Around this time three years ago, I started considering the possibilities of being independently-employed for the first time. Quite honestly it had never even really occurred to me before I met people who were doing it — and were happy, successful and encouraging. It wasn’t until August of that year that I actually took the plunge.

Being independent has always been something I’ve prided myself on, as an adjective. But the last three years living it, as a noun, has completely reshaped my identity.

I’m proud to release to the public a scrapbook I’ve been keeping of articles, facts, tips, guidance, did-you-knows, personal stories and general inspiration about going independent, staying independent, and growing independently — as a way to live, not just to work.

I call it Lifework because anyone who’s out on their own knows it’s about putting life first. It’s about finding your life’s work and following the numerous paths that are laid out before you. It’s not just a job and it’s more than a career.

Self-employment is of the self; it requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline, self-reflection, self-control, self-confidence, self-doubt, self-determination, self-sacrificing, and often, if we’re being honest here, self-indulgence.

These are topics I want to explore more fully and intend to dedicate a major part of my life to better understanding and sharing what I find with others. I hope you join me.

[Lifework -- The other way around]

• Whit Hour – Week 12
• Being a consultant is like being an actor
• Pleasure and Pain turns 2
• Independently employed? What’s your retirement plan?
• What are you worth?

Money is a topic that most people dance around because they don’t want to be rude, or tacky, or misunderstood. But if we avoid talking about it, we avoid learning a very essential part of our business and our industry. In order to thrive as a professional community, we need to have a strong handle on our financials, and a comfort discussing them openly with clients and colleagues alike.

I’ve advocated this for years, and tend to be the person my friends come to when they want straight talk about money. So imagine my excitement when Marc Hemeon asked me to join him at this year’s SXSW Interactive to help facilitate a Core Conversation that he called “Breaking Taboos: Pros Get Real About Money Matters.” I didn’t even have to think twice before I said Yes.

Our goal is to get people talking about money, and Marc and I are the people to do it. I’m coming at it from the independent consulting angle, regularly needing to speak frankly with prospective clients about budgets and with existing clients about getting paid. Meanwhile, Marc is at a major milestone in his career and will be talking about money from the perspective of a startup founder. Formerly the Design and UX Lead at Digg, Marc was until recently the Director of UX at Oakley while on the side he co-founded fflick, the Twitter-based movie review site. In January, he and his co-founders sold fflick to Google, and now he’s a designer at YouTube as part of the acquisition deal.

Some of the questions we hope to discuss are:

For Indies

• How do I know how much to charge?
• When do I ask to get paid?
• Do I need a contract?
• What should I do if I don’t get paid?
• Do I need to incorporate?
• Do I need an accountant?
• Do I need to separate my business and personal finances?
• How do I pay myself?
• What are the tax deductions I should know about?
• How should I be keeping track of my expenses?

For Founders

• How do I share ownership with co-founders?
• How do I decide how much equity I deserve?
• How do we determine how much we should get paid?
• How do we determine how much money we need to raise?
• What form of company should we incorporate as?
• What should we be willing to spend money on and what shouldn’t we?
• How do we pay personal and business taxes?
• How should we determine what our company is worth?
• How do we know when it’s time to sell?
• How can we negotiate for the best sale price and conditions?

The description, time and location details are below. I really hope to see many of you there — and please don’t sit quietly. The more people who participate, the more we’ll all learn from each other.

Breaking Taboos: Pros Get Real About Money Matters

Industry All-Stars tackle the subject that we’re all most curious about but causes us the most discomfort: what, when, and how to charge for our work. Learn their inside tips on how to charge your clients, when trading work for equity makes sense, and how to avoid common client pitfalls. Stop cheating yourself and learn that you deserve to be paid in full for doing work you’re passionate about. Our work has the power to make enormous amounts of money for our clients. Let’s take a good hard look at the value we provide and how to ask for and receive value in return.

Negotiating your rate for a project is the difference between being a starving artist or successful freelancer or studio. Creatives fall prey to lowball offers, promises of future work, and other forms of wage penalties in fear of losing a potential client. Learn how the pros have created successful freelance businesses and startups by not compromising their rates and standards. Understand how they attract the big name clients and avoid the bad clients. We’ll also explore potential benefits and risks of working for stock.

Lawyers, doctors, accountants and other professionals typically don’t experience angst, guilt, or wishy-washy boundaries when stating their rates and neither should we. We see standard billing rates across many industries. We’ll take a look at the role a standard billing rate would have in the creative services industry and how such a standard would be upheld and implemented.

