I’m a broad abroad. Since ‘92. So when Daved posted his classic Graphic Designer Contracts Agreements Forms & Web Designers Contracts, followed shortly by Online Tools for Working Abroad (in preparation for his own working abroad), I started reading his resource-filled and useful Outlaw Design Blog.
A well-oiled tip. If you are working mostly online and overseas, take up meditation, medication, or habitual deep knee bends or some such. Anything to calm nerves when your connection goes pear-shaped. Because it will.
Even Skype needs a clean connection to work most times. So, forget about talking to clients whenever. And forget about uploading those files whenever, too. Your best bet for dependable communication? For when an asap alert is needed due to NOT being able to upload those files? For when not even your email gets through? Good ‘ole IM. It can sneak through even the loosest of wires. And for good measure, add a proxy to the mix. You’ll thank me.
Pay for a better connection you say? Riiiiiiiight … I signed up for high(cough)speed to run a design office from home in Brunei Darussalam (Island of Borneo). With the connection dropping often, and an important job in the wings, I called in the local (dependable) Apple technician to check it out.
Tracing my internet line to the closest source, we ended up balancing outside the spare bedroom window at the top of the stairs to see.
From up the road and across the street, my line snaked in from the official telephone poll, draped itself over a thin bamboo stick stuck in the mud next to deep storm drains, wrapped twice around another line leading from the house next door, then limped over to staple itself to the wall of my house and in. No wonder.
Every time a wind came up, my dedicated line would flap away from the side of the house and wander freely around. Yup. Now I’m connected. Now I’m not.
The technician never did fix the line properly. That was a government thing and he wasn’t a government man in Bandar, a government town. He was merely a man capable of hammering another nail in the wall. For now. And in SE Asia, take it or leave it, for now is as good as it gets.
Closing out, I’d like to share yet another great post from Daved: 63 Must Have Grunge Fonts.
Please digg it if you can.
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You are right is saying that good ‘ole IM is the best bet in dependable communication despite of having skype and other VOIP technologies. I love using IM from Yahoo because I can communicate even with the lousiest internet connection and I can easily file my conversations as well. Most of all, it is free and always available.
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Even gmail comes to a standstill when the connection goes crazy. When that happens, I pull in mail via macmail because it takes less of a connection. Also, I can read and type out replies via mail offline if needs be. Cannot with gmail.
On the subject of gmail – right now I’m getting an error … “Your internet connection is experiencing problems or your network administrator has blocked Google Mail chat”
Again, IM it is.
Also, when connections get really weird, I use my mobile for when the internet is not working at all, the phone lines are iffy and I have to get to that client to warn them of a delay.
Wow! What a tough way to work. I don’t do any communicating with clients but by telephone and email. I’m hoping like crazy that videoconferencing via iChat will catch on—at least beyond the frequent iChats my wife nd I have with our granddaughters on the opposite coast.
I guess I’m a bit of a chauvinist. I can’t understand why anyone wanders far from home but for an adventure. After that, tho’, it just sounds too difficult to have to worry about stuff before even getting to the point of knocking out work.
I admire the discipline and adventurousness of those of you who contend with those “extras”.
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Stephan – Before I moved from Brunei to Scotland, I trained my clients in working online. It was so much easier (got rid of tedious meetings eating up precious time), I vowed to work that way ever since. Even with local clients.
While in Scotland, with one project I worked on the company owner was in Scotland (with me), the printer was in England, and one of the writers resided in California. And it went smooth as silk.
Then in 2001, a British company in Brunei, working with a software company in India, hired me from Scotland to help save a project that had sputtered close to death. In addition, the writers were all over the world (one lived on a sailboat where ever), so we all became used to conferencing IM style as phones were too expensive and skype hadn’t yet reached the world.
So after moving back to Brunei, it was already second nature when we put together Creative Latitude. Neil (copywriter) was in the US, Nigel (web site designer) in the UK, and myself (project manager) in Brunei. At the same time, there was political unrest in Brunei, so the whole country was taken offline on and off for over a year. We’d be working away then I’d disappear for awhile so needed alternative tricks. Yes, even phone lines went wonky. It was then I started depending on my mobil phone as a last resource.
Here in Thailand we’ve had politics mess with communication, but never for long and not with the internet too much (knock on wood). It was only the tv they took offline during the coup. Yeah, this country really knows how to throw a coup ;-)
Whenever I travel, I’m usually working. From Kenya to Cairo, I’ve been able to connect and keep online to a point. The connections might not be brilliant or even consistent, but they are doable. You just have to be able to lower your expectations a little and reschedule anything major until you are back working near a proper connection.
While in the UK I have an ok connection. I don’t have a phone line in my flat here in Devon but I’ve made arrangements with the chap downstairs to hook into his while here. When that is no longer available, I’ll look into http://www.net2roam.com as an option.
Unlike all over Thailand, Exeter (in England) doesn’t have cyber cafes on every corner so I do find myself needing to get more creative to be online without breaking the bank. But net2roam and similar are expensive, and as I’m here a great deal some years, I need to do a bit more research to continue to be thrifty.
I travel a lot, and being in transit is my biggest time waster. Now with internet easily available in airports I’m fine. So with airplanes taking it on (I can get a lot done on a boring ten hour flight), it just keeps on getting better.
Yes, it does take more work and discipline to make it work, but … the lifestyle is fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.
