhere closer to the objective of increasing the awareness about your activities. 

You need to improve your style permanently - especially as a travel writer -, post the best pictures, publish the most exciting interviews and never stop. The big good news is that the world is to rich that you can hardly complain about the end of the travel stories. The stable success is only the result of hard work and efforts. Always surprise your audience with quality and novelty. Make each reader that he or she is unique for you and is invited to share something beautiful yet useful. Read it as the opening message of the new kind of business model.

E-challenges at ITB Berlin

Busy days for the fans of travel living in Berlin or in Germany. Today is the last day of a busy week at the ITB Berlin, Europe biggest travel fair. The registration for bloggers went smoothly, but everything needed to be done online, as only the big print newspapers and tv and radio outlets were given the opportunity for a registration on the spot. The bloggers - as me - were present everywhere and many arrived from all over the world to cover the latest news on the industry or to meet other peer bloggers from Europe and Germany. 

There were many apps launched and presented at the fair - that I will present later after a basic testing - one of the most important offering free of charge navigation service for the visitors.

Another important aspect I noticed during my wandering at the fair in the last days was omnipresence of iPads. Many Pavilions used them as a way to present the most important hot-spots of their countries. I received some discounts instantly after I was shown on an iPad some interesting offers of health tourism. Not mentioning the dozen of iPads instantly used for the recording and making photographies of various happenings. The easiest way to introduce the locations was with CDs and I was more than happy to take a stick and a presentation on CD instead of a 100 pages catalogue. 

Overall, for me it was a very good experience that I hope to use at its best in the next days, weeks and months, eventually till the next ITB.

The amazing chat from Freelancer.com

One of the many reasons I like to use Freelancer.com for getting more work is their never ending capacity to surprise. Some conservative Europeans will not be interested and will mumble that they cannot keep the pace, but probably they are not aware how the future looks like for more than a decade already: you survive on the market if you bring something new to your customers and especially if you try to correct the previous problems, technical and communication-wise alike.

For the online marketplace, communication is essential. I remember how many good projects I've missed because I was not available at the same time with the potential employer. Also, without a proper communication I succeeded to get at least one bad review, because it was not possible to contact the employer in due time in order to correct some lack of clarity. 

Everything looks now different with the introduction of the chat option by Freelancer.com. The chatbox looks very close to the one used by Facebook - it is a familiar presence - and it operates in real time. You do not need to wait hours and days till you contact the employer, you can work with him/her online any time you need it. With such an option, you do not need to switch the conversation to e-mail - forbidden by Freelancer.com - and you can even realize if the project is what you are looking for before deciding to go further with the next stage. Also, if you find your employer online you can launch any question you want to about the payment and the deadline. Now, the 'online' mention for the users makes sense, as it ads value to your work spend on the platform. 

I don't know if they are the only one using this option, but whoever is using it, is a smart marketplace and they deserve to have me as one of their most active users. 

The free online market and it spamming enemies

Internet is, you know, this huge market where everyone can enter and do what he/she thinks can do it better. Some are making good money, some are helping the others to get a job and to transform their personality, some are cheating. Online you can overview without paying for a round-the-world ticket and without too much emotional involvement how the world is. 

When it comes to online working platform, the situation is following the same pattern. There are many opportunities to work as a freelancer without too many headaches and without being forced to relocate. For almost five years, I started to develop a network of work contacts that help me to honorably survive during the economic crisis, 90% of them I will never meet. Think about the advantages of the online world for people without any possibilities to find work in their immediate neighbourhood. 

But when you have to deal with the mentalities of old Europe, there you may discover that your enthusiasm is countered with narrow minded views. One of the most often remark I've heard in relation with the free online market, among German media and professionals, is that 'they' - people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Kenya etc. - they 'steal' our 'jobs', because they practice low prices. It does not matter that they may provide better work than a German freelancer too busy to take care of his/her free time and low frequency of answers. 

The bigger the online portal is, and the more international is, the most dangerous for the local working force is may look. And this takes place in the context of an obvious lack of professional skills available locally, as for instance is the case with IT specialists. 