Breaking Taboos: Pros Get Real About Money Matters
Friday, March 11, 2011
5-6pm
Marriott Courtyard Austin Downtown/Convention Center
Rio Grande A

• Where is Whitney in 2011?
• Client Matters: Needs + Resources + Location + Schedule + Budget = Scope
• I Popped My Cherry at BarCamp Philly
• What are you worth?
• Who is Gradon Tripp’s mentor?

The work I love is about helping companies who love their customers discover how to be better to them…not convincing them to care.

The work I love is about empowering customers to get the service they deserve…not trying to get them to buy into what they don’t really need.

The work I love is about understanding customers by listening to them…not implementing generic best practices based on my experiences with other companies.

The work I love is about identifying a company’s target audiences and optimizing the experience for them…not attempting to design a product meant for everyone that actually serves no one.

The work I love is about helping a company’s employees to thrive just as much as their customers…not improving the customer experience while ignoring organizational breakdowns.

The work I love is about conducting primary research and analyzing it to form a product strategy…not developing designs based on assumptions and predetermined business requirements.

The work I love is about equipping companies to do design thinking about produce great solutions over the long-term…not producing the work on my own for only short-term gain.

The work I love is about collaboration and iteration and shared learning…not documentation and deliverables for the appearance of formality.

The work I love is about having a process to give structure to a project when it’s needed and room for experimentation when it it’s needed…not just process for process sake.

The work I love is about the people I work with and the people we help…not the money I make for the company or the money I make for myself.

The work I love is about changing the world for the better…not trying to fit in, or appear glamorous, or taking down the competition just to win.

If this sounds like you or like the kind of person you want to work with, then I want to work with you. I’m always on the lookout for the right kind of projects. I only want to do the work I love.

Think you have something that would excite me? Please get in touch at whitney@whitneyhess.com.

“My heart is in the work.” — Andrew Carnegie

• Why I detest the term “Lean UX”
• Nationwide Insurance demonstrates user research with NationPam
• Loosecubes and the future of work
• Undercover Boss: Just How Badly is Your Company Screwing Itself
• The User Experience Relationship

Perhaps not coincidentally, I had two totally separate conversations on Sunday within the same theme: how much should I charge?

Later that day I tweeted:

Several folks responded that they’d like to hear more about my reflection in a blog post, so here it is.

One conversation was with a friend who’s interviewing for a new full-time job. Another was with a friend who’s pitching a consulting gig. Both were unsure of how to make their case.

Ultimately we all realized that this has very little to do with the money itself — something I think I already knew, but needed to relearn. Money is only a quantitative assessment and agreement between supply and demand, consumer and producer. Value is determined by the scarcity of the merchandise; the more you have something to offer that no one else can provide, the more you’ll get paid.

When anyone asks me, “How do I figure out my value?” I say that value is the greatest amount that someone is willing to pay. It’s incredibly elastic, so it’s crucial that we continually put ourselves in a position to figure out how that value is shifting.

But there’s a deeper issue here: your current value is not necessarily equal to your worth. And the only way to get your value as close as possible to your worth is to know how to sell yourself.

Of course there are people out there whose value is much greater than their worth, and I say more power to them for selling something that doesn’t exist. What they lack in hard skills they certainly make up for in soft ones.

What you’re worth is a question only you can answer. It’s loosely a combination of your ability, experience, and instinct. I don’t believe any of these three can be objectively measured, therefore it’s your responsibility to make a subjective assessment and assign a dollar amount to it.

Some people charge by the hour, but I won’t. If my worth requires more time to shine through, the client should not be penalized. But if my worth gets me to the answer faster, why should I be penalized?

When you present a client with three options — the rate you’re willing to take, the rate you expect, and the rate you deserve — any smart businessperson would offer the rate you’re willing to take. Why? Because it is every business’s duty to increase revenue and decrease cost. If a business isn’t actively trying to do this, that probably isn’t a business you should be working for.

They’ll ask for the cheapest option and will agree to limited scope, but I assure you they’ll come to expect more than they’re paying for as the project progresses. Because they know that you have more to offer. They know you’re worth more. And worst of all, they know that you don’t.

Accepting a valuation that’s less than you’re worth is a quick way to lose others’ respect and diminish your chance of success. By pricing your value at full worth, you give the person an opportunity to have more than they thought they needed. Not everyone will recognize this opportunity, but the right person will. That’s the person you want to work for.

Having a full-time salary isn’t much different. If you believe you deserve more, then you owe it to yourself to ask for it. But remember that you’re also going to be expected to deliver on it. It might mean having to up your game.

