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If you're creating a presentation, you might like the new Gamma AI tool which can create great-looking slides, documents or web pages based on a given topic — complete with content — in less than a minute. You can then edit each part as needed, either on your own or in collaboration with the app. The basic version is free, while the unlimited version costs $16 per month.
The New York Times Magazine has published an insightful, long-read article on gig work written by Lauren Hilgers and titled When Your Boss Is an App.
The author presents an interesting argument that “no one is entirely sure how many Americans are working gigs, in part because the definition of gig work grows muddier,” but also because the regular jobs start to resemble gig work by being more irregular and far more driven by algorithms, on-demand marketplaces, or apps.
The article makes a clear distinction between those who tend to benefit from these changes (well-educated white-collar knowledge workers, who freelance by choice) and those who suffer from “freelancing by force” (gig workers).
The main message here is that the gig economy may be a much less important phenomenon than the “gigification” of the entire U.S. economy.
An interesting legal case is highlighted by the BBC in Canada:
A farmer named Chris Achter received a text message from his buyer with a draft contract to deliver 86 tons of flax, asking for confirmation. He replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
The grain buyer, Kent Mickleborough, believed the emoji sealed the deal, and when the farmer later failed to deliver the seed, he took him to court.
The farmer defended himself by saying that the emoji merely confirmed that he had received the contract, not the contract itself.
But Justice Timothy Keene sided with the buyer, noting that the two had done business informally before and that the farmer had agreed to contracts via text message in the past. The judge awarded the dealer C$82,000 (€56,000) in compensation, noting that progress cannot be stopped.
So, be careful with those likes, some can cost you a fortune! 😉
Where do freelancers really find clients? That’s the key question behind a quick survey organized by Elina Jutelyte and the Freelance Business Community, supported by a number of international partners, including us.
It won’t take you more than 5 minutes to complete the survey.
If you are considering a working vacation for summer and would like some inspiration, The Freelance Informer shared a list of the best destinations for wellness workcations in 2023 — made by Icelandair, that analysed over 100 of the most prominent cities in the world based on 10 factors, including internet speed, the cost of living, pollution, climate index, etc.
The top 10 are in Europe:
„A wellness workcation entails going to a destination that has healthy activities that stimulate your physical and mental health while enabling you to work in between. The reason people are more apt to take wellness workcations is that the trips improve their mental well-being while still allowing them to earn money and keep clients happy.“
Do you work on a PC every day or measure your daily mobile screen time in hours? Then you need to know something about maintaining good vision and eye health.
A few months ago, we shared a wonderful podcast episode presented by Stanford neurobiology professor Andrew Huberman on how to improve your eyesight.
He has now returned to the topic with a new episode titled How to Improve Your Eye Health & Offset Vision Loss, featuring his friend and colleague, professor and chair of the department of ophthalmology at Stanford, Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg.
In the episode, they discuss how to maintain and improve eye health throughout life, the advantages and disadvantages of corrective lenses, including if you should wear “readers,” the use and risks of contact lenses, considerations for LASIK eye surgery, floaters, dry eye, the importance of sunlight and UV protection and specific exercises to improve eye and vision health.
You can watch the episode on YouTube:
Money Diaries is a long-running series published by Refinery29 (media company focused on young women). It shows how much different professionals make, how they think about money, and how they spend or save it. Some of them are freelancers, and their stories are revealing from a financial perspective. For example:
As you might expect, many of the respondents are not particularly good with money. They often complain about insecurity and instability of their finances. This side of their freelancing seems to be a constant struggle to find balance in an ever-changing market environment while paying for bills, loans, and other things. Quite real.
Along with Elaine Pofeldt and Jon Younger, Ginny Hogan is another Forbes contributor who writes regularly about freelancing and freelancers. Her articles are short and to the point. A good example is her recent article with 3 tips for reading contracts as a self-employed freelancer:
Many freelance knowledge workers cycle through various stages of business development, e.g. from small bets, to an eager generalist, up to a micro-business. As Sarah Duran points out in her retrospective article for Freelancers Union, they are a result of outgrowing one’s business model and searching for a new, sustainable setup.
Our take: Naturally, it is much better for freelancers to consciously choose their business model according to their needs and progress, rather than being forced to do so by circumstances.
Definitions of freelancers vary widely, and there are many nuances to understanding even the most common terms such as freelancer, contractor, independent professional, etc.
Stephanie Whalley wrote a short article What is a Freelancer? for Freelancer News about the differences between freelancers and contractors — as these terms are commonly used in the UK:
“A freelancer is somebody who works independently, for themselves, as opposed to working for an employer. This means that freelancing is classified as a form of self-employment, even if the person only freelances part-time to supplement their main full-time job (also known as a ‘side hustle’). The term ‘freelancer’ isn’t actually a business structure in its own right, so a freelancer might run their business as a sole trader or as a limited company. A freelancer will often work for multiple clients at once, juggling various projects simultaneously. As a result, freelancers will charge for their services on a task-by-task basis or by the day, hour, or something even more granular – a freelance copywriter could charge per word, for example.”
Note: One questionable assertion in the article is that freelancers “fall neatly under the umbrella of ‘gig work’ or the ‘gig economy’” — the fact is that the gig economy is widely understood as an online phenomenon, while freelancing also includes a huge amount of “offline” work and professions. Watch Robert Vlach’s popular talk European Freelancers & Where to Find Them for a detailed explanation of why freelancing and the gig economy are merely overlapping: