how to find out how much people really respect you...

I've blogged in the past about how difficult it can be to take 'time off' as a sole trader/freelancer - something that various studies also highlight:

• 1 in 4 of us aren't able to take any holiday at all, and of those of us that are able to, about half have to take work with them;
• and this isn't because we're all greedily trying to cash in, or we're workaholics, but because unlike our counterparts in salaried employment, we're not entitled to the nearly 6 weeks paid time off that they can claim for holidays.  If we take time off, we get no pay;
• and all of this is further compounded by my also being one of the nearly 500,000 self-employed/sole traders who are also unpaid carers, and so already earning less money than those that aren't...

So it was with mixed emotions that I prepared to be away for a week with my wife recently - roving around caves, forests, and fields in Devon and Cornwall. And as this has been the first time we've been able to take a holiday together for about 5 years, was 'quite important'. 

In recognising this, I made effort to contact various clients, project managers, associates, etc in advance, to alert them to my being away - partly to help manage expectations, and also to try and best protect this time away.

Most people I contacted acknowledged and wished us both a restful and enjoyable time. A mark of the respect and strength of relationship I'd built with them. Or so I thought...

While I was away, I had to respond to no less than 13 arising issues, all from different bodies, people, and groups whom I'd already informed of my being 'out of office'*:

• a local CIC who's seeking my support to raise social investment to buy their building, but their landlord had suddenly shortened the notice they had to do so;
• an associate who'd set up a call with our mutual client for me to join with 24 hours notice;
• a sector body that I volunteer with, who realised that they'd not been as on top of planning for an upcoming event as they might have otherwise been, and not knowing who else to turn to;
• a collaborator who published a resource we'd jointly created (despite originally assuring that they'd wait until after I was back), which generated initial contacts and enquires from new people (none of whom knew I was away at the time);
• 5 infrastructure bodies whom I'm an associate for, who hadn't told their clients whom they introduced me to work with on their behalf that I was away;
• a national charity who asked me to share documents and reflections as part of a short-notice strategic planning review their senior management team was undertaking;
• a social investor who was needing updates on the progress of applications I'm supporting the development of, as part of an imminent reporting they were needing to make;
• a client rearranging a meeting that was originally due for after I was due back to the time when I was physically expecting to be arriving back;
• a sector body arranging the date for a meeting with my some of my peers as part of a national programme at short notice, which means I'm now disadvantaged in my future role within it, as I can't attend the set date as I wasn't able to influence it's choice.

And none of these messages referenced the senders' awareness that I was taking a holiday at the time they were sending them, nor that they were able/happy to wait until my return - in fact, nearly all needed responses urgently (so a good job that I was able to wander around early in the mornings before my wife rose for our adventures of the day, to find signals for my phone and quickly send acknowledgements, replies, and clarifications to nearly all of them).

Now, the above could be read as an encouragement that I'm fortunate to have these relationships and work at all, but it's also been said that a mark of respect is how far people will act in ways you ask them to - and in light of the above, I can't help but start to wonder how far my experience is illustrative of either people not being respectful of me, or it's a wider issue about freelancers and sole traders in general not being respected?

My hope in sharing this 'rant' isn't to shame any of the above (after all, there are always at least 5 sides to every story, and we'll never be aware of most of them), but to try and open up opportunities for conversations with others to test the above question: is it easier to have your holiday protected and uninterrupted if you're employed (and so have legal rights and protections for your time off), or are freelancers and consultants not thought of as being equally valued in how they're treated by clients in comparison with how said clients would treat their employed staff for the same circumstance (taking holiday)?

If it's the former, then it's another sign of how unjust the law is in treating the self-employed as a lower class of people in not recognising or affording them the same protections and rights as people in other forms of employment are entitled to. And subsequently, the damage this is doing to the 4.3 million of us in the UK who work in this way.

* Yes, dear reader, I could have simply ignored them all until I got back to civilisation - but to do so, would have meant a higher level of stress on my return when I opened the inbox to find torrents of conversation threads marked urgent and whose deadlines had already passed and therefore my needing to get involved in dealing with the unexpected 'fallout' from these (and which would have further compounded our coming home to find the bathroom leaking into the hallway...) - thus negating all of the benefits of taking time away.

