I was reminded of his dilemma last week, when a potential client contacted me to ask if I could write sales copy for his multilevel marketing scheme — at twice my usual fee. After doing a bit of research on the company, however, it became apparent that this person was running a scam.

As freelancers, we sometimes get requests that we find shady. These can range from the above examples to creating promotional materials for companies whose ethics we don’t completely agree with. How do we deal with these requests?

A Resounding “No!”

“Would you accept a freelance project that goes against your ethics or values?” When I posed this question to several freelancers, most quickly said they wouldn’t. “No real professional would ever do such a thing,” said Eugene Rembor, a management consultant.

The good news is that we freelancers have the freedom to be selective about which projects on which we work. We can easily turn down clients if the company, business or product doesn’t correspond with our personal ethics.

The Gray Area

But while most of the freelancers I asked said they wouldn’t accept such jobs, there are those who recognize a gray area. For example, a few of the freelancers I talked to said that although they wouldn’t take ethically ambiguous or dubious jobs, they might feel otherwise if they found themselves financially desperate.

“There is a difference between something I do not believe in and something that I think is unethical or illegal,” said freelance editor Beth Beaty. As she noted, sometimes her clients write books or articles that support ideas with which she doesn’t agree.

“The higher ‘ethic’, if you want to call it that, for me is that everyone’s voice should be heard,” she explained, “and I am not here to judge the author’s beliefs or the marketability of their ideas.” According to her, as long as the project is legal and the client is trustworthy, she will provide high-quality work.

I’ve often applied these ideas to my own work. I was once hired to edit web site content about astrology. I don’t believe in astrology, but I felt that I should do the work. The client was an honest person who believed in her web site and wanted it to be better; she genuinely cared about her audience. I’d do the job again, just because I respected the client’s intentions.

Drawing the Line

There doesn’t seem to be a concrete rule on how to tackle ethically questionable requests. Each client, situation and project has to be assessed individually. It’s up to you where to draw the line.

As for my potential client’s multilevel marketing scheme, I turned it down. I wouldn’t have been directly involved in the scheme, but I didn’t want to help promote it, either. I’m not comfortable with writing something that convinces honest people to waste their money in a scam, especially in these economically trying times. And I have no doubt that someone out there is going to do this job -– it just won’t be me.

Do you ever get requests for projects that don’t correspond with your ethics or values? What do you do when those opportunities arise?

It may be alright to wait for leads to find our professional sites and contact us, but there are some cases where this isn’t enough.  Other times, we have to actively scour the web for new jobs.  After 5 years of online job hunting, I eventually developed my own system that requires minimal effort and time – a necessary ingredient if you don’t want your job hunt to mess up the jobs you already have. Identify how much extra time you have Before you go on your job search, it’s important to have a concrete idea about the number of hours per week you can devote to an extra job.  This number will always be changing, so you should keep it where it’s accessible and can easily be edited.  You could stick a post-it on your monitor, place a virtual note on your desktop, or write this number in a corner on your whiteboard.

Know where to look for jobs

If there are specific websites where you look for job ads, make sure to bookmark or list them.  Whenever you have free time, all you have to do is turn to this list and approach the job hunt systematically.

Don’t forget to look at offline ads as well.  Many businesses that need the expertise of freelancers, especially if they’re new to internet technologies, will be using offline methods such as newspaper classifieds to advertise their needs. Automate what you can

Although there are some cases where visiting actual job boards can help, there are several ways for you to automate your job search.  For example, I set up Google Alerts for the phrase “Write for us”, so that I can be notified when websites and blogs call for submissions from writers.  Other alternative key phrases could be “writer needed” or “looking for writer”.  Just replace “writer” with whatever your job title is, and you can receive alerts every time someone posts a relevant job ad on the web.

I also have ready templates for cover letters and emails I can send to potential clients.  There are templates for informal applications, such as jobs where the approach to work seems more fun and laid back.  I also have templates for formal job applications where I apply as a writer for businesses with a more traditional and strict approach.  Include in your templates the common elements of your cover letters, such as a brief description of your background and your contact information.

Just remember that even if you use templates, make sure to customize them a bit.  Nothing says “I’m unoriginal and won’t stand out” than an email that starts with “To Whom it May Concern”.  Do the research on who you should address the email to and how you should approach them.

