So, tomorrow marks my return to the 8-5 world of an office job. I’ve really enjoyed freelancing the last 7 or 8 months and the freedom that came with it but I’m very much looking forward to being back at a regular job. I’m going back to work for my old boss before I left to start 451 Press. I’ve been doing freelance work for them for some time now and it’s just a good fit. I’ll get more into specifics in a later post. There are plenty of things I don’t like about working in an office but I think the pros are worth so much more than the cons. This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning the company I’ve started on my own. In the long term it means more opportunity.

One of the things I’m looking forward to most is a more structured routine. What I’m not looking forward to is getting up in the morning. I’m just not a morning person. Even after working full time for nearly 25 I’m very much a night owl. I really get creative and energized as the night goes on. Hopefully after enjoying the flexible schedule for so long it won’t be too hard to fall back into the routine. Tuesdays were always the hard day for me. This time around I’m going to try and establish my schedule 7 days a week instead of sleeping in on the weekends and see if that helps.

At any rate, I’m excited and if anyone has any tips on returning to work after a long time freelancing I’d love to year it.

Darren over at Problogger asks us to post a video about why I blog. I’ve been wanting to do video for a while now and this is as good a time to start as any. Hopefully I’ll get good at it at some point, so be kind.

It seems like SXSW was so long ago, but I’ve only been back a few days. Today’s my first day back into the normal routine and I’m still trying to get caught up. Most of the big stuff has been taken care of as well as lots of little bits. I’ve probably got about 10 or so things left and I’ll be in good shape. So if I’m working with you on something it shouldn’t be long!

Just before SXSW one of my clients offered me a full time job. I used to work with them before and we’ve always had a good relationship. There’s a lot of good reasons to do it and not too many reasons to say no. The only one being I enjoy working from home and having a very flexible schedule. That said, I like the idea of working with people in an office again and having face time with people to bounce ideas off of and work more closely with them. It would probably even be a beneficial move for my long term goal of 100% of my income coming from publishing my own sites. This is someone who can mentor me and if the projects we work on make sense, even be partners in some things. These are nice people and fun projects. At the end of the day I’ll be doing the same work regardless, working on the same projects. The choice comes down to doing it in the office as an employee, doing it in the office as a freelancer or doing it from home as a freelancer.

Here is some of the things I’m thinking about:

Working Face to Face With People

There’s no faster way to get work done or describe a problem than taking 10 minutes to site down with fellow employees and work through something. In addition, there’s a sense of team work and friendly competition that I totally enjoy. Nothing makes me work harder than having someone to show the end product to.

Leaving Work at Work

One of the toughest problems for freelancers is that there is very little disconnect between home and work, especially if you work in a home office. While I don’t mind so much, sometimes I feel I’m always at work. While there will always be times when you have to do something for the day job after hours, usually that’s just emergencies or the rare event where you have a rush deadline on a project.

Taxes & Money

Right now it costs me more to own my own business than I would make working for someone else. It seems like every time I turn around I’m getting dinged for $100 here and $250 there from some government agency. Not to mention I’m not exactly tax savvy and don’t really have time to learn all the things I need to know to make my money work harder for me. Again, that’s something the owner of the company I’d be working for can mentor me about. Not only does he have a long history in the tech sector making it pretty easy to communicate technical issues with him, but he’s also an MBA, and as much as I joke that means I’ll have to teach him everything, he’s really quite brilliant.

Being Around Other People

Being around people brings out creativity in me and probably in most people. Sometimes just joking around will spark an idea for something. I also like keeping my ability to hold an intelligent conversation sharp as I hope to not only attend more conferences and meet more people, but eventually speak at some of these events. I have 13 years experience in this field and I hope that along the way I might have learned something worth sharing.

Naturally, there’s some apprehension about doing this and I’m still giving it some serious deliberation. I don’t have to decide right away, but I’m hoping to make the decision by this weekend and at the moment, I’m leaning towards going back to work in the office. I’m even kind of excited about the idea.

Anyone have any experience or thoughts on going back to work after freelancing? I would love to year other people’s experiences.

Last year I made it to my first sxsw conference and it was so much fun that I knew I had to do it again. This year we had the luck to get the Hilton right across the street from the convention center, which means were are right in the thick of all the goings on. Last year was mostly about panels, learning and meeting a handful of people. This year was all about meeting people. The panels were decent, but didn’t seem quite as good as last year and it seems like all the good panels were spread out so far apart that by the time you got to the one you wanted to attend it was standing room only. I’m sure it doesn’t help that this even continues to grow by leaps and bounds every year.

The high point for me this year was finally meeting old friends in person: Patrick, Brandon, and Stephan. It was a lot of fun hanging out with these guys and of course Steve. I appreciate Brandon making sure I got back to the hotel after the web awards after party. Lets just say we had too much fun that night.

I also had fun hanging out with the b5 crew. Some of which I’ve known for a while, others are new friends. It was just great to see them in person: Jeremy, CJ, Darcie, Mark, Aaron, Chad, Laura, and anyone else I might have missed. I think every other person I met was from b5!

Darcie also did a great job putting together this years Blog Network Camp where I got to catch up with Jim and finally meet Omar and Rick. Great food, great conversations.

It was also very cool finally meeting Darren. The beer bus was loads of fun and a great way to get people talking. I’ve got some video that I’ll post later that Ryan from Chitika might not want me to post ;) I think Darren got some pics as well. Chitika did a great job getting this together and providing great snacks, booze and fun.

By and large this was the most fun I’ve had in a good while. I’m already looking forward to next year and thinking about hitting up at least 3-4 conferences a year. It’s a great way to connect with friends, make new contacts and get inspired.

And to all the “internet famous” people that I just randomly went up to and said hello: Rober Scoble, Leah Culver, Evan Williams and so many others, thanks for being cool. Everyone was totally cool, down to earth and very nice. That’s what rawks about sxsw.

There were a ton of people that I met and It was fun meeting everyone. I hope to see as many of you as I can again next year and at other conferences.

I’m heading to the airport in about 30 minutes to head to SXSW. The flight is only about 3 hours, but we have to make 1 stop to pick up folks in Nashville, TN. We should be touching down in Austin around 4 ish, hopefully at the hotel by 5-6 if everything goes smoothly.

If you are going to SXSW this year, feel free to look me up if you want to chat or just say hi. The main reason I go is to meet people and just have some fun. I’m looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones!

In case you haven’t seen me before I added my mugshot.

I’ll post some pics and videos from SXSW as time permits.

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