Another big issue outlined very often recently is that there are many spams invading the big online platforms and thus, it is not a good business card for the platforms hosting them. However, as long as people will be aware that some projects cannot be but spams and the users are educated how to chose their offer of work, the spams will pay their monthly registration but they will not get nothing in exchange. The articles on that topic I've seen till now do not mention that most likely, the victims of such spams are not the enlightened Western Europeans users but those people from remote villages in Pakistan or Bangladesh trying to make an honest living through the Internet.

My enthusiasm for the Internet is never diminishing, yet I am fully aware about the shortcomings and the risks. But, my appreciation for the online working platforms is even bigger, because I am aware how much it did change the way of work as we know it and the advantages are shared by all of us, in our 30s, using the Internet and being able to offer to our families a better future.

Online recommendations of the week

Starting a new week it is not very easy, especially during the never ending winter season. For those for whom Monday is not the perfect time of the week, we have some online recommendations that will, maybe, help to do enjoy each moment of an early morning. 

Note: Many if not all of the websites are in German.

Those interested about science and geography can have a look to the latest articles published on Planet Wissen. The topics covered are diverse: Science, Politics, Culture, Health. Podscasts and pictures are available, as well as many interactive features that will bring more fan. The articles are aimed to help anyone without a sophisticated background to understand various topics without the need of more than one dictionary!

Do you need pictures or you are looking for something to clean your tired eyes? Pixelio.de is a free of use database of pictures, uploaded by people from all over the world. The pictures are offered for free and can be used for free. The open access to the data base is possible after setting up a profile. I already browsed some of the pictures and I found a lot of interesting shoots.

My favorite websites from the list is Everpix, an online platform helping more or less accidental photographers to share their pictures before previous editing was done automatically, following an amazing identification system. The pictures will not only organized by lists, but there will also be corrected in the most scientific possible way. No more blurry images and get ready to consider yourself an almost professional photographer. One can try the system for a trial period of 30 days. Afterwards, if you are happy with the results, you can use the service either for $4.99 the month or $40 the year. There it is an unlimited storage space waiting for you. The pictures can be shared via Facebook and Twitter. 

Update Star is considered a product Made in Germany (Berlin). It allows the users to automatically update the programs and other techncial features of their computer. It allows a secure backup of the data services on their servers that will allow instantly the update of the features, with only 29.90 Euro. For the non-German speakers, we have the news that this service is also available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Hungarian, Swedish and Turkish, among others. 

If you are so busy that you can't manage your daily schedule and holiday and more and more theoretical free time schedule, Chronex is the perfect program. After you pay 17 Euro for using the service you will benefit of a butler-like service for your emergencies, by managing properly your time for being sure that you are not scheduled twice at the same place. 

That's the pill for today. Get some rest and be ready for a new online adventure tomorrow.

Financial planning for freelancers

As a full time freelancer and consultant, I enjoy my freedom and the diversity of the topics I may address from a day to another. However, from time to time I am faced with a very unpleasant side of my freedom. 

There it is a price to pay, of course, and it is about money that I would like to talk a little bit now, a couple of hours before entering the weekend.

The most important think that you should keep in mind when it comes to starting your freelance life is how you will cover your basic needs: rent, daily food, insurances. Once this amount is safe, try to think a bit in perspective: what if the main provider of the money for rent, or food will delay the payment, for different reasons. Once, my employer forgot to pay my consistent bill for almost one month and if not my careful savings on the back of my bank, not only me, but the daily comfort of my family would have been affected.

This is why I love to work as much as possible, at least for a couple of month before a first slow down in March/April, and another significant one in August/September. In between I want to dream about trips, and surprise journeys in different corners of the world and some challenging new business ideas. But, take it as it is: without money, you can hardly move forward and before you start dreaming, check your account - with online methods it is more than easy to do it nowadays. It does not matter how much you love your job and how much you fun you have to work from home each and every day. Once upon a time you will realize that the frustration of counting every money and worrying how you will survive for the next weeks will diminish if not uproot completely your amazing imagination. 

At least it is how it works in my case: the financial insecurity is not a creative boost for my writing and consulting life and only the idea that people do not pay in time or ignore my mails asking for a clarification of the financial condition makes me sad and sick and unhappy. This is because I am a very correct person and each time I have a debt, I like to pay it in due time. 