You find your worth when you butt up against your own limitations. If you aren’t always trying to outdo yourself, then you won’t know where that worth lies. Moreover, you lose the biggest opportunity of all: making yourself worth more.

• My SXSW Core Conversation: “Breaking Taboos: Pros Get Real About Money Matters”
• Fire your worst customers
• The Work I Love
• Do Not Underestimate the Power of a Great PM
• Web 2.0 Expo NY: Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0: Rethinking Decision Making in a ’2.0′ World

Wednesday the new ScientificAmerican.com went live. Happy Cog worked on the website redesign, while Roger Black Studios worked on a redesign of the print publication.

As the user experience designer on the project, I had the immense pleasure of working alongside visual designer Mike Pick, front-end developer Tim Murtaugh, project manager Robb Rice, and executive creative director Jeffrey Zeldman.

With an abbreviated timeline, the project didn’t call for extensive user research or usability testing, and I needed to be strategic about how to re-architect the immense amount of content (from the print magazine and online-only) that’s partially accessible to all visitors, partially accessible to print mag subscribers, and partly accessible to online subscribers.

I started off the project with a 5-hour workshop with the 12 key stakeholders using Tamara Adlin‘s ad-hoc personas techniques to:

1. define the business and project goals
2. identify the target audiences
3. brainstorm the key use case scenarios
4. prioritize features for the redesign.

I was able to gather a staggering amount of intel in a seriously condensed period of time that served me well throughout wireframe development.

The team at Scientific American and Nature Publishing Group were extremely generous with their time and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with them.

Read Jeffrey’s announcement, Scientific American news editor Philip Yam’s blog post, and an article on Media Bistro.

• What the customer actually wanted
• Catching Up on Pleasure and Pain
• The Project of a Lifetime
• Why I detest the term “Lean UX”
• You’re not a user experience designer if…

On the afternoon of Friday, August 22, 2008, I “left work” for the last time.

It was my last day at my full-time job and I was officially self-employed.

The last two years have been a whirlwind, and the benefits and repercussions of that single action have been far more significant than I ever could have predicted. As I’ve said 100 times — and will probably be repeating til the end of my days — that was the best decision I’ve ever made.

I had a great job at a great company and I loved my work, but I wasn’t satisfied with my career or my life. So I forwent the cushy routine and instead chose the unstable, insecure, unknown, unpredictable path. As a result, I have created a life for myself that is better than I ever dared to dream.

Independence is a word that holds a lot of weight with me. Freedom, autonomy, self-reliance, self-expression. And anxiety, discord, isolation, vulnerability.

I am completely alone in this. It’s the best possible best and the worst possible worst all wrapped up into one.

And yet somehow, someway, it fits me like a glove.

Last year I was feeling a huge mix of emotions as my first year of full-time independent consulting came to a close. Quite frankly I was a chicken with my head cut off, and I was feeling it at hard. I knew I needed to make a change. So I created a strategic plan for how I wanted to move my business forward and how I wanted to better live my life — and now, looking back at Year 2, I’m happy to say that I stuck to it.

From August 2008 to August 2009 (Year 1), I had contracts with 17 clients. I was juggling far too much work with an unsustainable schedule of meetings from 9am-6pm, a four-hour break for events and social life, and production work from 10pm-4am. I was a friggin’ zombie, double-booking, pushing deadlines, eating crap, losing touch with friends, and desperately searching for air.

I was told by a close friend and mentor to raise my rates, so I did, and continue to. As a result, from August 2009 to now (Year 2), I had contracts with only 8 clients, and I earned 30% more year-over-year. After crunching the numbers, I discovered that I made 270% more money per project in year two, meaning that on average my project rates were almost 3x the size year-over-year. That’s pretty damn cool.

There’s another stat that I’m particularly proud of: In Year 1, 7.3% of my invoices were unpaid; in Year 2, a staggering 0% unpaid. This feat doesn’t just tell me that I got better at collecting money, but that I got better at choosing clients.

Best of all, I worked less. I stopped most (though not all) of my late-night shifts, and spent a lot more time speaking at conferences, writing, and reconnecting with my friends and myself.

Some events of Year 2 are immeasurable: I gave the closing keynote at the conference where I had given my very first presentation just one year earlier; I did research and strategy for the Holocaust Museum; after waiting more than 4 years, a U.S. patent with my name on it was finally granted; after completely bombing a presentation, I went back to the drawing board and turned it into a hit; I was published by A List Apart; I was approached by multiple publishers to write a book for them; I was invited to Foo Camp. I mean, come on! My mind has been blown over and over and over again. I can’t believe this is my life.

