Reflecting On Past and Future of Work: Freelancing, Remote, and Connected Community

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You're listening to, the Future is Freelance podcast, the show for solopreneurs, digital nomads and slow-mads, consultants, remote workers, e-residents and everyone living a life without traditional boundaries. We're here for people who defy categorization and who make a living and a life their own way. Every Freelance Friday, we bring you expert tips, inspired insights and stories from the frontiers of freelancing to help you achieve success with your borderless business, whatever success means to you as you live life on your own terms. And welcome especially to the final episode of season four, in fact, to the final episode of 2023. We're going to reflect on what's been quite a turbulent year in many ways, an exciting and interesting one too, and, of course, we're going to try and cast an eye into the future and look at what's new. So the first thing to say about 2023 is thank you Really really appreciate your having been listening all year. We've grown our audience, we've moved into video. Lots of exciting things have happened for this podcast. The most exciting thing of all was taking it completely independent, after losing the backing of the brand who initially I set the show up for back in 2022. Then, 2023, I decided to move on with it as an independent publication. Now, obviously, there was a risk there would it sink completely without the power of that big brand and their mailing list behind it. But instead it's been fantastic to see the audience growing, to see people keeping in touch, to see people getting involved and prove that there is a need for this voice in the freelance wilderness out there. So if you're listening to this now, you're part of that process and I really appreciate you. I know there are a lot of podcasts out there, a lot of demands on your listening and your attention. So the fact that you're listening to this now means that I truly value that and all I can say is we're going to be back. We're going to be back in 2024. We will take a season break now for a few weeks. We'll be back in February. So in the meantime, please don't lose touch. Whatever you're listening to this on now, whatever podcast app, please find the thing that says follow or subscribe or whatever it's called in the thing that you're listening on. Or, if you're on YouTube, please hit subscribe there and that way, as soon as something new comes out in February, you'll be the first to hear about it and just possibly we'll be dropping some little goodies out for you into the feed in the meantime before we go back to the regular episodes. So that's the podcast. What about in the wider world out there? Well, 2023, it's been a strange one, right? We've had transformative shifts in technology. We've had strange things going on geopolitically which have impacted us all in different ways. We've had economic shifts, but not necessarily in the way that people were predicting. To deal with the geopolitical side of things. Now, this is not a political podcast, but I think it's fair to say that conflict has felt closer to home for many of us particularly. A lot of our audience are in Europe, and that has affected the way we work. It's made everybody feel more insecure, even if we're not directly affected by the things, the awful things going on in some parts of the world. It hasn't impacted on funding and budgets, and I think it's impacted on long range planning and forecasting as well. So this does have an effect on freelancers. There are a lot more of us freelancers now, too, because one trend that sadly persisted through 2023 was layoffs, particularly in the early part of the year and especially in technology, and this affects a great many knowledge workers, people who maybe never wanted to be a freelancer, but they perhaps always seen their previous setup as something insecure and reliable, suddenly found themselves downsized in a response to what was seen as pandemic era over hiring, which is a really brutal thing to happen to anybody, and particularly in technology and knowledge work. There are a lot of people affected. This was all intimately tied up with visas and where they could live as well, so that's been particularly awful. But a lot of those people have now shifted into the independence sector because they realized that that promise of security as an employee was illusory anyway and perhaps they never want to give anybody else that power over them of 100% of their income again. So we welcome everybody who's new to the freelancing ranks as a result of this process. But we're recognized that it has been really tough and that going forward we need to recognize that freelancing has a lot of legacy there people who have come together maybe out of former big business, former big enterprise. We're going to see maybe, I think, more startups, more people collaborating in new ways, because if you find yourself out of a job that you're used to being somewhere big, then you might freelance for a while, but then you might find yourself drawn to work with other people as well and build your own thing, maybe build something a bit more resilient and secure than an employment contract that's basically 28 days away from nothing. So all of those people are now part of the freelancing scene and it's becoming a lot more blended and interesting as a result. We love the idea of blended work here at. The Future is freelance, and particularly the crossover with remote work Europe, which is my other sort of big area of content and business creation. Now again, it's been a great year at remote work Europe because when we started out we didn't exist. We were remote work Spain. I've been living and working in Spain for a lot of years now, as regular listeners will know, and I started off the remote work Spain community that was actually back in 2021. And it's been steadily growing ever since. But I certainly found at the early part of this year we had more and more people coming into the community who were not in Spain, but they wanted the information that we were providing about jobs and opportunities and practice for working remotely as an