Once again, my advice before closing my online business for the next 25 hours: enjoy your life as a freelancer but be sure that you can afford it. If not yet, work a little bit more and save even more. With some nice savings in your bank account, life can look easy and the inspiration will flow.

Good luck everyone!

PR Brainstorming

I always do what I do with passion and dedication and when I realize that the work I am doing does not represent me (anymore) I give up very easily. It is not the cowardice of facing the difficulties straight away, but the realization of the simple fact that I live only once and if it is to spend part of my life working, I better do something enjoyable.

However, the diversity of my options allows me to juggle with different passions - paid differently. For instance, I loved to do PR and communication in the domain of international relations but for the moment, I limit my passion for this domain to the writing of a couple of articles and reading information about what is going on around the world.

On the other hand, there it is always enough time to put your mind at work. For instance, try to imagine how you will solve certain communication crisis or what solution will you offer in terms of communication plans. I turn some of my ideas into articles, book projects as I do not like at all to miss any opportunity for sharing my standpoints. There are two-fold advantages of such an attitude: on the one hand, it is the idea of keeping updated with the latest news and challenges pertaining your domain. But there it is a psychological advantage too: by writing and brainstorming and discussing eventually with other people involved, there are high chances that the frustration will be kept away. You may be unhappy for not following your passions, because not extremely well paid, but at least you can make this deprivation temporarily, as you continue keeping your feet into another of your professional ground.

Book review: The $100 Startup

Isn't it that one of the most serious deterrents for setting up your own business is related to money, or rather the lack thereof? Well, if you are brave enough to have $100 available, do something smart and get a business licence or buy the supplies for delivering your first order.

The first thought of someone helping and consulting and writing about smart startups: 'If I needed money, I learned to think in terms of how I could get what I needed by making something and selling it, not by creating costs elsewhere or working for someone else'. Let's the party begin! It is a part of smart people, not only in love with what they are doing, but ready to share their experience with the community and to add value to the community. Even if you do your work with passion, you should not forget that this passion may offer a source of revenue for you, and eventually for your family. Hence, do not forget to evaluate the right price for your service. (This one of my mistakes when working as a freelancer, as I did not asked always for the right price for my work and sooner or later I accumulated a lot of frustration, despite making my employer happy due to the wonderful balance between quality and price). 

What you will learn while reading the $100 Startup is that you should never give up the dedication and the hard work, but that you can do it only for you. As we are living in the best time for businesses, thanks to the amazing development of mobile communications and Internet, it is easier to reach a decent - or more than decent - financial level, while on the road, portioning the time spent between family and the administration of a business. The book offers a lot of practical examples and thoughts by people on the startup boat for years and still on the right track. We can be happy easier than decades ago - the Internet as we know it is less than 20 years old - and it is a pitty not to use our full potential to be one of the happy members of the global startup nation. 

As someone working both as a freelancer and as a full time employee, this book was the perfect boost for a new start. I have a lot of ideas in my hectic mind and the desire for financial freedom and full enjoyment of my time was always there, but the more you read about other people in a similar situation succeeding, the more you would like to emulate them. 

No wonder why in the next days I will be not so active blogging. My brain is boiling startup ideas!

Keep the Java out of your computer

Apparently, the system present serious shortages and should be almost permanently disabled. Most probably, this is not the solution to the problem and tomorrow another system may endanger your computer. But prevention is a careful mother and you better learn how to disable it. 

News from Facebook

Did anyone notice the smart innovation introduced by Facebook: when you start commenting to a post, you have the possibility to reply to a specific post. Gone are the days when you comment once and you lost the counts of the replies addressed specifically to you. Now, you answer and get answered almost as personally as during a normal conversation!

Happy commenting Friday everyone!

Reconsidering Google+

Shortly after Google+ was launched I jumped into setting up my account, but I must recognize that shortly after I lost my interest and nowadays I use it only by accident and curiosity twice the year. Not without regrets, though, as I am one of the biggest fans of Google and its products. But somehow, for me it seems that Google+ was not one of the best ideas. 

However, looking around in Germany, I discovered that many journalists are using it regularly and I still belive in the lucky star of G+ for advertising and communications. Maybe I thought that Facebook and Twitter are already enough and I better try to focus my time and energies for better offline causes.

