How to Cut the Tether and Work from Anywhere

[Music] microphone works morning everyone I realized that a probably 50 to 70% of you are still someone hungover from last night and I know this is the first talk of the day and I appreciate all of you taking the time to come out and and see that my presentation so my name is John Jones and I have spent the majority of my career working remotely and I've learned a lot of things through trial and error and mistakes I've made successes I've seen others and I've been writing and speaking for years on the subject of how to how to be a really effective remote worker contractor freelancer and essentially just helping I learn as I go when I'm very honest about what I've learned my mistakes my successes and I like relaying that's other people so they can get to the same point where I feel I am in my career where I can I have more choice control over what I do how I do it and get to most importantly live where I want instead of not having to move everywhere

so hopefully this presentation will give all of you an idea of some of the tips and techniques you can use to to start working remotely whether you're working full time we're going for a full time doing so I don't want to keep doing that for your existing employer or if you want to make a complete break and go into the exciting world and stressful world of freelancing so first off I have 16 years in game development nine about this remote I've worked in over 50 titles my specialization is as an outsourcing manager as a freelancer which to my knowledge nobody else does and I've been doing that since 2009 and I've been up building and managing remote teams of anywhere from 5 to 75 people for a variety of clients and employers including epic games Avalanche Studios 2k games and C soft Sony Online Entertainment etc so I've had a lot of experience at studios ain't both large and small all kinds of tool sets and all that began because in 2008-2009 I was

laid off twice in one year and I was at the point of forget this and I decided okay I'm going to take more control over this not going to be beholden to one boss anymore didn't it bothered me a little bit that technically there's no such thing as a freelance outsourcing manager but I lived in Austin it was cheap enough to live off unemployment and severance so I figured I'd make a go of it eight years later I'm living in Brooklyn and doing the same thing so cutting the tether much has been written about the tools the philosophy the home set ups you know what hardware to buy what adds used to have blah blah blah I'm not going to do that I'm gonna go here to repeat those in Frank vibe I've done several talks on them as well on my website I've had other talk presentations and articles on specifically what hardware to buy if you want to be an independent content developer I like the unity asset store the Unreal Engine marketplace which I used to run have an article on that I don't want to retread that I want to go

into the nitty gritty details that I haven't heard other people talk about before in hopes that some of this will stick so ask yourself what do you really want to do you want to do the same job is now only doing it from home just transition into being someone that works full-time from home with your current current employer you want to freelance some contract a contract or is your ultimate dream to develop your own game and just pay the bills by freelancing and until you're in a position where your game is released and that can be or full time thing so scenario one is doing the same job from home when in your heart of hearts you really just want to spend more time with your cats and wearing shorts so but the sad truth of this is sometimes organizations simply will not allow remote work and there's only so much you can do in like within those parameters sometimes that main may be a non-starter but it's it's still worth feeling out and I'm gonna go into some tips and techniques for how to negotiate that and earn your way into doing so so I'm typically speaking

management by walking around and seeing is the norm look seeing people at their desks and speaking for like the management producer level on down like okay all these desks are fold looks like they're working the applications I expect okay so scenario one the same job from home so I manage of my walking around is the norm and if he I mean it's essentially producer or manager walking around seeing okay this person is at their desk this person isn't the this seems their applications the appropriate applications are open I can sit down and have a quick casual conversation if I need to it's a lot easier to just casually encounter someone I'm walking around in the workplace and get a general sense of what's going on and to be able to have a specific request I in for them doing so it's some Andrews prefer and being able to see people physically face-to-face others prefer doing all of it you know digitally either through you know hangouts or slack or even SMS I've had some bosses are strange so for people that I know managers that prefer walking around their ability to control their

environment and feel confident on what they're doing involves seen being able to see people being able to speak to them and be able to serve them physically and so in like in the worst possible case for them remote work as I lost of their control so you have to do you have to go out of your way and to increase your presence remotely and make it easier for them to feel comfortable knowing what you're doing and to have you be a predictable component of development this is a way to alleviate anxiety in a boss which is generally speaking a really good thing so fortunately a lot of these techniques for increasing increasing your productivity increasing your liability and presence can be practiced on site for example projecting yourself remotely is the biggest thing you can do as a remote worker to be able to increase confidence not only in your bosses but also in your team so they can know that you're someone reliable they can be assigned work and they know what you're going to do and where to expect it so your job is to be where they look first