employee or as a freelancer and everything in between that. So they were coming into the remote work Spain community and asking all these questions and I could help with the practice and the business side of things. But on the regulatory front, how do I do my taxes in Germany or Estonia, or so I absolutely no idea. So what we decided to do was expand into more communities and start to grow remote work Europe as a movement, and so we now, in addition to the Spain group, we have really thriving communities, particularly in the UK and Sweden, and we have smaller communities starting to grow in Italy, ireland and Germany, and we really want to add more in the new year. So if you're listening to this thinking she didn't say the place I live, but I care about remote work and I understand a bit about how it goes on here and you're interested, then please do get in touch with me, because we've now got everything templated. It's it's almost like a franchise. We can set you up and you can start building that community very, very promptly With all the experience and infrastructure and a great team behind it. So I would love to hear from you. As remote work Spain became remote work Europe, we want to continue to grow that in the new year and grow remote work Europe even more broadly. I had to look it up on Wikipedia the other day and apparently there's 44 countries in Europe. So you know, I don't know if we'll ever have remote work the Vatican, because it's probably not quite enough people there, and I'm sure that'll be very welcome in the Italy community if anybody from the Holy See is listening. But I think we could definitely end up with 43 communities in 2024. Maybe that would be an ambitious target to aim for. But if you want to be part of that success, then I would love to hear from you. And one of the things that's enabling that collaboration Across our continent and across the world is, of course, technology, and the technology which helps us collaborate and communicate and connect is fantastic. But this year the technology scene has taken Completely unforeseen twists. It's as the time of recording this, early in December, it's barely a year since chat GPT launched to the world and it now seems Hard to imagine a time before we had large language learning models and the impact that that's had. It has been a fascinating time, as most of what I do to keep the lights on is tech journalism. Just observing and writing about this stuff Will be endlessly fascinating to me whatever happens. But I really do appreciate that it's been A severe impact on a great many freelancers. It's become much harder for people to get started. It's become much harder to find truth, to find authentic connection, genuine information, and I think that this problem is going to continue into 2024. Let's face it the sheer volume of content out there, the avalanche, tsunami of stuff that can be generated automatically and the incentives behind that are going to increase because in 2024 we're going to have really important elections in a great many parts of the world. So the incentives for other Influencers and actors, even at the state level, to interfere in that by generating content that is going to undermine different narratives. I think it's going to become harder and harder to separate out the truth from fiction and to find some kind of Authenticity in all the chaos out there. I think we're going to see trust really go down in public information, in media services, and I think the only way through that is going to be to carve out more individual, smaller spaces of genuine connection and authenticity where we can relate to individuals. I think community is going to become much more important and really maintaining that trust and having private spaces as well, I think, where people can't necessarily feed in misinformation and corrupt that trust, penetrate those spaces with, whatever somebody else's gender is, it's going to become increasingly important to, certainly something we're going to have to look at in terms of the moderation of the remote work Europe community and ways to filter out different interests. So, yeah, going to be an interesting one on that front. Obviously, the trust thing goes to cyber security as well, and remote workers and freelancers really need to self educate and raise their game. I think, as All the technology that enables us to connect and collaborate and work across different borders of culture and continents, these things also open up windows of vulnerability and I think it's it's still. I find it really astonishing when I come into, when I come across freelancers working, you know, without multi-factor authentication on their logins or they're not using a VPN when they're just hopping on some free Apple Wi-Fi or something, and I think so many people have been vulnerable to different kinds of phishing and attacks and hacks. It's going to become increasingly hard to fight this, as, in terms of your different providers, you know, if you say to your bank what happened or faced, but what happened they're never going to tell you, they're never going to give you any useful feedback. So the only thing we can do is harden our boundaries at the individual level and make sure that we are deploying all the defences that we can and this is something certainly within remote work. Europe and the future is freelance that I want to bring more expertise and information for people in 2024 to really try and turn things around from the individual level. What can we do? Because these things are opportunistic. You know. It's a bit like if you're the only one in your street with a burglar alarm. You probably the burglars will pass by and move on to the house next door and that's too bad for the house next door. But the only boundary we can really try and take care of is our own, and so I want to help every freelancer really secure that in 2024. If you've got ideas and sources and recommendations about that, please send them my way. It's something I am aware. I need to improve my own self-education because it's moving so fast and I really want to take people with me, so that's one of the trends that I can definitely see coming. It's obviously been a year of change and growth