“A hungry man can stand on a mountaintop with his mouth hanging open, but it will be a long time before a duck flies in.”
I heard this said in Vietnam some years back. In English it clunks like shoes in a drier, but it’s one of my fondest Vietnam souvenirs. I love its dry, hyperbolic image of dogged determination when alternative action would be prudent.
Originally I’m from New Zealand, although I proved not to be a flightless Kiwi. I’ve spent nearly ten years prowling the planet, smithing words and snipping copy up the Pacific, through Asia to Western Europe. National radio, newsrooms, ghosting autobiographies, there were clandestine clients, Bavarian castles, crafted communications for corporates.
Most importantly, there were clients and there was money. Then, suddenly, there was not. It was like someone picked me up, stuck a mountain under me, and all I could do was stand there with my mouth open.
My name is Dan Kirk, I’m coming down the mountain, beating a new trail in the word business.
The trail has recently led me here to lend a hand with the Mediaville blog, where I was first introduced to the idea of co-working, or collaborative freelancing. And it’s an idea that strikes me as sterling.
I confess, I’m new to the city and I am looking to make contacts, but it’s not just about that. It’s because I believe that there’s so much more to be gained through building alliances.
I’ve worked in shared spaces before, but birds of a feather flock together, and a flock of freelance writers in a room tends not to talk turkey. Yes, some work gets shared, but collaborating on projects is rarely necessary, budgets tight and clients kept close.
Why do we not work in cahoots with talented creatives whose work compliments our own rather than competing against it? Alliances help us bag more ducks: diverse clients, diverse revenue streams, perhaps lower slice of per job budget, but more work overall.
Co-working – there are going to be a lot of questions.
It’s largely uncharted territory, and Mediaville is striking forth in search of some answers. How does it work? How do you meet people in complementary fields? Where can we all find those dream clients and retire at the end of the summer? How do we overcome the trust issues?
Over the next few weeks the plan is to look at this concept in depth, and to answer those questions by talking with industry insiders, freelancing gurus and media powerhouses as hope to chart out the landscape of Montreal freelancing, and to gauge the weather as we head into summer 2010.
But mostly it’s about talking with you: the writers, editors, translators, publishers, web or graphic designers, videographers, photographers, journalists and documentary filmmakers… Whatever media field you specialize in, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you done this before? What were your experiences? The good the bad, mega awesome or superfugly?
Blog-related questions or comments can be sent to blog@mediaville.ca
The name of the game is collaboration, so your thoughts shared can help shape the events and information that Mediaville puts together.
We’d also be thrilled to meet you at the Mediaville All Media Mixer event – registration is limited, so sign up soon!
June 12, 2010
I love it!