what are their basic expectations in the day-to-day workflow some people use slack some people have internal messaging systems some people have like a like an in like an internal forum or like Basecamp shotgun something like that just find out where that expectation is and focus your efforts on being visible there because you have to actively participate and actively make your presence known far above average and you would if you're working in house and that's a really that's a large hump to get over so while you're still working at a studio you can try and increase your presence digitally to find out how to get people's attention when you can't simply walk over to their desk you have to always actively compensate for being out of sight so there are a lot of ways you can challenge yourself to be able to get answers if you're not physically there even though I even though you still are for example which co-workers ignore email instant messaging who's always texting that could be one way to reach people if source control is down where else is just the information you need to live is it somewhere on the server is

that like backup on Dropbox somewhere do you have access to that and can you get it these are the things you have to seek out and think about when you work remotely because I mean if you're you know 30 you have 30 minutes to an hour away from the office and you have no other way to access it except physically you should have planned better and another situation that was too late and you need help and you know from being in the office who always stays late that person is a potential resource you have to constantly challenge yourself to try and find out how would I seek these things out if I didn't have physical access to the facility and what do I need to have access to at that at this studio for me to be productive even if no one else is around you have to learn to be extremely self sufficient and no one will really teach you that just in in a way this is like a build up to being able to ask if you can work remotely which I will get to but always challenge yourself and pose interesting problems to yourself to try to solve you also have to accept greater responsibility so when you're working remotely you're responsible for your own hardware storage connectivity a higher

rate of responsiveness and consistent productivity so that I bring up productivity in particular because it's the best thing you can do if you're working off-site to maintain and confidence in your team and and in your bosses is to be a consistent reliable resource I think of it as a marathon instead of a sprint I'd rather someone that was about 90% a you know 90 percent productive every day consistently so I know what to expect with them instead of one day they're an incredible performer the next day they're barely there and then the next day they're incredible performer again the more you can be a component they don't have to actively have to think about the more valuable you are to the company and a lot of that is how you're able to project yourself remotely and be where they would be where they look first and what they expect of you so I see this if so if you're working for someone full-time I see in your way up to being to being able to work remotely as the endpoint of a campaign you have to start

in the beginning you have to lay the groundwork to increase your perceived value internally and externally so step it up at work and perform better than ever and show that you can sustain that over time like I said before if you can be a solid 90 percent of our activity every day instead of in fluctuating in quite a bit that will build a lot of trust in that environment you have to increase your mastery of the tools and technology and understand what it what you need to be able to get the job done either on-site or off-site and showing that kind of technical mastery very much unlike what I did and trying to get this up on the screen that can be a huge confidence builder and help build a case for for you being able to work remotely it's also write about what you do write about your craft blog publish it get involved in online forums like work on creating a credible name for yourself and help other people in doing so basically the more you write or talk about a thing the the firmer that gets in your mind what easier it is to explain the better it is the more of a

subject matter expert you seem and generally speaking employers like and promote and encourage that and if you and a lot of people won't do it so if you can make that kind of if you can distinguish yourself in that kind of way that will also help build the case for you being able to be allowed to work remotely also speak at conferences of both local and national find local like local user groups like the IG da is that I mean I'm spoken at several times before and then that's an excellent resource just building up that kind of portfolio as a public-facing subject-matter expert is yet another reason to be able to be granted the privilege to work off-site and as I said earlier to practice your telepresence while you're on site and to find out how to be a visible contributor not just walking around not just in meetings but also like it like inside your actual toolset like inside whatever tools you use word other developers are going to be able to see your contributions you need to learn to communicate that openly and clearly so it's obvious that whether or not you're physically on site they

know where to look to see that you're getting things done and that concretely provable and this will make you request to work from home a much easier thing to say yes - and this is something that should begin realistically three to six months before you really want to target doing that again consistency and predictability is key here so how to ask first off just ask your employer about their work from a home policy and how flexible they are on that this varies wildly some places are really ain't really open to it some places are very resistant to it the campaign for improving yourself to be more reliable practicing telepresence all those things will get you a little bit closer to a yes environments where they're not necessarily going to be amenable to letting you just go off and work from home it's a it's an extended buttering up period essentially so if so if you're pitching here's how I could work from home it's incredibly important to clearly define what performing expectations means so you have to have goal posts that are concrete provable that you can prove that you have crossed

in order to map out progress over time so let's say I will like I'd like to work at from home one day per week to start here is how much productivity has expected of me like you like this amount of work or this amount of output or whatever some sort of concrete metric that you can point to and in refer back to historically so at the end let's say a three month review period of working one day from home you can say look I kept my promise I maintained this consistent level production over this amount of time based on our these agreed-upon parameters that we negotiate in advance if you feel this is going well based on this like based on this review could I do two days per week and figure and at that point the negotiations moved forward it'll be a little bit easier to I need to ask for more and again every everyone's case is unique but this is at the very least a starting point for finding out I know whether or not you can do that in your organization then you can you know plan accordingly and again always be consistent predictable and dependable as a manager you don't want to have to