in the borderless business world as well, and that's a really amazing thing. You know, if we have the technology and it's secure enough to enable us to work across borders, then why shouldn't we? And I read a statistic recently that more than 50% of countries in the world now have some form of remote work or digital nomad visa, and that is mind blowing and amazing. It's really something we couldn't have foreseen a couple of years ago that now you can go to more than half the countries in the world and not have to wing it on a tourist visa but say I'm here to work, I'm here to contribute to your economy. Actually, I brought my laptop, this is what I'm going to do, and I think that's an incredible trend. It's one we're going to see continuing, and I suppose we need to ask ourselves which half of the world do you want to live in? Where do you want to be operating and look around you and just see how much the world is opening up, not just for actually relocating, but for traveling, for visiting, for work-hationing all of that space along the blend where you can see more of the world. You can take your work with you where you go, and I think the opportunities that this is unlocking is really amazing. In the remote work-Europe community, we've been taking a close look at Spain's digital nomad visa, because that's obviously where a lot of us are. I was lucky enough to be settled here before it was necessary to have a visa. I came here as a European citizen, which in my heart, I always will be, even though I've still got my British passport. But it's much more difficult now for third-party nationals to come settle here until we got the digital nomad visa. So that visa is now a year old and we brought in our partners in immigration. Andrea Caramites came into the community and gave us some feedback on what they've observed, what's actually working in terms of getting that visa. So I'll pop the link to that into the show notes. Actually, because I know Spain is attractive to a lot of people. It's not a great example of a digital nomad visa, in that this is Spain. I mean, this is the bureaucracy you expect when you come here. It's not going to be as slick as maybe some other places, but, believe me, once you get to settle here, it's really worth it. So I think you'll find that that webinar very insightful. I'll put a link into the recording. So we need to think also about another trend for the year ahead and that's climate action and commitment to change, and I think, as solopreneurs, this is something that it's easy to overlook and we don't always take responsibility for it in the same way, corporates have to have their policies and they're expected to be held to account. Whereas I do meet a lot of people who really travel a great deal, more or less for the sake of it or because they can, I do think some of them are going to have to rethink that going forward, not least because it's going to become increasingly expensive, as it should be. On the other side of it, solopreneurs can step lightly. You know, we can decide to live quite sustainably and simply. We don't have to be travelling every day in the way that lots of people with day jobs are. So we can all think about living more sustainably. We can maybe consume less. Maybe we can buy less gadgets and shiny things Obviously, something that's a problem for me personally, but I'm at least trying to limit my shiny thing, distraction and consumption to, maybe digital items, as opposed to buying new stuff, really trying to get into buying more sustainably and also buying secondhand. I spend too much money on vintage, but it's better than buying new clothes and because most of the time I'm working from home, I don't need designer gear. I certainly don't need office wear or workwear, so these are the kind of things that we can all look at and buying reconditioned electronics as well, because it's not just the money you save up front or the stuff that goes into stripping that down and recycling it. It can really make a difference for the planet. So these are ways that we might get to save ourselves going forward, and this is this is all part of that that borderless system, remember, because the components that go into your laptop, it can be stripped out of the earth on the other side of the planet and somebody is working on that and then it's being shipped to you. We're all part of this interconnected world, and it does reflect on us as consumers in the affluent Western, to just try and be a little bit more mindful of that, I think. So what are we expecting in 2024 in terms of freelancers, creators and solipranos people like us? We look at all these trends, but it's hard to know how it's going to impact us, and so the only certainty I think that I have is that the year is going to demand more adaptability and more resilience, and as freelancers, then as independent operators, we're pretty well placed in that environment. We always have been in the fact that we can move quickly, we're more agile, we can pivot more speedily as things come along. We have the advantage, then, over larger organizations that have to get consensus or get approval or be accountable to boards and shareholders. As freelancers, we can simply have a try at something new. We can test out the latest technology. We can see if that is going to give us the competitive edge that we need, but we also need to take responsibility for that. We need to face up to these threats by self-education, by proactive learning, by being around smart people. I think that remark about you are the sum total of the five people you spend most time with. I can't remember who that's been attributed to over the years, but I think it holds a lot of truth. And the good thing about working as a freelancer, as an independent, is we get to choose. I don't think there's anything magic about the number five, but it's about the overall environment in which you immerse yourself in terms of your media, in terms of your media and your conversation, the ideas that you are around and the way that the world stimulates and tests you If you choose a path that's a little bit more challenging than maybe sinking into the lowest common denominator media and conversations and so on. So