Guy Kawasaki's systematic book about Google+ restored my hope in the creativity of this service. And the goals of the book - 'My goals are to help you derive as much joy and value from Google+ as I do (...)' - are reached, at least in my case. For a commercial and social media cause, this service offers a lot of incomparable opportunities compared with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. For instance, you can use more pictures from profile, the limit of posts is of 100,000 characters, you can set up - for the moment, but the situation will probably improve in the next months - video conerencing for 10, there are chances for a high post visibility, the pics can be displayed in the posts. A service mentioned as an advantage - the possibility of editing - was introduced by Facebook as well lately. 

With such good character treats, why is Google+ so much criticized, when not ignored completely? It started later, says Kawasaki, but for a good professional the advantages are obvious. Take for example the possibility of being included on the list of integrated search results, the extensive use of hashtags - without the limit of 140-character as in the case of Twitter - the possibility to share various information and your passion only with those interested in such information and passions. Your posts can be shared further by those with the same interests, or you can prevent it by setting the status to 'lock'. Compared with other social media profiles, you can set up an interesting profile that will tell everything should be said about your interests. 

Guy Kawasaki explains step by step how to set up the account, what the 'circles' are, how to edit the pictures, the rules of comments and sharing posts, achieving trustworthiness and optimization of the social search. 

One may think that everyone can write such a book. Maybe. But Kawasaki offered all you need to know for understanding Google+ and he did it with the passion of a daily user of Google+. 

Learning about business e-mail marketing

I spent a lot of time at the end of 2012 reading many interesting and useful books, trying to improve my marketing and communication knowledge. Now, I will need to apply many of the lessons in practice and when the time will allow me, I will try to share more experiences on this blog.

For a long time, I thought e-mail marketing is quite outfashioned, especially when you have so many fast and interesting social media tools. However, after reading Jacqueline Biggs' book, Business e-mail marketing, I changed my opinion. As in many other situations, it is important to evaluate the potential of your market and check what are the main requirements and demands, but in most cases, this marketing tool is very much appreciated and used. For instance, over 60% of the UK businesses and customers questioned answered that they are responsive at this way of marketing.

What are the objectives that you can reach through it, according to Biggs? You can drive loyalty and customer satisfaction, creating brand awareness, driving sales and improving customer retention. Practically, everything a business will need in terms of achievement. The e-mail marketing can be used either by a service provider or by a specialized department if the company. In both cases, it is important to have a good coordination of the messages and a permanent evaluation of the ways in which the objectives were implemented. In fact, the regular evaluation - weekly, monthly - is  very important for being able to adapt your strategy to the needs of the market. Of course that in time of crisis, there are different parameters to be considered, but the book focus on the regular e-mail marketing. 

There are a couple of interesting tips that should be considered when you want to avoid to be considered a spammer. According to my own experience in e-mail and online marketing, there are many situations when your mail risk to reach the Spam section, without a specific reason. Hence, the lack of response from the people that you eventually want to network or do business with. Some of the suggestions presented by Biggs are: avoid capitalization, don't create an e-mail that is one large image file, avoid to use in your sentences words such as 'free', 'no risk' or 'low risk'.

The strategy for any case of e-mail marketing activity should have: clear objectives, an established content strategy, consider a segmentation of the data base, integrate the e-mail marketing with other marketing strategies and again, regularly test and evaluate the results. 

The segmentation of the data base should be done up to the location, area of activity, size of the business, demographics, buying behavior, the type of product or service. 

A creative suggestion that I would love to use one day is to permanently keep your customers interested. For example, after someone purchased one of your products, within one week - the books mention 3 days - send an automated e-mail that will recommend an accessory or a discount for an incoming production. This tip works extremely well to charitable causes, educational products, book marketing and many other products. In my opinion, if you want to keep your customers involved you should to invest considerably in offering them permanently interesting information. 

Writing original content is very important, and many companies are using experienced copywriters for valuable content creation. The texts should be short, gramatically correct, written in consideration of the grammar rules. The majority of people do not have time and thus, you rather include a smart Call-To-Action from the first lines: create a sense of urgency, while offering something to the reader/customer. 

Time for some more practice now!