Record your actions

It’s also important to note what jobs you applied to, the contact information of the people concerned, and any response they give you.

Hunting for a few extra projects to work on doesn’t have to eat up your time, especially if you’re already booked for a few commitments.  By becoming more efficient with job hunting, you’ll spend more effort on the jobs themselves rather than the task of finding them. How do you make your online job hunt more efficient?  How much time do you spend actively looking for online work?  Which method works best for you?

Image by Stephanie L. from sxc.hu

How do we maintain privacy when we work on such a public platform?

Separate your personal life and your work when it comes to online interaction. Any apps, blogs, or social networking accounts should be separate from your professional accounts.  Alternatively, you can categorize your contacts into separate groups, such as friends, family, business, and filter which types of updates are visible to each group.

This might seem time consuming, but you don’t want a diligent internet troll to start harassing your friends or playing with your holiday photos via Photoshop and sharing it with your clients.  You don’t want your friends and family to be too informed about your work either (I remember my mother seeing one of my clients on Facebook and asking me if she could go out with him). That may be far-fetched, but it’s not something I personally want to risk.

I keep a personal blog on some free blogging platforms – intended for close friends and family only.  Most of my posts are visible only to contacts I have approved.  My professional blog, of course, is free for the rest of the web to read.

Get a pseudonym. Web workers sometimes use nicknames, online screen names, or only their first names as their working name online.  This approach to getting more privacy seems to elicit a variety of reactions.  Some people are for it, while others don’t think it’s necessary, or they think it goes against the culture of transparency on the web.  Online workers such as Skellie, Adii Rockstar, and blogger John Cow (for a time) are just a few examples. You can also use an alias that sounds more like a “real name”.

A pseudonym can also be useful if you want to work on projects that aren’t relevant to the personal brand you’re building.  When I used to write about relationships and dating, it wasn’t something I was passionate about pursuing, so I used a variety of aliases for my work.  Only my clients knew my real name.

The downsides to working with a pseudonym, especially if it doesn’t sound like a “real name”, is that in some cases, it might lead to mistrust.  Still, this could be overcome once you’ve built a reputation on providing quality services.

Monitor your digital footprint. You can do a regular search of your name, pseudonyms, and other nicknames you use on the web.  If you want to automate this, you can simply use Google Alerts to keep up with any new searchable items relevant to your name.  Twitter Search, BackType Alerts, and FriendFeed Search also allow you to search any keyword within their services.

Check the privacy settings and privacy policy of every new app, social network, or online service you’re using. This may sound like common sense, but it’s something that many people neglect.  Call me paranoid, but I tend to check my privacy settings on social networking accounts every few months or so.  Sometimes they add new features or change something and it affects the initial settings I established.

Mike Gunderloy also wrote about the terms and conditions of online office applications, which had interesting points about privacy.  On a related note, the Pew Internet Project conducted a survey on cloud computing with the following results:

…cloud users show high levels of concern when presented with scenarios in which companies might use their data for purposes users may or may not fully understand ahead of time.  This suggests user worry over control of the information they store online.  For nearly all of the scenarios shown, most users of cloud applications say they would be very concerned if their data were sold, used in marketing campaigns, not deleted as requested, or used for targeted ads. Source: “Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services”, September 2008, Pew Internet & American Life Project

How about you, how concerned are you with your privacy as a web worker?  How do you manage your digital footprints?  What experiences have you had with online privacy?

Image by Dan Shirley from sxc.hu

One of the advantages of teleworking is that there’s less opportunities for workplace gossip and personality clashes.  Most teams approach their communications very matter-of-factly.  But I find that this isn’t always the case, especially when members each have very different working styles.

When managing a team of very different people all over the globe, what can you do to keep the team, and the work, from imploding?

All expectations should be out on the table. Most conflict comes from someone’s expectations not being met.  When someone new joins the team, the project manager or the person in charge should ask them what their expectations are.  The new members should also be told what’s expected of them.  Doing this may seem corny, but it’s the only way to assure that everyone is signing up to be on the same team, working through the same processes.

Documented accountability. If the team is unclear about the deliverables that are due  and who is responsible for them, that’s a recipe for disaster.  Each person on the team should have a very defined role from the beginning – and this should be written down, along with due dates, for everyone to see.

