Back in April, my first post for WWD introduced Going Solo, a one-day conference for freelancers that took places in mid-May, right on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland’s Lausanne. (Disclosure: I’ve been advising Going Solo as an unpaid volunteer helping with strategy & logistics)
Conference organizer Stephanie Booth has recently announced that she’ll be touring the conference globally, with the next event landing in the UK on 12th September in the city of Leeds.
Like the Lausanne event, Going Solo Leeds will focus on practical and theoretical sessions for freelancing professionals, independent workers, the self-employed, remote workers and those who are considering ‘going solo’.
Though there’s a bias towards internet and media professionals, most of the sessions are appropriate for traditional independent workers too. Here’s a taster of the planned programme…
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With Gordon Brown’s fiscal reputation following Dubya’s own battered rep into a swirling black hole of oil prices and crunchy credit, it’s heartening to know that (sometimes) Her Majesty’s government can still do its subjects a few financial favours here in Blighty.
A couple of weeks ago, the UK’s tax authority - Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs Service - announced a number of measures that may benefit Britain’s web workers, and more broadly, any Brits working from home.
Those working from home whom have a portion of their residence setup as a dedicated work area or office can claim that portion as a tax rebate. Also, they no longer have to pay capital gains tax on the sale of their home.
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My hometown of Bradford, in the northern United Kingdom was once the capital of the world’s wool industry and the birthplace of the movements that led to the Labour Party. Like many of the largest cities in Northern England that were once the ‘Silicon Valley of the Victorian era’, de-industrialization has been a painful process.
Larger cities such as Leeds and Manchester have reinvented themselves as financial, media and creative hubs that provide regional alternatives to the global powerhouse of London and attract the Creative Class that Richard Florida defines as the driving economic forces of post-industrial cities.
However, smaller post-industrial cities such as Bradford are still struggling to find a path to attracting information industries, caught between ambitious but incompetent government regeneration programs and projects that misfire and develop facilities for creative classes, but misread what’s actually needed; projects such as a recently announced ‘Digital Park‘.
Much of the core of the city lies dormant, with vacant buildings awaiting vision and leadership, whilst the city’s confidence diminishes along with the hopes of its residents.
However, a pair of recently published articles hints at a way forward for places such as Bradford…
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So you thought you’d escaped the cubicle farm when you decided to put down roots in your local coworking community? Think again! The cubicle is back!
At Leeds’ The Round Foundry in the UK, entrepreneurs in the creative and digital industries can opt for traditional serviced office space or a hot-desking plan in a large shared space. Each hot-desker gets a cute lockable ‘pod’, that includes…
- Six large shelves (with file holder tabs!)
- Six power outlets.
- Two Cat-5 sockets.
- A coat/bag hook.
- A motorized, adjustable desk area.
- Um, wheels.
The pods (the model is know as a Macro-1) are actually quite cool, designed by local company Volume Products as part of a range of modular office furniture. Though they appear to be designed for traditional office spaces, they seem to have been adapted well to the Round Foundry’s coworking area.
However is raises some interesting questions about the nature of work environments that coworkers are interested in inhabiting.
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WWD readers are likely familiar with the notion of coworking - low cost collaboration & community space for digital workers - pioneered by the likes of San Francisco’s Hat Factory and Citizen Space. With coworking communities springing up across the globe, the phenomenon is beginning to morph into a new forms to suit the working patterns of web workers, freelancers and mobile employees everywhere…
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