I’ve faced a lot of negativity as well, and I’ve discovered even deeper, truer friends because of it. It certainly hasn’t all been a cakewalk, and I expect that things will just get harder as the years go on. But I take solace in the fact that I’m learning that independence doesn’t have to mean loneliness. I have an incredible support network of friends, family and fans (though I prefer to think of them as friends I just haven’t met yet). I’m constantly inspired by the community of members at New Work City, who have lent me their strength and taught me the value of co-independence. I’ve learned a lot about who I am, and who I want to be. And I’m learning how to get myself there.

I serendipitously got a link from my friend Will Sansbury today that couldn’t be more apropos. It’s on the “Paradoxical Commandments of Leadership” by Kent Keith. His rules:

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

6. The biggest men with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Today as I start Year 3, I will be keeping these principles in mind, skipping down my path, enjoying all the good fortune and important lessons life has to offer me, and sharing it all with you along the way.

Thanks for traveling with me.

• New Year’s Resolutions for 2011
• Happy New Year to You
• Lifework — A philosophy, a lifestyle, a revolution
• Help me celebrate my 1st year of self-employment
• Today is my 1 year anniversary of going solo

I’m very excited to be the guest author on this week’s 52weeksofUX, a blog by Josh Porter and Josh Brewer, two people I greatly admire.

My topic is the increasingly crucial role that user experience design plays in the success of a startup. I called the piece StartUXs (get it? startups with an X instead of a P) to reflect just how intertwined I believe the two to be.

Most people believe that User Experience is just about finding the best solution for your users — but it’s not. UX is about defining the problem that needs to be solved (the why), defining the types of people who need it to be solved (the who), and defining the way in which it should be solved to be relevant to those people (the how). Yet as a rule, startups are being built on the what.

[Read the entire post over at 52weeksofUX, then read Josh Brewer's follow-up post, The Five W's of UX]

Announcement: In conjunction with the publication of this piece, I am publicly launching a new consulting model that I am now offering to startups. StartUXs are companies that want to build products around the needs of real people, and I want to help them.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the blog post and the StartUXs concept. Thanks!

• When You Startup With UX
• Scientific American redesign by Happy Cog has launched
• Pleasure and Pain now on UX Magazine
• Whit Hour – Week 19
• User Experience on The Big Web Show

Last Thursday I had the absolute pleasure of joining the lovely Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin on the eighth episode of The Big Web Show (read my previous post).

If you weren’t able to catch the live broadcast, be sure to check out the video and podcast.

We talked about how I’ve used Twitter to build my professional network, what it’s like to be a consultant, and all sorts of stuff about user experience. I had such a great time, and the hour flew by!

Thanks to everyone who tuned in, and especially to Jeffrey and Dan for making me feel so comfortable.

Watch now!

• The first Whit Hour was a success
• More than 600 people attend boxee NYC meetup
• User Experience on The Big Web Show
• Whit Hour – Week 4
• I’ll be speaking at An Event Apart 2009

I was recently contacted by someone to contribute to a project they’re working on. It was a well-connected and well-respected person whose work I’ve followed for years, so naturally I was quite excited by the inquiry.

The initial email was a bit sparse — describing the project in just a couple sentences — and while it clearly indicated the fee, there was only a bulleted list of the expected deliverables with no elaboration. A few of the deliverables didn’t even seem to be relevant for the kind of work that I do.

Eager to work with this person, and hoping to make a positive impact on the project, I wrote back the same day expressing my interest, as well as my desire to clarify a few points. Three days later I got a response with an offer to hop on the phone to discuss. Given a significant time difference between us, I proposed a scheduled time and provided my phone number. Another three days later, I got a response that the person would call me the next day (at a not agreed upon time)…when I would unfortunately be on a flight. I explained that I would be unavailable and proposed another time to chat.

Yet another five days later, I received a two-line email from this person apologizing for the difficulty in connecting via phone — and aggressively urging me to commit to the project despite having never answered my questions. A threat to find another contributor was also included.

I wrote back immediately reinforcing my interest in participating, but expressing that I could not commit without further clarification on some key points. Due to this person’s lack of availability, I was encouraged to submit my questions via email. In my biggest regret of this exchange, it took me two days to compile the comprehensive list of questions and shoot them over.

Fourteen days later, still no response. I sent a short follow-up.

The same day, I received this:

I think we ran out of time. Sorry about that! Don’t worry about it. Thanks anyway! All the best.