worry is this gonna be a productive day for them working from home or is it going to be a nothing day have they done nothing but post cat pictures on Twitter all day or I nor my getting or have 150 emails of all the changeless I checked in this afternoon never never make them wonder just the less they have to actively think about you the better because they know what you can produce they know where to look for it it's a part of their day-to-day already and you're not something they have to actively follow up with or in order be concerned with because you're everywhere they're looking and also don't be sneaky anything except for full honesty and it will ruin this opportunity and it will ruin the working relationship I was in a situation once where one of my developers was secretly trying to work from home because he moved too far away to commute so a piecemeal he would borrow equipment and work from home then say oh I have a doctor's appointment can I just work for the rest of the day from home to the point where he was he just thought that he could just stop coming in one day and say oh well I've already borrowed all this equipment I don't really need to come in ever again do I

know that was not the case and that that it could permanently ended his opportunity of working from home pretty much ever again because he was not open and honest about it although I admit it was kind of comical the way he went about it so scenario two the freelancer life I'm not looking to be tied down right now so the sad truth is a freelancing is really hard you'll spend at least 50% of your time doing business development you like in in your heart of hearts you're thinking you're gonna be sitting at home with you Island with your with your Cintiq or what if your laptop kicking up in you and kicking your feet up in your favorite chair and just I mean just you know rocking out doing a really cool stuff all the time no a lot of this is going to be emailing people asking for work following up trying to collect and collect on payments filling out tons and tons of paperwork having a legal contact sometimes having to do your own taxes or pay a tax professional to do them it is really really annoying it's only only half of it is what you think it is absolutely not for everybody it's and

because there are a lot of so if you're working in a studio all of these things are taken care of for you so it you'll begin to immediately appreciate what admen legal finance and business departments really do for you they they they all the gears that keep the engine running when you go out and freelance on your own all of that is up to you and it you become painfully aware of oh wow this is literally everything but my direct job was taken care of for me is a lot more and a lot of people don't really last beyond the first six months to 1 year freelancing because it's a splash of cold water and it can be really fun when it's at its best but just know there's a 50% of it's gonna be fairly unpleasant unless you just love signing NDA's and forms and chasing people down prepayments so where do I start so first sign if you're going to freelancer out find out what kind of side work your employer permits if any if they don't don't freelance don't find yourself in a situation where your current employer could technically

legally own the content you're creating for whatever client you have on the side that is ugly that's messy that will blacklist you as a freelancer and always stay on the right side of whatever whatever contracts you have signed and abide by just don't do not mess around with that one so if they do not allow side work you can start yet another campaign to break out on your own and start gathering clients so be prolific publish broadcast your work start months before you want to go full-time remote I think of as a marketing campaign so if you're an artist be on art station be on CG talk be on poly count enter every contest whenever other people are entering contests comment on their work it doesn't have to be 100 percent self-promotion but if you can make yourself a part of the communities in which the active freelancers and other subject matter experts alongside you see you as a regular fixture that is and that you can be a normal part of that consistently over time and consistently

produce good work and it's not 100 percent self-promotion that will make it much more much easier for people to come to you especially if you publish tutorials if you give talks if you write about the craft and you get really involved with other professionals I am see I just signed my 50th project recently and literally every single gig I have ever had on every title has been a result of a referral because I'd been socially active on like in various internet forums and like a polycount particular and because I write and publish it a certain point you people start coming to you because you are there consistently and presently enough and I cannot emphasize how important that that aspect of it is you would be surprised once you really get that inertia going and most importantly never stop doing it once you start if you were only if you only show up when people like when you need something from other people it's easy to write you off just be be a part of the community because you want to be a part of the community

not solely because you're trying to extract value from it people can tell so where to find clients if at all possible never burn bridges and stay in touch with former employers they are the greatest source of either either continuing work or references to other other studio heads or other studios that are looking for work and I mean just every anywhere looking up two three six months just checking in to them seeing if they have any needs or if they have or if they know of anybody that's looking that can be an extremely valuable source of potential revenue like in perpetuity and if they if they say no always always always ask for a recommendation or lead somewhere else every single no can be turned into an introduction I've gotten incredible results from that and it also along with rejection you'll get used to a lot of rejection and getting anything signed will take a minimum from the first email the in the first introduction email to actually getting signed on officially starting work on average thirty days

