Freelance infrastructure faux freedom
A system failure prompts a reflection on the tools we surround ourselves with
Okay, so yesterday's monumental, day-long Rogers outage ("the Great Rogers Outage of 2022 and Hopefully Never Again") reveals the foundational need for internet connection and broadband as a tool to work from home. I could go on again about how flexibility allowed me to just throw my hands up and take the day off (which I did), but equally about how relieved I was that I'd filed my final hard deadline for the week the day before. And the fact that I'm catching up on a Saturday for a newsletter that normally has a Friday deadline.
Instead of dwelling on the specifics of yesterday, though, this whole situation prompts me to reflect on work from home infrastructure, which is crucial to freelancer success. Like many elements in this way of working, you have the total freedom to choose your tools with the tradeoff that you alone are responsible for the research and decision-making around something that's not your core professional skill. Here’s where self-employment or business departs from working for a company with infrastructure. Whereas my office-based colleagues have an IT department to research and decide on the best computer, internet connection, software, platforms (the list goes on...) we entrepreneurs must judge for ourselves which is the best fit. Or hire this out.
Again, upside: I can try out any new platform I want without clearing it with anyone; downside: I am playing roulette with every choice. I suppose another upside is that I can dump these systems like a bad boyfriend (Roger, consider yourself on notice) instead of having to stick with it (a freedom not to take lightly based on the occasional nightmare systems that my WFO/work-from-office colleagues grumble about). But the risk of investing in a new system is my own time and learning curve rather than that of an expert. As a result, most freelancers are keen for referrals from others who work like us. But even then there are usually a lot of options out there, for instance a slew of project management tools, each a little different, same thing for social media schedulers and others.
I'm not saying that those who WFO should go and hug their IT people, but I'm not saying not to. It's just something that's on the mind of people who have total freedom to choose alongside the dearth of people to remind us that we should keep up with our Windows updates and provide helpful training sessions more tailored than the average YouTube video or platform demo.
How do you manage your freelance infrastructure?
I think this is a really good question ... and one I feel lucky to have had an answer to. I started a book-packaging company in 1992 (pre-Internet, really) and learned all the pains of managing my IT when I didn’t know anything. When Wikipedia blew up our business model, I went to work for a cybersecurity and privacy company, and my work there gave me a front row seat to the cloud services revolution--which helped me set up my wife’s freelance business with a stable, secure infrastructure. I use that infrastructure now. Basically, I think we’ve got it easy today, thanks to the availability of a range of full-service cloud offerings. As long as you’ve got stable, fast Internet, you’re in business.