these are all things that are available to us in a completely accessible way in the digital world, and being open to new ideas and opportunities, letting go of the old stuff and old ways of doing things. It's not about generation, it's about mindset. I've met much younger people who are quite fossilized in their thinking and indeed there are too many things that divide us demographically. The media highlights that difference all the time. I don't want to hear anymore about what Gen Z thinks of boomers or whatever. What I see as the great divide is between closed minds and growth mindset, the scarcity and abundance thinking that I truly believe that if you keep learning, you keep growing and you keep believing you can make a difference, then you're never going to grow old. Obviously, time will pass and we accumulate experience. Our gray hairs and I've got for you myself these are learning experiences. These are honorable war wounds. We can share those experiences as well as using them to build our futures. But we have to listen, when we share those experiences, to new ideas from new generations. We cannot think that we know it all either, and I've been starting to reflect on my quarter of a century in remote working, which is really quite astonishing. I've been sharing some of those reflections over on my substack, so I would love to see some of you there. This is. I will be keeping this going during the downtime of the podcast. You can catch up with me on mymedalmisssubstackcom. You'll find me in more reflective mode there during on some of those many, many years of working from home, laughing at the technology and the way we've got things done back in the day, whereas remoteworkeu. That's where you'll continue to see the more actionable, tangible stuff how to do remote working and you'll see media like video there as well, and I'll be bringing a lot more of these podcast episodes in to populate that site to the ones that are truly evergreen and relevant for remote workers in Europe as well as freelancers everywhere. So those are places you can keep up with my work in the meantime. Somebody asked me if I'd be writing any new books in 2024 and I can't rule that out, but the publishing landscape has really changed so much with the AI flood. I read something recently that Amazon self publishing has limited uploads of new manuscripts to not more than three books per author per day, and when you hear something like that, it makes you really demotivated to try and compete with that, when my typical timeline for researching and creating an evergreen, valuable business manuscript is closer to one year rather than three per day. So this is a huge problem. It's one that Amazon and the publishing world are going to have to tackle, and over to them on that front. But in the meantime, I think the only way that I can solve it for me and my audience is to focus more narrowly, and I do want to help as many people as I can in 2024 to achieve the unlock that I have of simply separating work from a fixed location and everything that opens up for you. I still want the emphasis to be on one to many. I don't think it's valuable to be working one to one when there are so many people who need to hear this, and so I want to keep individual consulting work to an absolute minimum to enable me to reach more people within my own constraints of time and energy and focus. But as well as one to many, I believe there is a one to some middle ground where I can offer a group and cohort based coaching and consulting so more people can have direct access to specific advice at a fraction of the cost of one to one work within a safe and private group setting. So one more place you're going to find me in the new year and I really hope to find you to there if you're a freelancer, remote worker, flexible worker or lifestyle designer and that is inside the private community of remote work Europe connected. This is a project close to my heart that I've been wanting to launch for some time now is finally ready, and if you've been waiting for the doors to open on this, then feel free to hit pause right now and head straight on over to remoteworkEuropeeu forward slash connected, and I'll see you there. For everyone else who haven't been bouncing this idea off for months, here's a bit more context. We all know that the remote work landscape is changing. It's evolving, it's filled with opportunities, but it's not without its challenges. And finding that authentic connection, accessing the right resources and building a network that genuinely supports your growth. That's where remote work Europe connected comes in, because we're creating a community where you're not just another member, but you're part of a collective journey, and that is your part of that, whether you're a season freelancer, a corporate remote worker or someone just stepping into the world of remote work, looking over the edge of the office window and wondering how to start unlocking that freedom. Remote work Europe, connected, is going to be that gateway, that portal to that blended world of opportunities out there. We often talk about a spectrum from the nine to five office worker at one end to the fully independent entrepreneur at the other. So I want remote work Europe to be that bridge to help you shift along that line until you find the place that you're most comfortable and recognize that that is a fluid and dynamic spectrum as well. You might dabble in the truly entrepreneurial ends of it and then find yourself settling back into a part time contract where you do something else on the side, or you might find a full time job that simply gives you that freedom to work from anywhere, or or work in a way that is more flexible and better suits you and your lifestyle. It's about all of that and giving people the ideas and opportunities to test things out in a safe environment. You might be ready to test and launch a side gig, explore a bit of moon lighting, see if the world of freelancing is for you. Then we can help you with ideas and goal setting and experience. A place to validate, test and build upon those ideas and try things out in a safe space and learn from other people. Even try out live events. Try yourself. Publishing