it's the fastest I've ever seen it happen um normally it's about 45 days so you'll have to be patient you'll have to be I get used to hearing know a hell of a lot and have to get used to sending a lot of emails and following up constantly again that's the less fun part of it but when it works it feels terrific and also and alongside sending emails create an email template saying hello I'm offering my services bah blah blah try and customize it for each person you send it to because it's really obvious that uh that's a it's a template always include a portfolio link don't ask too much of them but just try and get on a regular and respectful cycle of how often you send that and who and keep track of that because if you write if you have to custom write it every time you'll learn to hate it much more than as necessary so try and save time and find ways to streamline and optimize that so cutting the tether in five acts preparation discipline security marketing and tenacity so preparation decide are you going to

be mobile or are you going to work from home I mean by mobile I mean working out of if you're traveling everywhere if you're working out of like out of a coffee shops or co-working spaces that is in there's a very different hardware setup then you would they would have if you're working from home you also need to buy all of your own equipment and you need to have a broad software proficiency so if you're deciding whether to be mobile or to work from home mobile is good for producers project managers and directors and for people that do work that involves travel and if you live in cool cities with lots of cafes and co-working spaces if you can do most of your work off of a laptop or in or a phone you and if you're traveling around a lot you're not gonna want to carry around 150 pounds worth of everything all the time so be realistic about the the power of your spine work at home is good for artists or developers with serious hardware needs for people developing for a VR and for parents that can work with minimal interruption so the importance of buying your own equipment so you're responsible

ultimately if you're all for all of your hardware it's expensive but it's worth it for many reasons so first off if you are contracting with a company the so if you're introducing yourself to a company there's not a former employer if you have your own equipment that is less of an equipment cost on them and that's an immediate basically an immediate savings as soon as you start talking to them but in addition to that if that contract ends either expectedly or unexpectedly you don't have to give that Hardware back because you provided everything for yourself find suddenly finding you've grown or relied upon this like a massively beefed tacular PC that whatever client gave you and realizing oh I have to give this back now I need to and I'm back to my old crappy PC that I didn't invest that much money into it's not a very good feeling so it's really deeply worthwhile to make sure that you have a consistent set of hardware that you can use for anything that is 100 % years and no one has any claim on but you and really don't go cheap but also don't think of this is is

the perfect time to massively overspend on every weird little gadget you ever thought that you would need because I've done that I a lot of things that do and do not go into my go-bag and over the course of time you realize I actually did not need that you know 750 dollar or whatever buy things you need as you need them don't don't skimp necessarily but just be realistic about we really think you will be using on a day-to-day basis otherwise you waste a lot of money and if you're if you're a mobile dev on the go you're gonna be really destroying your back carrying around extra credit you don't need and you can also deduct all these things on your taxes which is really really nice and I having a dedicated work machine is ideal I'm very particular about partitioning purchasing off personal things personal projects and just like my you know my average day-to-day use PC with my work PC the less commingling the better because when I'm at work I'm at work when I'm at home I'm at home and mixing the two is the fast track to insanity so broad software

proficiency you use whatever tools your clients use and never ever ever mix work in personal accounts always have your own unique accounts on say Google slack Trello skype Dropbox Box onedrive any professional tool that you use create your own special dedicated work only account for that ideally with a work-related email at a personal email address that is own personal email address that you own that is only for business matters because I've been in many situations where my clients have given me an email address and Sayla Trello for example I had not used that before I had a particular client and then when that contract ended my login credentials were tied to that email address so I lost that account even though I had many other like personal Trello boards running off of that I and that caught me off guard never realized oh that was a really stupid thing to do this is an account that I will use for a lot of different things and all that should be run through my domain through my email address through my unique account

so whenever conceivably possible have your own account for that and maintain control of it it's the same principle as is owning all of your own hardware you know what you have to use you know what your capabilities are and you know what you have access to at any given point and no external force can take that away from you and that builds a sense of confidence and and reliability and just not having to worry about you know this contract ends I'm not gonna have access to this tool anymore it's unnecessary mental overhead own all your own stuff all your own accounts and pay for and license all of your own software exactly the same principle a lot of the common tools they're used a remote worker perforce JIRA Basecamp Trello and soft SVN gain ELISA passing familiarity with these even if it's just signing up for a trial account just do whatever you can to happen to know enough about it to be able to jump in really quickly if you're asked because every different every different company has a completely different set of tools that they use and the more familiar a familiar you are with each of those the better selling

point that is so if you're the person that has at least a little bit of knowledge about absolutely everything it's a lot easier to work your way toward yes will sign you on let's have you start working remotely discipline so ubiquity workspace responsiveness and disaster readiness so ubiquity use the services your clients use as I said before oh you use this app I'm already on it here's my work account info here you're inviting me into your github repo integrate with a team and the tools where they work and never ever ask a client to sign up for anything you have to adapt to them and whatever they are using and it is up to you to be a tools tools expert and to be extremely adaptable to whatever they happen to throw at you because you will see everything and you never want to be caught out of your depth and inevitably you will be but if you act confident about it and you've done at least a bit of preparation working with these tools it's much more likely you'll present yourself as confident to the client and then your prospective client and you're

