News and updates

SHOWING NEWS 221–230 OUT OF 710

CLARKSON’S FARM 2

If you enjoyed the first season of Clarkson’s Farm TV series which airs on Amazon Prime, you’ll be happy to know that after two years, Jeremy Clarkson is back. According to the reviews, Clarkson’s Farm 2 is as good as it gets (Rotten Tomatoes 100% so far, IMDb 9/10 overall).

In this eight-part documentary series, you can once again follow Jeremy Clarkson, creator and co-host of the popular shows Top Gear and The Grand Tour, as he takes up freelance farming (as a complete amateur). Watching him solve problems and avoid numerous business pitfalls is enlightening, exciting, frustrating, and a lot of fun. You can get an idea from the trailer:

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DVORACEK ON FREELANCING.EU

Here’s a new testimonial from our member Jaromir Dvoracek, who’s an infrastructure solution architect and project manager:

“I needed to create a brand new website with my freelance services to back my ongoing offers and negotiations. But, unfortunately, the new website would take weeks of my time at best! So instead, I found a respected freelance portal, Freelancing.eu. The user experience is fantastic: I just explained what I do, and I've got a copywriter-level profile online in just a few days.”

⭐ Are you a freelancer too? Join us and reach out to new clients.

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JAPAN’S SENIOR FREELANCERS

Our (senior) editor Dan Sacha writes from Japan:

Japan is the land of senior freelancers. This is not a joke or an exaggeration, but a statistical fact. There are over 90,000 people over the age of 100 in Japan. I notice this on a daily basis because, surprisingly, it is the elderly people with whom I strike up conversations — often at their instigation.

1. When I first arrived in Japan almost 10 years ago, within a few hours I was approached by a retired gentleman who had learned English in his old age so that he could communicate with foreigners who came to his hometown. He invited me to lunch and said, among other things, in very broken English, that when he got good at it, he would start sharing his language skills with his friends. Would he become a freelance tutor in his old age? I'm afraid I'll never know, but I like to think so.
2. On my second trip, I found a popular pancake stand just behind the house, run by an octogenarian grandmother. Apparently, her cooking skills were known far and wide, because if you didn't get through in the first few minutes, you had to wait. Since I had been a regular for some time, and apparently an atypical customer by the standards of that part of town, she didn't hesitate to wave at me from a distance. I'm sure she's still running her little business with vigor to this day. When I have time, I'll check it out.
3. The third time my path crossed with Kinji Nakamura, an artist who sells beautiful postcards of his paintings in a small bamboo grove on the west side of Kyoto. He didn't fully embark on his freelance journey until he was 48 years old (he had previously worked in a law firm). When we met in 2018, he was just over 70. For clients who were able to speak with him, he usually made a note of where they were from right on his card. I was far from the first Czech. Although I hadn't planned to buy anything, I ended up with seven small paintings in my backpack. His positive energy helped close the deal. I hope I'll have at least as much of it when I'm his age.

Of course, Japan's aging population and longevity pose many challenges. But from a purely day-to-day perspective, similar encounters and dedication to craft or commitment to life change at such an advanced age have always motivated me tremendously. And entertained.

I'm all the more curious to see what story awaits me this time…

PS: You can probably guess who is on this photo without further explanation.

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CALL FOR (ONLINE) SPEAKERS

Sharing business know-how with other freelancers is not only good for your karma (aka good name), but it's also a great way to make new freelance friends. Even better, Freelance Business Month 2023, with its open call for speakers, allows you to do this on a global scale! The popular online event, organized by Elina Jutelyte and her team, is scheduled for October, and they are accepting speaker applications until the end of March.

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1-MINUTE LINKEDIN COURSE

Our member Adam Zbiejczuk, who is recognized as a top-notch expert on LinkedIn, sent us a tip for a LinkedIn crash course that is especially relevant for us freelancers. The author, Jasmin Alić, writes about these key success factors:

1. Your profile is a sales agent, not a CV
2. You share “too little”
3. Posting daily is a myth
4. But engaging (and commenting) daily is a must
5. Post for your audience, not yourself
6. Write better = sell better
7. Remember to have some fun

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URI ON THE FREELANCE WAY

URI, the largest organization supporting freelancers in Serbia, has published an upbeat review of The Freelance Way (or Put frilensera in Serbian), written by Ivana Matic—here’s Google’s English translation.

“If you are a beginning professional, The Freelance Way is a must read. If you already have experience as a freelancer, The Freelance Way can show you the importance of aspects you may have neglected or not fully mastered, reveal some important tools, and maybe explain something you didn't really understand all along. If this book reaches you and you are not freelancing, I guarantee it will strengthen your entrepreneurial spirit. Finally, if you do not currently belong to any of these three groups and you decide to read this book, you will inevitably belong to one of them after reading it.”

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FREELANCERS IN COURT

Freelance UK highlights a curious case of worker misclassification, which is now being heard in a UK court:

Two highly educated and well-respected creative writing lecturers are suing Oxford University for forcing them to accept unfavorable contract terms as self-employed but effectively treating them as employees, depriving them of a number of benefits. They speak of the "uberization of higher education" and claim that nearly 70% of people working for the university have similarly precarious contracts.

The burden of proof is on the two creatives, according to the article’s author, who is a lawyer. If they succeed, it could have a significant impact on the UK’s freelance economy.

Indeed, UK freelancers are already facing concerns from companies about hiring self-employed workers due to the new IR35 legislation designed to prevent the misclassification of employees. If it now turns out that self-employed workers can effectively claim retroactive compensation, it would likely make it harder for British freelancers to build long-term business relationships with corporate clients or institutions.

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UK FREELANCERS IN 2022

British IPSE has released its Self-Employed Landscape Report 2022 covering both the self-employed and freelance population.

The UK’s freelance economy remains concentrated in Greater London and the South of England, while British freelancers reportedly struggled with rising inflation and heavy-handed IR35 labor market regulation in the post-Covid, post-Brexit era.

“Freelancers are a subsection of the solo self-employed population who are working in the top three highest skilled occupational categories (SOC1 to SOC3). This subsection includes highly skilled managers, directors, professionals and associate/technical professionals, including occupations from lawyers and accountants, doctors and scientists, to writers and designers. There are now 1.9 million freelancers in the UK, up 1% from 2021. The number of freelancers as a proportion of the overall solo self-employed population has remained at 46% – the same figure as our findings in 2021.”

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BILKOVA ON FREELANCING.EU

Here’s a new testimonial from our member Zuzana Bilkova, who is a manufacturer of wool duvets in a traditional workshop:

“I love my Freelancing.eu profile for more than being a clear and representative online business card, ranking at the top positions in search engines. It is also an exclusive passport to a freelance community of admirable professionals. Freelancing.eu is extremely helpful for me as a businesswoman, thanks to Robert Vlach’s passion and enthusiasm for supporting individual members in their business development. It’s great to be a part of it!”

⭐ Are you a freelancer too? Join us and reach out to new clients.

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AI “LIE DETECTOR”

With the boom of ChatGPT and other AI text generation tools, there is a growing concern that AI-generated texts will be submitted, for example, as school papers, professional articles, copywriting, used to generate fake news or disinformation campaigns, and so on.

As a result, tools are emerging that aim to detect texts falsely presented as having been written by a human, such as AI Text Classifier from the creators of ChatGPT at OpenAI, or AI Writing Check, a free service provided by nonprofit organizations. These tools aren’t completely reliable, but they’re a good place to start.

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