when you're ready will help you build your authority and your social following. Get the word out more publicly outside of the closed community, and you'll have a tribe of fellow travelers beside you so you can bring your ideas out into the world with real momentum and credibility. Now there are other remote work and freelance communities out there. We know that. But what makes remote work and remote work connected unique is that we're specifically tailored for the diverse, vibrant and dynamic landscape of Europe. We understand the nuances of working across different cultures, of time zones and regulations, but more than that, we're a community that believes in the power of connection and learning and growth. Of course, everyone is welcome, but the focus and the real time interaction schedule will be Europe oriented. Did we say real time? Oh yeah, from January we're going to have weekly Q&A sessions within the privacy of the community where you can bring your own specific issues. Every week, thursday afternoon, Spain time, community members can ask anything at all and get feedback on any dilemmas, get direct responses within the group. We're calling them out of office hours because we don't do offices, so you'll get your problem solved and the whole group can benefit from the learning, and while the idea is to increase your access to me and my grey-haired wisdom at the lowest possible cost, there will also be the chance, with fellow community members, to bring their own thoughts to your situation, as the crowd can be wiser than any one of us, and we're going to have guest experts as well. As the community grows, you'll find more and more brains coming to bear on your own specific business dilemmas. So what could be better? We'll also have monthly live calls, because who doesn't enjoy putting a face to a name? And we'll bring the whole community together, whoever wants to join in anyway, because none of this is required or compulsory. And the timing and cadence of those live sessions, we will sort that out once we pull the members, but for now there is the first one set for the 27th of December, because that limbo time between Christmas and New Year often I find a bit disconnected and discombobulated and weird, and this haze of chocolate and cheese and cheesier movies I don't know if that's just our house, but it's also I find a great time for planning, for setting goals and intentions and for setting yourself up for the best year to come. So that's what we're going to be doing inside remote work, connected, on December 27th, figuring out our big plans for 2024 and, more tactically, for the first month and the first quarter of the year ahead. Also, we can expect some show and tell of our favourite planners and calendars and apps and any special pens or stickers or highlighters that Santa might have brought for filling them all in Well. Again, recognising that this might just be me, but I truly believe that, however we do it whether with digital or analogue stickers and calendars, people that the seeds we plant now in the depths of winter, these will be the bright blooms and, hopefully, the abundant harvest that we reap later on in the year. So, amid the leftover Christmas chaos or the clearing up of too many visitors, why not join us? Come and create the lifestyle of your dreams and map out that landscape for the year ahead. It will be a safe and confidential space just for members of remote work, europe connected. So we really hope to see you in there. And here's the best part the doors are open now for the founder cohort and you can join us anytime, right up to midnight on the 31st, for our lowest price ever. Obviously, you need to join before the 27th if you want that workshop, but we'll certainly be holding the doors open and the welcome map out for you until New Year's Eve. When we reopen later in the year, the subscription will be higher, but there will be a greater library of resources there archived for you. So only the founder group will be able to lock in that rate. So don't let this one pass you by. Folks Remember, change comes from taking action. So today could be that turning point in your remote work journey as you look forward to the year ahead. Come and check us out wwwvoteworkEuropeeu. Forward slash connected to unlock your future. And what about the future? Is freelance, this podcast. Well, as I said, we're going to take a seasonal break, partly while I focus on the connected community and I have got client work to do as well. But don't worry, we'll be back in your podcast feed from February. So make sure you don't miss out. Make sure you stay subscribed to both our audio and video channels, and we might even drop some extras your way in the meantime. But for now, as we wrap our reflections on 2023 and anticipate the year ahead, it only remains for me to thank you for being part of our audience. We know there's a lot of demands on your time and your attention and your ideas out there, especially this time of year, and we're so grateful for the time you spent with us. Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you get to take some down time, some time out to yourself to rest, replenishing, restore for whatever the new year holds, and I wish you and everyone you love good health, happiness and joy in 2024. Thank you for listening to the future is freelance podcast. We appreciate your time and attention in a busy world and your busy freelance life. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a fellow freelancer and help us grow this movement of independent entrepreneurs. If you rate and review the future is freelance in whichever app you're listening to right now, it really helps spread the word and that means we can reach more people who need to hear this message. Together, we can change the world and make sure the future is freelance. Don't forget you can check out all our back episodes from other seasons and learn more over at future is freelance dot XYZ. We're so grateful, not only for our listeners, but for the contributions of our wonderful guests and for the production and marketing assistance of coffee like media. This is Maya Middle Miss, wishing you freelance freedom and happiness until our next show.