Sphinx: He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions.
Furious: What??
Sphinx: Patience, my son. To summon your power for the conflict
to come, you must first have power over that which conflicts you.
Furious: Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a
little bit formulaic? “If you want to push something down, you have
to pull it up.” “If you want to go left, you have to go right.” It’s–
Sphinx: Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to
master your rage–
Furious: Your rage will become your master? That’s what you were
gonna say, right? Right?
Sphinx: …Not necessarily.

But because I love you Donna and value your opinion, I took my first look at the theses in a few years and I have to admit that looking at them in light of the emergence of social media, they age well. I still can’t stop myself from mocking them after reading the first fifty or so, but that’s just me. Now I still don’t know f**k-all about Gordon Ramsay, but thanks for melting a bit of the cranky ice that is my brain …

What’s interesting, talking of authenticity, the owners of at a local cafe recently went to see Gordon Ramsay in Sydney do a cookery show and queued with others for hours to get books signed and it does seem as if G. himself is authentic and honest. I wonder if that is a major contribution to his popularity? (QED Cluetrain
I’ve just lost a terminology battle at work - I now have to refer to library users as ‘clients’ on the web site…I had another look at Cluetrain - thanks for the reminder about it! - and giggled to myself as I was reminded about the TQM (Total Quality Management) phase and how in the UK at least, companies ended up saying they were ‘TQM’ organisations often enough to believe it and I feel the same with ‘client’ … “yes, we’ll be providing a better service to you, because you are now our clients not library members.”

I would never to identify something not working and tell someone about it - that just wouldn’t suit me. And I’d be annoyed if I were the client - often clients know there is something wrong but there are things stopping them. But I do know people who have used that approach and had it work - it just wouldn’t suit me. I’d write a polite (and short) email to let them know what you do and that you are available - it won’t hurt and might come just at the right time for someone…

Best of luck to you when going freelance. It’s important to enjoy what you’re doing.

I’m in the process of setting up my own consultancy after completing a PhD in HCI and a few years working in the area afterwards. My question is how do you get a good client list? My previous work involved one-off projects (often collaborations with large organisations) but I’m more interested in small-scale work which makes my previous colleagues no use for further work. I’ve noticed a few websites that aren’t working as well as they should and I wondered if it was worth finding out the department responsible for running the website, contacting them with a few pointers and maybe a brief report, and telling them that I can do good work for them (ie, reduce complaints, increase turnover etc). Would this work?

All the best,

Alan.

I haven’t heard of the Cluetrain Manifesto before! I’ve just had a look at the website and the book sounds fascinating. I’ll add it to my to-read list.