Links - 

https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge/article/holiday-when-self-employed-get-away-with-getting-away 

https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/knowledge/articles/2023/05/can-i-get-self-employed-holiday-pay/ 

https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2023/06/being-all-things-to-all-people.html 

blending running a business with being a carer

Earlier this year, I found myself back in the Atomicon-verse (for those that don't know, it involves oversized pink pineapples, lots of freelancers getting giddy, and a strict 'no selling' rule). 

Most people involved in it seem to focus on the main day speakers, and the chance to hang out with people they normally only get to share a zoom screen with. But I've always found that the most encouraging, powerful, and useful part of it for me are the 'roundtables': hour-long on-line spaces in the weeks running up to it, hosted by people coming to the event, to share, reflect, and explore a range of self-chosen topics.

Last year, I was fortunate to be invited to lead one of these round tables, on the topic of being an unpaid carer and small business owner (see the write up from that here) - and this year, the ever upbeat Liz & Mike Cole were holding a space on how to approach 'blending' these 2 identities.

It saw a small group of us convene on screen at the appointed time, to initially offer mutual encouragement through each sharing a (very) small part of our story in how we'd come to gain our caring roles, after we'd already established and were running a business; and some of our struggles in reconciling often competing demands on us this leads to.

This also highlighted just how diverse caring roles can be:

- being a parent to young children

- being a foster carer

- being single parent, following the loss of a spouse

- having neurodivergent children (both young - of school age, and older - in their 20s)

- nursing a spouse through significant illness

- having elderly parents who struggle to live independently 

But we didn't focus on how we supported ourselves in these roles (as happened in last years' round table); our conversations instead explored how we can be more open about having a caring role, with our clients. 

This is because all of us identified to some extent with the concern that as freelancers and small businesses, clients buy us in to fix their problems - if they learn we also have caring responsibilities, which may mean we have to delay or defer working on their project, then they're more likely to pass us over for the commission. 

Several options and ideas emerged through these reflections together, and I've summarised them below, in hopes that they may be of encouragement and support to other unpaid carers in similar circumstances to us:

1) mapping the skills we've developed as unpaid carers, against the offers we can present to clients, to highlight how these responsibilities can offer us additional 'superpowers' in what we can offer them in turn;

2) highlighting the value and impact we've delivered to other clients whilst also having caring responsibilities, to challenge prejudice and bias on their part (however unconscious it might otherwise be);

3) pro-actively offer clarifications about our working practices to manage expectations, as part of our terms and conditions, as a means of 'positive disclosure';

4) referencing external research to validate the assertions we're making about all of the above with regards to our ability to deliver proposed projects.*

This isn't the first time that I've invested time in considering and exploring how to be more open with the world and clients about what it means for me to be an unpaid carer, and how this affects my working life - I had the opportunity to raise the question at an 'expert hot seat' session last year. However, in that instance, I felt rather disappointed with the response from the 'global experts' (who didn't have experience of caring roles themselves). Their suggestion was simply "Tell the client at some point, but don't make it a 'first date conversation' topic. If the client doesn't understand and isn't supportive, then you probably wouldn't want to work with them anyway". But that somehow misses the point of recognising that about 80% of the self-employed are already in poverty (before we add in the impact of being an unpaid carer, and the financial penalty we pay because of this), so we can't always have the luxury of being picky and choosy over the types of clients we work with...

Perhaps this divergence in experience can be attributed to the adage that those with the affected experience are best placed to know how to best respond to it? But as last years' round table on this topic highlighted, we seem to have precious little opportunity to currently do so, so I've very appreciate of Mike and Liz to have hosted the space, for us, and for everyone who was part of it on the day.

* There's not much of such research out there at the moment, but following last years' round-table on the subject, ipse and other national sector bodies have subsequently gotten interested in this topic (given that it's been identified there are about 500,000 of us!), so there should be more evidences hopefully emerging soon...  

editors, proofreaders, and imposters...

After accidentally writing a book about imposter syndrome a couple of years back, I find that I keep being approached by people to speak about it at their events, or as a guest attraction for groups that regularly meet together (which is nice).

I've written these up where they've happened in the past, but am not afraid to admit feeling a little trepidation for the most recent 'gig', as it was with the Berkshire Chapter of the Institute of Editing and Proofreading (so a screenful of people who know how a book is supposed to look before it's published...). I'm not sure how well I would have braved such an apparently august body of professionals, were it not that I'd been invited by Louisa Ellins - not only a fellow BF'er but also equal recipient of the Non Employee of The Week award.

