If you’re working on site, the office matters. If I’m going to commit to sitting in a room for at least 40 hours every week, the office conditions can factor into the longevity of my tenure. But it’s not the bespoke wallpaper that makes the difference. Read More »
RSS Feed
Georgina Laidlaw
Bio:Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. With a background in marketing and a passion for words, the time Georgina spent with companies like Sausage Software and sitepoint.com cemented her lasting interest in the media, persuasion, and communications culture. She lives in country Victoria, Australia.
My Focus
productivity, work process, motivation, remote work lifestyle
Recent Posts
I tend to think that while we might occasionally strike a balance, it’s hard to maintain. As soon as you think you’ve got things where you want them, the game changes — and that certainly applies to managing my social, colleague and personal time. Read More »
In the past, I’d largely avoided the school of thought that sees the remote freelancer download every new task management/productivity/invoicing app that’s launched. However, my decision this year to leave my Luddite inclinations behind and embrace helpful tools really paid off. Read More »
For those of us who use Twitter tags purely for adding a layer of sarcastic commentary to our tweets, the idea of using tags properly — to categorize tweets and make them easier for others to find — may seem a little humdrum. Read More »
Although I work remotely, I recently took a full-time two-month contract — and, in my existing clients’ eyes, became even more remote than usual. I could see the break in contact very quickly undermining the relationships I’d worked so hard to develop. Read More »
For many of us, brainstorming is a lot like play: it’s something we used to do in the golden age of youth, but these days, we have serious work to do, and have no time for futzing around with different colored pens and butcher paper. Read More »
Opening the Gates: Using the Web to Give
By Georgina Laidlaw
Aug. 17, 2010, 9:00am PT
Comments Off
Bill Gates’s announcement earlier this year that he will give at least half of his fortune to charity raises numerous questions. Aside from the issues of wealth redistribution, Gates’s declaration has made many ordinary people reconsider their position on charity. Read More »
More Must Reads
Working remotely with success takes more than a good playlist: it requires real discipline. The kind of discipline that keeps you at your desk when no one will know if you’re not. The kind of discipline that keeps the television off, and your brain switched on. Read More »
How are you today? And how’s your SuperMe? According to one of the media industry’s leading lights, all of us who engage in social networking create a “Digital SuperMe … that only drinks the best wine, vacations in the finest locales and has the brightest children.” Read More »
When I began freelancing full time I decided to try social media on the basis that it might help me to promote my services. Now that I’ve been freelancing full-time for a year, I decided to revisit my predominantly ad hoc approach to social media. Read More »
I’ve found that embarking on an online job hunt takes more than just a great resume, time, and resilience. Personally, I find the whole process pretty strange, but the characteristics of web-based recruitment set particular challenges for the independent web worker. Read More »
The way people talk, we’d be forgiven for thinking that social networking is one big popularity contest. Get as many contacts as possible, regardless of whether we’ve ever met, or heard of them before. Is that really the point of social networking? Read More »
We all have those weeks. I’m having one right now. But web workers are ahead of the game when it comes to surviving intense work weeks. We have at our fingertips a few substantial advantages that we can use to our benefit during super-busy times. Read More »
Rather than simply bowing out of a job when something better comes along, it can be more rewarding and satisfying — and better for your reputation and future prospects — to design your own exit from the company. Read More »
At the beginning of a new project, it’s easy for the freelance remote worker to leave the decision-making about the project to the client. Often, I find myself thinking, “Well, they know what they want; I’ll let them explain it.” Read More »
The prevailing Twitter wisdom is that we should avoid tweeting about ourselves too much, and post information in which others are interested. But about those “others,” those people who watch your tweets crank past, ticker-like, each day: How do you know what’s of interest to them? Read More »
By Georgina Laidlaw
Jun. 22, 2010, 9:00am PT
Comments Off
You probably made a few resolutions yourself. We all know how easy it is to forget the plans we’ve made, and, seeing as we’re about half-way through the year, now’s a great time to take a look at those plans and see how you’re tracking. Read More »
It’s not just e-books: it’s new sites, services and products. It’s a blog or a newsletter or your first training course or that cool app you’ve been wishing someone would build. We’re often encouraged to try great new ways to generate continuous revenue streams. Read More »
By Georgina Laidlaw
Jun. 11, 2010, 9:00am PT
Comments Off
Social currency isn’t just “buzz,” says Erich Joachimsthaler, the Founder and CEO of Vivaldi Partners, it “represents a shared asset of consumers and company-owned brands.” It’s not something that companies create and control on their own, but there are six “levers” that organizations can use. Read More »
Social networking isn’t a life sentence, and it needn’t take up your every waking (or even spare) moment. There are benefits to be gained through being part of social networks that suit you. So why not give social networking another try? Read More »
A recent Fast Company article highlighted the issues surrounding the language BP has developed in response to its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That article begs the question: how is your personal brand impacted by the words you use to respond to negative feedback? Read More »
Once the heady, bowl-you-over wave of a fad like social networking sweeps us up, carries us along for a while, then breaks, we can find ourselves awash with the realities of that fad, our heads barely above water. Here are some tips for avoiding burnout. Read More »