I was utterly perplexed and quite a bit disappointed. Feeling justified, I wrote back less than five minutes later, contentiously expressing my dissatisfaction with having my questions go unanswered only to be passed over for the gig. I wasn’t too diplomatic about how I said it.

Within minutes, the person responded with a much more regretful tone and warmer apology, explaining that the whole idea of using a consultant had been scrapped. I felt like an ass for having been harsh, still disappointed that I hadn’t been able to find out the details of the project and reinforce what I could bring to the table.

But upon reflection, I realized a pattern that I’ve seen in other situations, leading me to want to share this story. Sometimes when a prospect approaches you, they just want you to jump at the opportunity and immediately say yes. Those people do not really value who you are and what you do. When you ask for clarification on something, they see it as a sign of lack of enthusiasm or appreciation for what they’re offering. But they’re misreading the situation.

Questions show passion, not doubt. The more you want something, the more you want to know about it. The more you value yourself, the more cautious you are before jumping into the unknown. Taking things at face value only shows insecurity and inexperience. Nothing is as it seems. A lot of times it’s much, much better. But only the person who takes the time to investigate the goods can truly determine its value.

Don’t mistakingly believe than an intense desire is indicated by an immediate response. If you feel like you’re being rushed, question the person’s motives and trust your gut. Take your time, ask the important questions, and don’t be afraid to lose out in the now — you’ll win in the long run.

• Apple Customer Support Fiasco
• Photo of the day: A 90-year-old’s cell phone
• Photo of the day: How do we call agent??
• Literally Desperate
• Your profile has been viewed by

The words both start with L-E-A, but can leadership really be learned?

As a consultant, I have the pleasure and challenge to work with a variety of different teams. I am a team of one, but I collaborate with agency teams (such as Happy Cog, whom I’m working with on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum project), internal client teams, freelance designers and developers.

Sometimes I’m brought in by an executive on the client side. Sometimes I’m brought in by an agency who has already won the client. Sometimes I’m brought in by a consultant to the client, who is helping them to build a team.

Almost every time, it’s incredibly unclear who’s leading.

I mention Happy Cog above because I fall over myself with excitement every time I get to work with them. Not just because they’re some of the most talented, most professional, most revered people working on the web today — but because everyone’s role is crystal clear, and every team member can point to the project lead in under 3 seconds. Not only that, every team member respects the project lead and follows their lead. It is in NO way a dictatorship, but it is also not a sociocracy — “a system of governance using consent-based decision.” It’s a meritocracy, where the lead becomes the lead because he demonstrates that he can lead, and that he’s willing to.

It’s a deep honor to work with these people, and have the opportunity to do things right, and well. But at the same time, it has made me acutely aware of the leadership problems that I have faced on almost all of my other projects.

Since I am always brought in as a consultant, I am never the true project lead because it is ultimately not my responsibility to implement the solution and integrate it into the business. One day I would very much like it to be, but that’s simply not the case right now. While I do currently get to lead almost all of the user experience phases of these projects, I still have an overall project lead that I report into — and in order for my work to be successful and impactful, the leader has to possess some pretty specific qualities.

My expectations for a leader are:

• To set clear goals, and to continually articulate them in written and verbal form to the team
• To motivate the team to believe in their vision
• To recognize and nurture the expertise that each person on the team brings to the project
• To assign actionable tasks with measurable results
• To express their appreciation for the contribution that each team member makes
• To be decisive and confident
• To ask team members for their input on key issues, but to always take responsibility for making final decisions
• To stay calm
• To ask for help when they need it
• To put the needs of people above the needs of things

I very rarely come across people who possess these qualities, and who take pride in not just what they do, but how they do it. I’ve been spoiled by working with Happy Cog, and I worry that I’ll have a really hard time working with people who don’t meet these expectations.

Part of my responsibility as a consultant is to clearly and respectfully communicate to my clients what I need from them in order to be successful. But I have to ask myself: Can leadership be learned? If it can, do I have the authority and chutzpah to express my expectations to the person who’s supposed to be my leader, or should I simply use this list as a rubric against which I evaluate potential projects and working teams?

I’m sharing my thoughts with you as I’m going through a period of discovery, so not all of this is entirely clear in my mind. I would love your honesty and guidance in helping me thinking through some of these issues.

Thanks in advance for your advice and understanding.

• Do Not Underestimate the Power of a Great PM
• Web 2.0 Expo NY: “10 Tips for Creative Environments” with Adaptive Path’s Bryan Mason and Sarah Nelson
• Happy Cog and Happy Whitney
• Loosecubes and the future of work
• Whit Hour – Week 4