At the outset, some members of the chapter kindly shared the impacts that listening to the 'gremlin of doubt' (how I describe our inner imposters manifesting) has had on them - and whilst these were largely in keeping with what others have shared in comparable events, it was highlighted how it robs us of our confidence: which means that although we may find ways to press on and deliver our work and jobs, we don't enjoy the process as we otherwise might/should (which means we're unhappier, and therefore less of the complete person we can otherwise be).

The initial reflections from the Chapter after my 'turn' seem to circle around the importance of finding ways to better validate and assure ourselves that what we're doing is 'good enough'. Because in the absence of praise, or other affirmation from clients (and/or non-existent colleagues if we work freelance), we can quickly fall into self-perpetuating thought cycles that our work isn't good enough because hardly anyone ever tells us otherwise...

There were a number of practices that were shared as to how such 'positive re-enforcements' might be designed, adopted, and introduced:

- recognising that a client re-booking you is a sign of their happiness with your work (even if they don't say so...)

- the importance of defining what it means to be successful on our own terms (rather than trying to achieve the standards of others we may see in our sector or elsewhere)

- regularly celebrating each others' wins with peers (goodness knows, if we don't cheer each other on, no one else is going to!)

- and on those occasions when a project 'fails' or a client appears unfairly critical of our work, the importance of being able to find safe spaces with peers. This is to enable us to reflect on the experience to sense check how far the client may really be being unfairly unjust, and what we can best take from the experience into the future.

original LinkedIN post at - https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7208817199589801984 

All in all, it was an enjoyable experience from my side of the screen, and I'm taking from how most reacted on their camera to different points in the event, that people found at least 1 thing in what I brought as encouragement, support, and reassurance.

And in sharing the book with a body of editors and proofreaders, I also started to think about how I'd written it in a way I'd never done before - I originally intended that the book should only be consumed as a physical artefact that people read with their eyes. But I'm aware that some people are hearing its words spoken to them, instead of reading them, because they're using a Kindle. Which starts to make me wonder how far the ideas and messages of the book are being equally conveyed if they're consumed by people in a different medium to that which I originally intended..?    

the internet seems to keep loving my ideas about business plans!

I've always been open about encouraging people NOT to write business plans - mainly because all too often I meet entrepreneurs who've spent hours and days creating them, not enjoying the process, and crucially not really understanding why they were doing it... (it seems many 'professional' business advisers don't take the time to check that what they're telling you to do is actually the best thing for you to do...https://youtu.be/ZpPYqBlt1Ek).

In my experience, most people don't enjoy the process of writing them, and those that have then never actually ever go back to them (they languish in a drawer or a forgotten folder on their laptop).

And there are various research studies that have been published which also find that in most cases, the difference that having a formally written up business plan has on the success of a business is as good as negligible (i.e. no proven benefit). Although interestingly, these studies also find that those who do write plans usually only do so because someone else (a lecturer at College, or business adviser) told them to... What makes the difference on a businesses' success is that they go through some from of planning process (so using a canvas, or set of prompts to think things through, rather than just rush headlong into it all).

Which means that whenever I'm asked to lead workshops, masterclasses, or other sessions aimed at supporting people to develop their business plan, I always open with the critical question "why are you wasting your time writing a business plan, rather than going out and talking to customers or suppliers?".

And I'm encouraged, that when I originally wrote up these ideas on my blog back in 2010, this piece seems to be my most 'evergreen' post: it's not only one of my most popular ever posts by number of views, but also keeps being found and read by people - 

https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2010/01/secret-truth-about-business-plans.html   

Of interest is that these 'spikes' in interest usually align with the start of a calendar year - the time people are apparently most likely to be thinking about starting their own business, and so searching for inspiration and support for how they might best achieve that dream.

And what this also suggests to me, is that I'm starting to get more interested in the analytics about my blog that I once decried...

https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-i-dont-bother-with-social-media.html

Which means that having already started to consider how analytics from my social media channels can offer benefit in helping me understand how I'm creating benefit (as reported in my social impact report on myself), I'm now also starting to look at how the analytics on my blog over time can also offer further insights into my reach and support to other people that I'm not otherwise aware of...  

what the robots are doing for social impact

No-one can have missed the growing interest and debates surrounding the potential, risks, impacts, and future of AI in all aspects of our lives.