that much closer to a yes and that much closer to retaining them as a client so you have to establish a powerful reliable remote presence to build their trust in you in the best possible place to do that is inside the tools where they already exist and already work slack has been a boon in the past couple years for me because it's it's i rc4 work it's I mean people and people chatting all the day they have you know the random channels but they have the the discipline-specific channels for our production for AI for programming for level design for general discussion that's where for organizations that use slack well incorrectly are really easy to like to work your way into because you can be physically present you well virtually present in all the chats that they have and in that particular interface you are no different from anybody that's working inside the inside the four walls of that studio that is the most in the most even ground your possible and to have with them and you need to take maximum advantage of that don't goof off all the time I mean but just make sure that you're there and present and in that your name is actually this is a little little trick I learned recently make

sure that your username in slack follows these same naming conventions as everybody else in slack for if they're tagging their name so if it's a first initial last name or just first name make your name of that so they can tag you just as easily as anybody else at the studio and you're that much easier to contact and in tagging the conversations and you're just a little bit more integrated with everything they do the less friction there is with dealing with you and talking to you externally the easier you are to work with the more likely you are to retain them as a client any tiny advantage you can find you should take it so your workspace set aside a dedicated workspace and do not work in play in the same area because ultimately that's purgatory you're never completely at work you're never completely at play if you're trying to relax you're gonna feel obligated to log in you know like synced enolates perforce build or catch up on emails or see you know what else you can do and you'll feel a little bit guilty for not catching up on this or that and conversely if you're working in a place where you play you're gonna be tempted to go on Reddit dink around on Twitter

to dine do until you know play a game it's so you're never completely at work because you're always tempted to play and it's is a very strange place to be and so that's why I recommend having a completely physically distinct separate place where in which you work and you only work I started my company I was renting a 650 square foot apartment and the entire bedroom was my office I had a bed in my living room that gave me I you can you can write off the amount of square footage on your taxes for the space you working within your home which was you know really convenient but more than anything I only worked in that space and I worked primarily off a laptop when I'm at work I'm on the laptop in the room where I work and I'm focus on that when I'm off work I unplug I unplug the laptop I go into the living room and that is where I play never commingle so it's having that physical like physically different environment is really important and that can also apply to a cafe for example or a co-working space in having your physical

surroundings encouraging you to work and focus on whatever you need to do is really important and if you start out doing that you will avoid a lot of the issues that a lot of first-time remote workers and freelancers would have otherwise now remove attention distracting items from your workspace it's like um because of those little physics balls where you pull it back and then clacks back and forth just any kind of weird tactile little distracting thing like a Nintendo DSi on your desk remove anything distracting and have it be a dedicated to focus place for work because you're already having to compensate so much for your remote presence and force projecting yourself and practicing your telepresence that anything that can detract from that should just go away and establish work time boundaries with family this is a big one I've seen a lot you can't work remotely with constant distraction and mismanaging this weakens both work and family relationships like if you're if your kids are always running into the room you're always and playing with them and you're getting distracted every five to ten minutes how you're not going to

be producing your most high-quality work and you have to find a way to partition out your time so you're respecting your client but also being the parent that you need to be and this is unique for every personal situation but the work at home their parents this is a very common thing that I hear you need to learn to put up those boundaries because that's really really convenient to go like oh yeah let's go play on the backyard it's it's something worth paying attention to and also if you say yes to every single contract opportunity that comes your way you'll quickly hate your life because you have no time for your family you feel like you're always at work and you'll begin to resent the entire institution of working remotely and ultimately everyone I know has made this mistake they've over committed themselves and they've had to learn from that sometimes painfully but at a certain point after about maybe a year or two you know what you're capable of you know how to manage your time between work and if a and you're not afraid to say no because it's natural if you're sending out you know hundred emails a week trying to get

somebody to say yes to you saying no back can be a little bit daunting because you know the the very very low yield of yeses to knows that you get but in a certain point for middle I for mental health and time management and family you really have to responsiveness always respond quickly and follow-up when you say you will being able to make a commitment and then keep it even is just saying hey I will call you at 2:15 if you can do that consistently that is a massive confidence builder builder in your client and just being able to say that you're going to do something and then not following up on it they may not tell you that they were disappointed or they noticed that's entirely possible they may not even notice at all but it's but over a long enough period of time your word is your bond and if you're not able to meet even minimal like a minimally consistent things like that it's gonna be a much more difficult relationship working remotely and they're not gonna be able to trust you do what you're going to say you do for large things if you can't do it for small things and always communicate in the channels that they expect like in