If we put all the rhetoric of elevator pitches, unique selling propositions, authenticity, standing out from the crowd and personal branding together, mix it up and boil it down, this is what it comes to: What makes your approach different from anyone else’s? Read More »
Here at WWD, we constantly receive announcements from developers releasing new tools. Time tracking, project management, invoicing, contact management, content management, bookmark management, scheduling — you name it, they’ve built it, and we’ve reviewed it. The question remains, though: what makes a tool truly great? Read More »
The online space has delivered the kind of measurability we only dreamed of before. The problem is that more seems to mean less: the avalanche of stats seems to reveal little real, reliable information. Technology research reporting is rife with value judgments, omissions and unjustified conclusions. Read More »
Referencing isn’t just about including a link. Identifying good — or better — references, and referencing them appropriately, takes practice, but it’s not difficult. These are the guidelines I use to ensure the references I pull from online sources are accurate, high quality and clear. Read More »
Perhaps I’m an atypical Twitter user, but I tend to follow only those people I’m interested in hearing from. Right now, I’m following 55 users, and with a network that small, things can get pretty dull sometimes. Read More »
My health care plan focuses on the maintenance of good health, and highlights the elements I need to manage to ensure I stay as healthy, happy and productive as possible. Here’s how it looks. Read More »
By Georgina Laidlaw
Apr. 13, 2010, 9:00am PT
Comments Off
I can’t be the only person on Earth who, when I need information, heads to Good Ol’ Google and is sometimes frustrated by the results I get. Of course, there are other research tools I can use, too — social networks being one of them. Read More »
We’re always talking about tough clients, bad clients, boring clients. But what about the great clients who are simply having a hard time? When you work remotely, it can be difficult to tell when clients are having trouble achieving a task you need them to do. Read More »
You may have noticed that WebWorkerDaily now publishes many of its authors’ tweets beside their articles. The syndication of tweets like this is becoming more common as everyone from fitness instructors to real estate agents seeks to take advantage of social media’s personal branding possibilities. Read More »
Many businesses set up Facebook pages when everyone was jumping on board to see what all the hype was about. Yet they didn’t know what to do with those pages in the longer term, and now they languish across Facebook. Read More »
How good are you at switching off from work? I’m not talking about turning off your web connection or letting your calls go to voicemail. I mean switching off mentally from the work you do every day. Read More »
In a world in which everything is made public it can be difficult to imagine the role that a restricted-access online journal might serve. Yet Penzu is exactly that: an online journal tool that, by default, saves your entries securely. Read More »
Using storytelling techniques to help communicate your personal brand can make for clearer, more consistent, more compelling branding efforts. In this final part of the series, let’s look at the storyteller’s other tools — narrative and description — and see how they fit into the picture. Read More »
In my last post, we tossed around the idea that storytelling techniques might be applicable to personal branding, and we looked at one — characterization — that’s obviously key to a personal brand. This time, we’re talking plot. Read More »
The catch cry of personal branding experts is “authenticity!” But sometimes it can be hard to know how much information is too much — when authenticity gets a little too true-to-life — in your personal branding efforts. Read More »
For those of us who work remotely, suffer connection outages or are offline periodically (perhaps you’re in a part-time role) or communicate with those in different timezones, publishing a work-related FAQ page on the company wiki or your own web site is worth considering. Read More »
“Hey, where did you find that link?” I’m beginning to think that this question is the most important that those of us who work online can ask. Every day, I stumble across content that intrigues me, makes me think, or changes the way I do things. Read More »
But what about those days when you’re out and about? The days when you’re heading into your company’s HQ or meeting with a client? These excursions, which for some can be very rare, can cause tension, if not downright panic. Read More »
If you’re going to spend your career dealing in text — the currency of most online communication — you might be interested in upping your ability to express yourself, specifically your written communications skills. This isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. Read More »
If content is king, and a picture tells a thousand words, then text is the currency of online credibility. Few of us actually consider ourselves “writers,” yet most people who work online spend hours each day writing. Read More »
Recent studies have indicated two intriguing things about social media. First, you’ll attract more followers the less you talk about yourself. Second, having more followers or friends doesn’t necessarily mean your messages are being spread more effectively. Read More »
I know how hard it can be to explain what you want in a logo. I always end up saying words to the effect of: “Something … writey… Like with letters and stuff… yeah.” Not very helpful. Read More »
This year, in an effort to get a better grip on the ways I generate income, I’ve been looking for a free, simple app that will allow me to track my income easily.This was my first priority; I wanted to track my time more closely as … Read More »
Most Commented
Popular Now
Latest News
- BYOD didn’t kill Cicso’s tablet; it was a doomed idea
- MongoDB or MySQL? Why not both?
- New Orleans, newspapers and the beginning of the end
- Has Google changed its mind about sharing its fiber network?
- Who’s building mobile Websites? Pizzerias and plumbers
- Video: Why Bump should be on your smartphone now
- Introducing the V-Pole, a connectivity, electricity, utility pole mashup
