Changing the Perception of Freelancers

We subscribe to Ed Gandia's newsletter -- he's the founder of the International Freelancers Academy. It's free, contains a lot of valuable information and there appears to be no catch. We've learned some great things from Ed, and we recently received an invite to participate in a short survey that's meant to change the way freelancers are perceived (he's on a mission). It seemed intriguing, so we took the survey (which does actually only take the 5 minutes that it's supposed to). It contains 29 questions. We were happy to see that the survey lists both interpreter and translator under the available categories of freelance professions.


Freelancers who choose to participate in the survey will get a free report of the survey findings. We think the survey is a great idea, so if you have a few minutes, head over to the Survey Monkey link and get started. 


Here is Ed's e-mail to his fellow freelancers:




Fellow freelancer,
According to some estimates, one-third of the U.S. workforce is
self-employed, contingent or freelance. The percentage is even
higher in other countries.

Yet there's very little published information about who we are
... what we do ... how we land work ... what we earn ... and why
we do what we do. And politicians and the mainstream media are
absolutely clueless about our industry!

I'm on a mission to change that.

I've just commissioned a comprehensive study on the freelance
industry, which will be published in September.

And I need your help by participating in the survey that will
drive the results of this study. You can complete the survey
here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H22BTFB

This survey is completely anonymous and will take you 5 minutes
or less. As a "thank you" for taking the time to complete it,
I'll send you a free copy of the detailed industry report as
soon as it's ready.The survey closes on August 9, 2011. 


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's better that they don't know who we are, what we do etc. I won't take the survey just because of that!

Judy Jenner and Dagmar Jenner on August 2, 2011 at 9:22 AM said...

@Anonymous: thanks for commenting. Well, your is certainly a peculiar approach, and we don't see a benefit to it at all. In general, it's a great thing for the public to know what we do -- it's a wonderful profession!

Carbone Traduzioni on August 2, 2011 at 10:45 AM said...

Thank you for sharing as usually! I decided to participate. The more people know about freelancers, the more they will learn to appreciate and respect us for what we do! We can not wait for others to define ourselves! We must take the first step!

Judy Jenner and Dagmar Jenner on August 2, 2011 at 11:18 PM said...

@Carbone Traduzioni: we completely agree with you. There's only one way to change the perception: by doing outreach, and we thought this was a great opportunity to do so.

astrid on August 3, 2011 at 9:27 AM said...

I think that's a great initiative. It seems aimed at freelancers in the US though, right? Oh well, off to check it out!

Judy Jenner and Dagmar Jenner on August 4, 2011 at 9:44 PM said...

@Astrid: thanks for commenting. We don't think the survey was too terribly US-specific, but it did ask for earnings in dollars (per hour). However, we are quite certain that there will be a lot of international participants as well. ;)

Evvie Sands on August 5, 2011 at 5:55 PM said...

I've also subscribed to Ed's newsletter and found it very useful, specially for people starting out or in rut.
I recommend the videos, too.

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The entrepreneurial linguists and translating twins blog about the business of translation from Las Vegas and Vienna.

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