like in slack or perforce or whatever systems here your particular client uses and show up early and dress well for remote meetings I learned a fair Lee embarrassing lesson when I was working as I worked with Epic Games for a year running the Unreal Engine marketplace and I worked on site in North Carolina for one week a month but the rest of the time was in Brooklyn and the very first meeting video conference I had with Tim Sweeney from my home in Brooklyn I was unfortunately wearing a tan shirt so it looked like I showed up shirtless for a meeting with Tim Sweeney the CEO of epic that was a very humbling and instructive moment so be aware of how things look on camera and try to try dress it up a little bit oh that still stings and and a remote work on an ongoing basis is earned when you're working on site attendance means I see that seat is full when you're working off site attendance means they consistently respond to us quickly in consistency and reliability I keep pushing that as much as possible

it's it's the expectations are so different of on-site vs. off-site and this is one of the better examples I can think of it just always be responding quickly even if you're not giving them necessarily the answer they want just being able to say hey I hear you I'm in the middle of something else I'll respond at this time that is better than not saying anything and then responding two hours later with what they need just acknowledgement rather than fulfillment or delivery is key disaster readiness so realistic scenarios to plan for our power outages internet and self cell service to outages hard drive crashes stolen hard driver laptop the hospital or family emergency or nonspecific hardware failure find out I just plan out what you do in each of these cases at home do you have universal power supply is there and if you're working like off of a laptop and you work on a mobile basis where is the nearest internet cafe where you can get back online I mean if your connectivity drops if if

you are working from home your internet goes down and there is a critical delivery do you have a cellular cellular modem Verizon has a what's called the jet pack which is a pay-as-you-go cellular modem which is extremely convenient it's a 4G LTE speeds it is fairly expensive like on a pay-as-you-go basis but if you absolutely need internet access you have to make a delivery that's a convenient thing to have in your back pocket you can but literally they're very small you can get one for anywhere from 125 to $175 no contract and then just pay-as-you-go as they use the data I have found that it's so my clients know that I have that I've only had to use it in a handful of cases but it's always been kind of a nice bullet point to say hey here's my backup rarely use but it's here if you need it so sometimes a sale is made not on you could sell somebody on like a service or a feature like that that is never really used that's what leads to a yes even if

is never actually exercised in practice and that's just a nice thing to have around for a hard drive crash since you're responsible for your hardware do you do regular backups do you have like web-based backups like where are those files if things fail crafts tropically on your side again and I like a your Studios IT this is the kind of thing that's taken care of for you this is now something that you're responsible for and have to plan for in advance if your hard drive or laptop are stolen were they encrypted where they password it can you can you track them remotely can you disable them these are things you have to plan for if there's a hospital or family emergency it might help to have an email template set up in advance like in a draft folder to your bosses or whoever I know who ever would need to know the if you're out so like as you're on your way to the hospital or something you can pull out your phone hit Send on that draft and then have that be essentially taken care of instead of people wondering where you are ultimately they'll be understanding but if emergencies like that happened it's it's a convenient thing to have to

have in place that they can know and plan for it so security I've done I did another talk on this called tools and tackle the globe-trotting freelancer I go into a lot of detail on this and I will not do that today but ultimately encrypt your hard drives like in Windows use BitLocker for Mac use file vault for USB drives use a veracrypt it's a fork of TrueCrypt it's big essentially creates an encrypted password to contain ourselves so if you lose a thumb drive or someone steals it from you they'll see just a big lump of a file they cannot open without the password never leave any client data out to chance treati is though it's more valuable than your own use a password manager I like LastPass one pass and key pass are also very good if you're using the internet today and you're not using a password manager with unique passwords for every website you are using the internet wrong and if just very bluntly you're using it wrong and if you have

your logins to your various client sites you're not using unique passwords with them and you're not you're not taking care of all that inside a password manager you're putting your clients data at risk and you're being irresponsible if and if for nothing else use a password manager for your clients data it's very little extra effort to do it for yourself but think of your clients two-factor authentication on everything it's it's the same basis so essentially two-factor authentication is a way if you're let's say you're logging in to Google it wants you to prove you are here you say you are and the easiest way to prove that is just a message to your phone so I'll do it either of by a SMS or by a constantly rotating code say okay enter these six digits to prove that you are you and you're in physical possession of your phone before granting app access to your account dozens and dozens of websites especially bit business focus tools offer two-factor authentication and you should enable that for every single one of them especially for your client in any catalog in that you can find on a to t