It’s relatively easy to document everything if you’re using collaboration software or a wiki to work with your team. Basecamp from 37signals is such an example, as it allows users to schedule project milestones and see who’s responsible for them.

Communication training. Communication is the most essential factor to the success of an online team.  It’s not the quantity of the communication that matters, more like the quality.  Communication would go more smoothly and more efficiently if there’s a “communication guidelines” slide show or document that your team can refer to.

Even minor suggestions will prove to be valuable, such as suggestions on how to use Twitter effectively, or how to send fewer emails.

Give praise and criticism privately. If you’re supervising other teleworkers, it’s important to send your comments about their work in private. This is true whether you’re working with them online or offline.

Another alternative is to send a message of praise or criticism for everyone to read.  For example, you could send a message to your entire team saying “You’re all doing great!” or “You’re all sending in good work, but here are a few suggestions for everyone…”.  Doing things this way means you’re not singling anyone out.

Be careful about the seemingly unrelated messages you send on a public venue as well.  A random Tweet such as “I’m surrounded by stupid people!” can be taken as a personal insult by your team, even if you were talking about the clerks at your local grocery store.

Supervising a team doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if you make ample preparations.  If you trust the people you work with, and everyone understands the work guidelines, then there’s fewer chances for conflicts to arise.

Have you ever supervised an online team before?  What issues or problems did you encounter?  How did you work through them?

Here’s the truth so far: web working on the road is harder than it looks. Even with all the research and planning, some things are bound to be different from what you’re expecting.

Internet Access

In a previous post, I mentioned how internet access should be one of the things you look into when researching travel destinations. This is especially important for us web workers, since it’s hard to anticipate what client queries or work emergencies you’ll need to attend to.

One option is to travel in areas that are known to have reliable internet connections. But doing this limits your number of possible destinations. Since I prefer to stay in remote provincial areas, it was logical for me to buy a 3G USB modem. This. device comes in handy for traveling web workers, and even if there’s no 3G access in some areas, you can still manage to use a GPRS connection (even if it’s rather slow).

Scheduling

Although you don’t need to plan every hour of your trip, it’s important to have a vague idea of what you’ll be doing each day. This will allow you to schedule some time for work. Just make sure you don’t spend most of your time on your laptop. If you spend 90% of your trip getting some work done, then it’s almost as if you stayed in your home office. Doing this would be missing the point. The key is to know which important work tasks you absolutely have to do within the same time frame as your trip. You can even try outsourcing some of your most basic tasks while you’re away.

Remember that traveling always involves waiting. You could be in the pier for three hours, waiting for the late ferry. You could be in the airport waiting to board your plane. Since waiting time is expected, know how to be productive when this happens. I spent most of my waiting time making notes on the articles I had to write, and jotting down the work tasks I have to do when I return. You can also use this time to recharge your gadgets.

I also strongly recommend doing even a bit of your work in advance – this is something I didn’t do very well for this trip (I got sick the week before I left). But if I were able to do that, I would’ve had the benefit of worrying less about work while I’m traveling.

Equipment

The general rule of traveling with gadgets is that you shouldn’t take more than what you need. Right now I have my small MSI Wind notebook, my cellphone, and the modem I mentioned earlier. This allows me to pack for a 2-week trip in a single backpack. In the future, I might opt to bring an extension cord or outlet multiplier with me, as some rooms have only one or two power outlets.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t take less than what you need either. While a netbook with a 10-inch monitor suits me well, graphic designers will no doubt have a much harder time with it. If it’s relevant to your work, and it’s hard for you to get things done without it, extra gadgets or a bigger laptop should be on your packing list. Know how others have done it

The most comforting thing, for me at least, was that many people have worked on the road before. Here at WWD, Anne Zelenka interviewed Lea Woodward about her location-independent lifestyle. Imran Ali wrote about the traveling web working family of Tumblewagon. Tim Ferriss also discussed a similar concept in his book, “The 4-Hour Workweek”.

As internet connectivity becomes more prevalent, and as smaller devices become more affordable, it’s also no surprise that the number of traveling web workers is growing. It’s certain that you’ll find an experienced digital nomad who can give you all the advice and information you need. Hopefully, in a couple of years, I can be as wise and experienced as they are now.

Have you ever tried working on the road? What tips can you share based on your experience?