the really useful media company

Putting the month in the title of our last update might have been a bit misleading. We can see how it might have given you the idea that we were going to start posting these round-ups on, you know, a monthly basis. Well, that was the idea. It’s just that March and April were like a mega-month that ran together. We barely noticed the page on the calendar turning with all this awesomeness going on:

• Documenting The Photographic Universe conference put together by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, Parsons The New School for Design, and Aperture Foundation. There are TEN videos of fascinating conversations over the course of two days between artists and researchers about the changing field of photography.
• Shooting the video of a reading by authors Jonathan Franzen and Jhumpa Lahiri
• Traveling to National Harbor, Maryland to produce a multi-camera shoot for Cancer Research Institute of the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium‘s interdisciplinary roundtable.
• Editing a video about NESS (Nurturing Effectiveness in Synagogue Schools) for PELIE, which was released in mid-March. We’ve continued working with the Bureau of Jewish Education of San Francisco to produce a special version of this video for their upcoming annual meeting, and we’re so pleased to help them tell the story of these dedicated and passionate educators.
• Shooting several interesting events for The New School for General Studies, including the Story Prize Awards, Food and Popular Culture with Fabio Parasecoli, and a Conversation about Music and Politics.
• Covering two fashion industry events, Reed Krakoff and Simon Doonan at Parsons School of Fashion and New York City Community Board 5′s town hall on the future of the Garment District.

Speaking of working with people who are passionate about what they do…

• For the second year, Dan served as assistant mentor to the Young Arts In the Studio program, working alongside Benton Bainbridge and a group of very talented cinematic artists.
• We documented the Remixed and Remastered Conference, which was a great balance of panels, speakers, and film screenings exploring global distribution opportunities for media makers of color.
• We were behind the camera for several events for The New School Arts Festival, including this great conversation with Frances McDormand talking about her craft.

We also got the rare treat of seeing two performances with ties to our own work:

• In March, we were the most grateful recipients of tickets to see WarHorse, a production that is beautiful for its puppetry, projections, storytelling, and staging. A few weeks later, we documented a talk with the puppeteers from Hand Spring Puppet Company, the creators and producers of the show.
• In early April, the Octopus Project passed through town and played a show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. After lots of long distance, online collaboration with Wiley Wiggins on their projections, it was very cool to finally see their show live, and within walking distance, at that.

Last week I spent a lot of time writing a proposal for a new client. At the end of the day — after I’d sent it to the client, had a good phone conversation with them to clarify a couple points, and signed off — Emily sent me a link to this 37signals blog post: A reminder of how simple business can be when you don’t make it complicated. Excerpt:

Yesterday I found a [landscaping company] flyer on my front door.

I’ve been staring at a project in my backyard for a few weeks. Staring hasn’t gotten it done. So I figured I’d see what it would cost to have these guys do it.

I called them. 10 minutes later the guy came by. He was down the street on another job. We walked out back. I told him what I needed done. He looked around for 20 seconds and said $300. I said “deal.”

That’s it. No proposal. No “I’ll get back to you tomorrow”. No “Let me see how much the materials will cost and I’ll drop an estimate in your mailbox next week.”

Just $300. Deal. When can you start? Wednesday. How long will it take? A few hours for a few guys.

He knows his business. I know what my time is worth. End of transaction. It was so damn refreshing.

I know everything can’t be done like this, but often it seems like we’ve slid down a path of formality with so many things that really don’t need it. Extensive contracts, delays, red tape, precise cost estimates based on precise amounts of materials, “let me think about it and I’ll get back to you,” etc. Essential? Sometimes yes, but most of the time probably not. [...]

The whole post and quite a few of the comments are well worth reading — funny how it came along at just the right time. I’d sweated over certain parts of the proposal, gotten feedback from several more experienced freelancer friends, contract advice from a lawyer in my family and thought through the implications of each piece in the pie very carefully. In the end, I think the proposal was the right length: it had the details the client had asked for and the information I thought they needed to know.

Of course, not all proposals can be short. Very large corporate sites may need a more precise definition of scope. Responses to open RFPs (request for proposals) have to show that you understand the clients’ needs since they don’t know you from Adam. It’s all about context: if you’ve worked with the client before and/or you’ve covered all the bases in a conversation, your proposal can be a one paragraph email. These two comments to the 37signals post summed it up well:

Know your craft, and you can communicate what you need to the client with a minimum of effort, and everyone is happy.

A short chat about the basic terms (time, cost, and scope); mutual trust; and, communication – that’s about all that is needed in most cases.

All of a sudden, two months have gone by since South by Southwest 2009, and my grand plans for a series of posts about what we learned there have gone poof. That being said, I’d like to share the one session I attended that’s stuck with me the most: From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small, which featured a group of top-notch freelancers talking about their lessons learned as they grew their businesses, whether they ended up hiring employees or stayed solo. If you listen to the podcast all the way to the Q & A, you’ll hear yours truly asking a question. Here’s the panel description to give you a taste:

The web has always attracted mavericks and entrepreneurs, and a rocky economy makes the freelance life more desirable (or at least more inevitable) than ever. So what happens when your freelance business starts to grow? How big can you get without getting bad? How can freelancers and small teams compete with traditional agencies? Hip freelancers and cool agency heads will answer questions, compare experiences, and tell their stories.

So what stuck with me? Be yourself. Whether your website speaks in a “we’re a company” voice or an “it’s just me” voice, be honest about the scale of your business, who you are, and what you do. You can have it both ways, as Jeffrey Zeldman pointed out: present yourself as a business on the Home page, introduce yourself as a person on your About page.