wo factor off org it's a comprehensive list of every service that offers two-factor authentication sign up for every single one especially your client sites because frankly my clients have never pressed me particularly hard on security but it's one of the things that I that I push forward showing I care about your data I care about and I care about your project and I take great my take extreme measures to make sure that your day is protected no matter what happens whether it's a whether it's a data breach whether it's like a big password dump whether my hardware is physically stolen your data is safe and these are the precautions that I take again it's never really been something that a particular client has exercised but it's part of my sales pitch and it's appealing and generally it's just good computer hygiene and you should do it and also use a virtual private network anytime you connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot that you do not own because if so any unencrypted non-http connection on a

Wi-Fi hotspot like here at GDC seventeen that's visible in plain text you can collect passwords you can collect user names you can collect every site the person has visited I am like on my phone I'm able to map out all the different devices that are connected to this Wi-Fi hotspot for GDC and there are 2500 of them and dozens of your computers have like have your full names on them or your user names I was able to actually very easily find people online who are at GDC based on what they named their mobile and mobile devices or laptops and it would be trivial to skip on there traffic using a virtual private network that encrypts all of your traffic when you're connected to into a public Y and Wi-Fi hotspot and that also protects you and protects your client and anytime you're in the connection is not encrypted with HTTPS and you're not connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot the you own or trust your all of that at risk I recommend air VPN private Internet access or witopia for VPN so anywhere from $2.99 to $4.99 a

month it's very cheap very easy works on mobile devices and again this is just decent data hygiene so marketing you need a professional website a LinkedIn net I need to be networking and you need to be constantly engaged in publicity for yourself it's your professional website if at all possible use your real name or a new company name it should be short easy to remember professional and able to be spoken aloud in a way that people are able to easily understand get the dot-com or the.net avoid weird top-level domains like busy Oh xxx unless you're a very different kind of contractor summarize your services using three to five bullet points ask friends for input WordPress is a notoriously insecure but if you're just having a very simple public facing website there very simple easy to use easy to set up free professional-looking themes to present yourself professionally and you and if you're providing professional

services you absolutely should have at least a website with your name on it that can prove you are who you say you are also list prominent projects and employers but only list roles where you did what you are selling so LinkedIn part one being on LinkedIn is not optional it's a top business networking site in the world it's the first place people with money will look you up if you don't have a LinkedIn presence you look risky and unprofessional generally speaking it's a good idea to be in the first place people if money will want I am people have money to give to you we'll look to find out if you are qualified to get money too and that like that is essentially the beginning in the end of the argument for LinkedIn like like be there be professional maintain it every in every few months it takes very little effort but it's absolutely important you're on there and polish up your presence update euros and descriptions spellcheck use the proper tents Brian present tense past tense give and request recommendations and this is an important one that I've not really seen other people touch on before ad projects and link to your co-workers

on those projects so let's say a game shipped or lower there's a layoff if you add those projects on LinkedIn and add your co-workers on LinkedIn you're a much easier to discover for potential work or by making hired as a team or for freelancing if you're associated with that so if you're connected to you know five co-workers away it's like oh this co-worker needs an engineer who also you work on that with oh I'm actually looking for artists and they're able to find you through that path of discovery because you're associated with that project or with that event it makes it a lot easier for good things to come to you and if you were not already on LinkedIn and you weren't connected to their projects they would never have found you otherwise this is a very simple way to establish a passive presence in part to connect to your co-workers not during a layoff because that's that's when everybody realizes oh crap I have an updated LinkedIn since I got this job and and that's actually a really easy way to spot layoffs when everybody from one company is connecting to each other all at once since flooding your LinkedIn feed with it that's I've

discovered layoffs that way add them before you need it just I and just like as you meet someone and work with I work them out I mean at work or I mean for a client add them whenever like at the earliest possible or lowest possible point just before it seems like you're just trying to get something out of them also connect to recruiters because this expands your network reach it's easier for people to find you through recruiters who are naturally going to be connected to everybody on LinkedIn this also passively increases your discoverability join relevant LinkedIn user groups you can use a group affiliation is is one of the reasons to connect to someone on LinkedIn when you send them a connection request the more of those you have in common the easier it is for you to reach people that may otherwise be unreachable get in the habit of cold emailing and introducing yourself do not be shy rip off the band-aid you must be constantly communicating and networking don't stop doing it just because you you secured a client in the near term always always always be networking and be reaching out and be practicing and just follow general industry goings-on with lincoln