But an area where I’m yet to see any significant debate happening is to do with something I've been involved in since the 1990s - social value and social impact.

I’m aware that AI is already touching my business and work, having had a client share with me in December last year how they fed my face, and aspects of things about how I work that they particularly enjoy and appreciate, into their generative AI to create the image for their Christmas card. And whilst working with the social value team in a national firm recently, the conversation of how they might use AI to make better use of their time in understanding the needs of different communities came up.

But rather than just think about how I might use AI in how I manage my business' activities (which, to my perspective, is the overarching narrative to all conversations I currently see and hear on this topic), I want to explore more how the promises and potential of AI can help better inform how we think about, approach, and ultimately deliver and achieve positive impacts through how we work and act. 

As a 'starters for 10', I turned to ChatGBT with my first question:

"how can AI be used to support the creation of social impact and social value?"

to which, the robot replied:

"AI can be a powerful tool for creating social impact and value in various ways:

1. Healthcare: AI can be used to improve healthcare outcomes by analyzing large datasets to identify trends and patterns in diseases, assisting in early diagnosis, and personalizing treatment plans. AI-powered telemedicine platforms can also provide healthcare access to remote or underserved areas.

2. Education: AI can personalize learning experiences for students by adapting content and pacing to individual needs and learning styles. It can also provide tutoring and assistance to students, especially in subjects where there are shortages of human teachers.

3. Environmental Sustainability: AI can help monitor and manage environmental resources more efficiently. For example, it can analyze satellite data to track deforestation, predict natural disasters, optimize energy usage, and manage water resources.

4. Social Services: AI can assist in improving access to social services by streamlining administrative processes, identifying individuals in need, and predicting demand for services. It can also help detect and prevent fraud in social welfare programs.

5. Disaster Response and Management: AI can aid in disaster preparedness and response by analyzing data from various sources to predict and mitigate the impact of natural disasters. It can also assist in coordinating relief efforts and allocating resources effectively during emergencies.

6. Poverty Alleviation: AI can support poverty alleviation efforts by analyzing socioeconomic data to identify areas of need and develop targeted interventions. It can also facilitate financial inclusion by providing access to banking and financial services for underserved populations.

7. Humanitarian Aid: AI can assist humanitarian organizations in delivering aid more effectively by optimizing supply chains, identifying vulnerable populations, and predicting refugee movements.

8. Accessibility: AI-driven technologies can improve accessibility for individuals with disabilities by providing tools such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision to facilitate communication and interaction with digital devices.

9. Public Safety: AI can enhance public safety by analyzing data to identify crime hotspots, predict criminal activity, and optimize the deployment of law enforcement resources. It can also assist in disaster response and emergency management.

10. Crisis Counseling and Mental Health Support: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide round-the-clock support for individuals experiencing mental health issues or crises, offering resources, guidance, and empathy.

Overall, AI has the potential to address some of the most pressing social challenges by augmenting human capabilities, improving decision-making, and optimizing resource allocation. However, it's crucial to ensure that AI systems are developed and deployed ethically, transparently, and inclusively to maximize their positive impact on society."

What I'm taking from this response, is that the machines currently think that their role will help automate various practices that already exist and we already use, and in doing so, might offer quicker insights and understanding for us to make better decisions with. But ultimately, it's not able to do anything that we're not already doing... Also, that AI itself is 'aware' that we shouldn't blindly adopt it wholesale, but take careful and measured approaches in experimenting with it, and be careful to make sure that it doesn't end up only being a resource that those who have means already will be able to benefit from.

But what do others think? Have I mis-read ChatGBT's response above, as to how it sees its role in advancing social impact and value, or is there another (better) question I should be asking it?

This is a topic I'm going to be exploring over this coming year where I see opportunity to, and will be sharing my reflections both ongoing in my blog here, and also in my next annual impact report on myself.

Whatever happened to Social Firms England?

When I first started working in the social economy (a time before the likes of Social Enterprise UK, Locality, and Unltd), there were already some well established bodies - including what become known as Social Firms UK.

It emerged in the 1990s, when there were a series of European funded programmes across the country that explored how businesses could create and sustain employment for people with a disability as part of their ongoing business model - at that time, a revolutionary concept.