Well, Cat, I feel like Groucho Marx, or Karl, or … never mind. What I meant to say is, you said some “magic words”. Words like “coup” and “political unrest”. You’re a better person than I, Gunga Din. No way I’m getting much work donewithout planting my feet down. But I do love hearing how you manage to do it.
Stephan,
Yes, to those in the west ‘coup’ and ‘political unrest’ do strike unease. But remember, it wasn’t so long ago when American citizens were being shot and killed for protesting (Kent State). When American citizens were tearing apart their own communities (Los Angeles). And now, where rights that were once guaranteed, are now being suspended (US Patriot Act).
The UK has its own problems (now lessened) with Ireland, etc, etc. And it is weird to know I’ve now parked my rear in one of the most photographed countries in the world with all these cameras on corners. If I walk to the store, one camera follows me, while another picks up where that one leaves off. It’s unnerving.
So I guess it comes down to what you are used to. I was raised mostly overseas in different cultures, so I guess my living in a western country didn’t suit my expectations of what I wanted/needed out of life.
And I really did try out the calmer west (I won’t bore you with the list).
But it’s SE Asia where I feel at home. Maybe it was those three years in Japan when I was little? I’m no sure.
No, the sidewalks in Bangkok (or most places in SE Asia) are not even. No, the politics are not always squeaky clean (but are any?) And no, life is not always under my control.
And maybe that’s a part of why I like it out here, the lack of total control? Sure, I’ve created my little oasis amongst the chaos, but by just walking out the door I walk into the richness of Thai life.
It’s a daily adventure that suits me.
From the street hawkers each with their own marketing views (horns, bells, squeaking, songs and whistles), to the crazy modes of available travel (tuk tuks, motorcycle taxi, rogue taxi drives, skytrain and on), to memorable conversations with almost anyone striking up a chat first (I’m shy so the opening is usually one way), to the daily amazement at how cheap I can live at a high standard compared with pretty much anywhere.
Put that all together, and I have a life suitable for me. And not recorded in technicolour [wink] unless it’s by me or mine.
Good for you for coping with your wires in the mud and wrapped round your neighbours.
Despite the problems of keeping connections going, being able to live where you want and still work doing what you love is an amazing gift. Like you, I also tend to work online even with local clients, but ive yet to try any sort of video conferencing. Most of the time when i need to be face to face with a client, its because they need to physically show you things, or describe something by arm waving and sketching on bits of paper!
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mel,
“describe something by arm waving and sketching on bits of paper!”
*Chuckle. I can see that so clear :-)
I haven’t tried video conferencing yet. I have the ability now that I’ve upgraded to the new MacBook Pro. But, one of the great things about working online is not having to be conscious of the bits that are not perfect. Like, makeup, clothes, hair and all.
And I did turn it on and stare at myself for a bit to see if I could take sharing that much more of me.
Uggh … facial expressions that are hidden with Skype are right there with video. Eyes rolling, exasperation, blowing air from pooky cheeks. Yeah, it would all be shared.
So, I guess I’d have to practice on friends first. They love me no matter what (hopefully) and will hopefully tell me what is what. Hopefully [wink].
Not for nothin’, but it’s interesting that I’ve heard those same reservations regarding videocoferencing based on personal appearance, and, frankly, it’s always women who voice it. Speaking as a guy, I’m thrilled with the idea that under the desk I can have on a pair of sweats or gym shorts and the camera picks up just my face. And, as I come by my face honestly—again, I’m guessing this is a Venus/Mars thing—I love it. (I’m speaking of loving the idea of videoconferencing, not bragging on my face.)
Agreed. It is a guy thing. As soon as video came in, it was the guys asking when I was going to add that to everything else. Not the gals.
But personally, I enjoy the privacy and ease of not having it around.
With Skype, I can plop on the sofa with feet resting on one end, my head on the other under a comfy pillow, and my computer on my lap.
So from that angle, if I did the same with video conferencing, they’d all be looking up my nose.
I know, I know … get dressed, foof, move the computer back to the office and sit up straight.
But what’s the fun in that? Honestly, I work at home so I don’t have to foof. This after spending years getting up in the wee hours just to be foofable.
Guys? Nope. They don’t foof. That’s why that chap in a previous post didn’t even realise the state of his Bermudas. His maid washed, ironed and folded them into his drawer. In his rush to get out the door he pulled them on and out he went.
A guys version of foofing equals about two seconds.
A gals version of foofing can easily extend to an hour and over.
So there you have it. One explanation on why women don’t want to and men do.
Okay, tell me “Enough!” if I’m beating a dead horse.
I do my book design and page comp work at home, too, for the very same reason: that is, for comfort and convenience. But that means I just move one room down from bed to work. But I am allowed to be extremely casual from this location. That means sweats or gym shorts.
But the biggest thing is being able to work whenever I feel like it. I tend to be a night owl. So it’s not unusual for me to go to bed at a normal time or even early, but just for two to four hours, and then get up and work in the quiet of the night, before returning to bed before daylight for another hour or two of sleep.
Making books at a regular desk job would take some of the joy out of the work. But videoconferencing would bring back the old fashioned eye-to-eye negotiation for long-distance freelancers. So, yeah, I’ll foof for up to 15 seconds, if necessary.
Stephen, if I could get away with foofing for only 15 seconds, I’d videoconference around myself ;-)