networking attend trade shows constantly GDC is the highest value in my experience wink also XDS III games compacts steam dev days look up and join local game dev user groups ten meetups game jams workshops game nights beer drink ups job fairs anywhere there are developers in your area if you're working remotely if it can be get really really lonely just just for one thing but being able to go out and hang out with other developers is just for not just for you know networking and potentially finding I like finding work locally it's just good to be around other devs to remember what it's like and be able to share more stories and be able to feel part of the community it's it's is it's important for sanity and always have business cards ready I recommend as Azal and Moo they have great quality cards very good designs I should put it for a referral code up there an opportunity missed so publicity publish articles in your area focus publish on your site and cross publish to LinkedIn LinkedIn is

desperate to be a publishing platform and they promote the hell out of anybody that will publish something on their site they'll promote that to the top of your feed to anybody you're connected to which is yet another good reason to connect to people before you need them also apply to speak at industry events and localize GDA chapters are a great place to start publish original content frequently on your blog or on Gamasutra or again LinkedIn do a reddit AMA do Twitter Q&A is be a part of screen shot Saturday if you're working on cool stuff Twitter is an amazing way to reach out to people you'll be a request guest spots an industry podcast get involved in that community the more the more broadly present you are in these community is easier it is to find you the more likely it is you'll be able to find paying work tenacity constant visit dev taxes and expensive and cabin fever this is the fun part so constant biz dev forty at least forty to fifty percent of your time will be doing business that's just the sad truth of it and the sooner you can get used to that in an automated or try and make it fun the better but

that's just gonna be a part of your life from now on always be networking always be selling but don't be a dweeb about it just be like hi I like oh hi it's nice to meet you my name is such-and-such I like you have a job for me don't be that person be the person that's cool that attends attends events that people like hanging out with and don't try and find a way to bring the conversation around to yourself be that presence and don't push for a result and ultimately good things will come to you but also don't be too shy it's it's a balance but it's it's trying to find and always remember you work to secure next month's income not this month's so if you're gonna pay this month that's fantastic where's next month's coming from always be doing this F always be pushing always be trying and when you're employed all this isn't is invisible to you respect your company's founders admin finance legal and IT so in your you're in customer service now retaining clients means ongoing customer service and understand what doing a good job means on a per client basis they may

define it differently be explicit because only their opinion matters you may think you're knocking it absolutely out of the park but their expectations are completely different and they may perceive they may perceive you as being underperforming that's why you have to go out of your way to reach out above and beyond what you would do if you're working on-site find out if you actually are meeting their expectations and find out if they actually are communicating those back to you it is your responsibility to reach out and pull and get that information and how to retain clients be responsive aware presence and always check in always be where they look first keep in touch with old clients manage your time wisely don't get greedy like just shiny new gig is tempting but serve your existing client well just be realistic about what you're realistically able to accomplish and don't take on too much too soon people find this out over time everybody makes the mistake taxes and expenses hooray best slide work with an accountant from day one do everything they say remember taxes are no longer withheld

you need to be saving at least half of whatever you bring in start a tax savings account for paying taxes and immediately deposit half of every check in that and do everything your tack your tax professional and says from day one this will lead to pain be smart get a tax pro pay them to do the thing that you will undoubtedly hate doing also be frugal and focus on savings plan for lean times budget for disasters target six months of savings in the bank in case anything goes wrong not many people I know actually have that I mean have all that saved up when they're starting out working remotely but this is something worth worth moving toward and that is something to aspire toward and finally cabin fever a dedicated workspace as I mentioned before helps you focus get plenty of exercise and sunlight if all you do is stay inside all the time eventually will turn into a pale sickly little thing that is practically transparent I've I had a two three month stretch where I realized I was starting to resemble and like a mole rat that doesn't see the Sun my eyes were what

yeah it's it's an it's an unpleasant place to be and I have a extraordinarily patient wife that would sponge me off so create healthy oh man I said that create healthy daily rituals do yoga walk your dog cook for yourself take language lessons develop a new hobby do something that is not your job to expand yourself expand your horizons and and to be able to mentally switch focus to something completely different it's really important to maintain a well-rounded well balanced life because otherwise where it can become your life and you have to force yourself away from it to be able to remember to be a human again to have a third dimension to you instead of just that like that sweaty pale thing that's at the computer all the time and maintain a strict separation of work in life if you let it it can absolutely consume you all hours of the day and night you really need to clamp down on that and and just be realistic about you know what do you value most of your life like yourself your health your family your

relationships your career like there's you know that famous example has anyone on their deathbed ever said I wish I spent more time at work just realistically just be good be good to yourself be honest with what you really want and maintain that separation to work in life because they really can consume you if you're not careful and that's all thank you very much for listening is anyone have any questions you