And it its early years, it undertook pioneering research, lobbying, and policy work that's influenced the rules we see today that mean there's greater recognition and support in the workplace for people with disabilities; quality standards such as the disability confident employer; and also that bodies such as Social Enterprise UK now exist (Social Firms UK was one of its founding members).

Ultimately, it's responsible for the recognition that a legitimate purpose for any social enterprise is to create and sustain employment for people who find themselves disadvantaged and discriminated against in the labour market through no fault of their own or choosing (the 'social firm' model of social enterprise). It also amassed an enviable resource library of case studies, research, and guides, for any 'social firm'; were involved in some of the first national programmes to deliberately create social franchise models to help scale the reach and impact of the sector; and also developed one of the first national sector toolkits for reporting social impact.

But in recent years, its fortunes have waned - it launched its own accreditation standard, the Social Firms Star, which few enterprises adopted; and as part of the devolution agenda, separated itself into Social Firms England, Social Firms Scotland, and Social Firms Wales.

I realised recently that I'd not had anything land in my inbox from Social Firms England for a few months, so looked them up, only to find that it has been dissolved in March 2023 - with no announcement to their email list, social media pages, or any other media outlet. Looking at their last accounts, it seems that it had increasingly struggled financially to be able to maintain itself.

Across the other regions, Social Firms Scotland merged with SenScot (the Social Enterprise Network for Scotland) in 2021, although SenScot itself now seem to be struggling on the basis of their last filed accounts, and that their website domain is no longer is use?;

however Social Firms Wales still seems to be actively continuing to offer support to the social firms model of social enterprises.   

So I'm left wondering, whatever happened to Social Firms England - it was one of the pioneers of the modern landscape of the social enterprise ecosystem today, and also held a lot of valuable research, knowledge and learning that would still be of interest to individual ventures, as well as bodies looking to better support the sector as a whole.

Does anyone know where those resources may now reside, and why, unlike with other social enterprise infrastructure bodies, there was no announcement, reflection, or celebration of the impact it had had on the wider sector over its lifetime? 

How to give over £500m to charity as a freelancer

If we're honest, most of us would say that we'd like to do more to support charities and good causes in giving to them - and if we're being even more honest, then most of us would also admit to this being increasingly difficult to do with rising bills. For those of us who are freelancers/self-employed, this is also compounded by additional 'downward pressures' in what we're able to earn too...

But each year, the second Wednesday of May is marked by "give a days wages to charity day" - an attempt to help us be able to justify the act which we know will make us feel good, and also do good, but often struggle to do for the reasons above.

I started to mark this annual day a few years back, by asking my contacts across social media who they'd nominate to be the recipient of my "days wage" that year - and I've stuck with the Buddy Bag Foundation every year since.

Now - as a freelancer, it's not that straightforward to work out what a typical days' wage is, as our earnings fluctuate over the year, and what we 'earn' in income also has to cover our business' costs, so its not directly equivalent to our 'wage'.

But thanks to Creator Rights Alliance, we can easily work out what our equivalent salary is, based on our typical day rate charge to clients:   https://www.creatorsrightsalliance.org/freelance-day-rate-guide-2023

However, I've gone with taking my gross earnings from last year's tax return as my baseline to work out a days' equivalent.

Now, if you're doing this exercise yourself, you're probably thinking that while it may momentarily spark a warm glow in you, you quickly realise that a gift of that amount isn't going to make that much difference... 

But it can!

I've done more sums using the average freelancer day rate (thanks YunoJuno!), worked out what this would be as an annualised salary, then divided that by the number of working days in a year to work out the average day's salary that a freelancer earns; and multiplied this up by the number of freelancers in the UK (thanks ipse!).

This comes out to £410,032,540.

And if we remember to tick the gift aid box when we gift it, that means the charities can claim an additional 25% of our donation (£102,508,135) - which brings the total that freelancers could be giving to charity to a whopping £512,540,675*.

But it only works if we all do it.

Which is why I'm being very un-British in this post, and sharing with you all how much I'm giving to charity (today, at least).

One day's equivalent salary isn't that much when you work it out - but it can be transformative in the life of someone who can be supported because we've given it. And if we all do it...  

* for comparison, the last Children In Need fundraiser in 2023 raised £33.5 million, and so far this year, Comic Relief has raised about £40 million.