Freelancing in Real Life

Friends of AnywhereMan.com are doing some exciting things in the next few months and I want to share a couple of them that you need to check out.

Where Do You Work Naked?

First, Lisa Kanarek of WorkingNaked.net (see my interview with Lisa) is doing a month-long contest called “Where do you work naked?” and she wants photos and a quick description of your home office. She’s giving away some excellent home-office related prizes and it’ll be worth your while to go and enter the contest. Be sure to subscribe to her blog, too. She’s always sharing helpful tips for working from home.

Market Your Business On The Web

Next, Aaron Weiche of Five Technology is helping put on half-day Local University seminar in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area that will help you and your small business better understand marketing on the web. Representatives from both Google and Bing will be there to discuss their respective search engines as well.

I will say this about Aaron: The guy knows his stuff. I keep my eye on the way he interacts on the web and he’s getting a huge amount of ROI with minimal effort, right down to the things he shares on Twitter. I know that the ROI of you attending this workshop will be equally impressive.

Oh yeah, you probably want to know about the deal. Aaron is giving AnywhereMan readers $40 off the price of the seminar, cutting the price from $129 down to $89. Visit the Local University Twin Cities page and use code “anywhere2010″ at checkout to receive the discount. I might try to make the 3.5 hour drive down there myself!

Got Good Deals Or Events?

If anybody else has something useful or fun going on that might be of interest to my users, just let me know. Please don’t be offended if your event or promotion doesn’t make the cut, but it never hurts to ask.

There is a lot of talk today about all the snow out east. I live in Minnesota so I know what it’s like. I used to absolutely hate getting a big dose of snow. Nowadays, I say BRING IT ON.

Let me first just say that the past two winters I’ve finally had the luxury of owning a snow blower…it makes a huge difference in how I view snowstorms. I don’t dread shoveling…and shoveling…and shoveling. Now I view snow as an excuse to see how far I can possibly launch it. I can hit my neighbor’s yard with it, no problem.

The second reason I don’t mind them as much anymore is that I work at home. Back when I commuted, a snowstorm meant driving under very stressful conditions for a period of 2-3 times the normal length of time it would normally take to get to work. I absolutely hated that. Also, after a long day of working/commuting, I’d arrive home to…you guessed it…shoveling snow. I’ll also mention that it would be dark when I left in the morning, and dark when I got home. What is the point of this, people?!

Once again, working from home is awesome. I’ll get up, head down to my office with fresh coffee, work for a while, and if the snow has let up, I’ll go out and fire up the John Deere whenever I feel like it. I’ll take the time to marvel at the beauty of the snow in the trees, maybe snap a few pictures, and maybe even play with my daughters and build a snowman. Then, back to work and back to remembering yet another reason that I love what I do and where I do it.

Working from Anywhere is great, and yet not having to go anywhere else has it’s advantages too.