“I could be doing this at home.”

It’s a thought that’s becoming increasingly common among office workers. When you can email, phone, teleconference and even video conference, who really does need the pain of the daily commute and the hassle of office politics? Wouldn’t we all be a lot happier making our own schedules, working from our home offices, and sending in the completed work without ever seeing the boss, the gridlock or the line in the staff canteen?

Well, perhaps. Although one recent survey claims that 42 percent of US companies operate some form of telework system, working from home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s the feeling that you’re never away from the office, the discipline required to stay at the keyboard when the television, the bed and the refrigerator are all just a short step away, and the belief, still held by many, that working from home isn’t working at all.

Above all though, there’s the solitude. Colleagues might be irritating, infuriating and often in the way, but they’re also friends, and those are much harder to find when you only need to leave the house to go shopping.

Virtual Working, Real Results

As virtual working – a term used to describe the method of work rather the work itself — has taken off, a new solution has sprung up. Co-working involves groups of telecommuters finding a communal office space and sharing it. The advantages are clear: co-workers get all of the social benefits of working alongside other professionals but none of the drawbacks of dark looks from the boss when they come in at ten or leave after a couple of hours. They also get the technical help and creative inspiration that can come from sharing a space with other skilled types, and the networking can be useful too.

“Working socially in a co-working setting can be really fun and a great way to break out of working alone or just with your partner in your living room every day,” says Ryanne Hodson,  a former children’s television editor and videoblogger. “It’s nice to see and interact with other people and have a schedule.”

It’s an idea that’s taken off. Jelly, a co-working space created by Amit Gupta in New York in early 2006, has already franchised itself across 20 cities around the world. The co-working wiki lists dozens of locations from Krakow in Poland to Campinas in Brazil.

The formats – and the rates – vary. Co-working spaces often consist of a communal office in which everyone works together but may also contain individual rooms where workers can enjoy privacy and avoid distractions while still being able to leave the house and pop out of the door to see familiar faces. The Hat Factory, the co-working space in San Francisco that Ryanne co-founded and worked in for six months before moving out of the city, offers lockers, a full kitchen and a “comfy living room/lounge area” for $200 a month – significantly less than the usual office rent in San Francisco. According to Ryanne, the site would see around 20 people a day when she was there, most of whom were either “tech geeks” or vloggers and filmmakers like herself. A small number of regulars, including Ryanne, functioned as “anchors.” They paid the rent regularly and received keys. Drop-ins would leave a small amount in a tip jar to contribute towards the costs.

Who Makes the Coffee Round Here?

The result wasn’t just the chance to communicate with something livelier than the keyboard. There were professional benefits too.  Sharing a space often developed into sharing knowledge and creating new work as well.

“Because you are in a more social setting… if something is funky with your website, you’ll inevitably shout out ‘Does anyone know why my page isn’t validating?’” explains Ryanne. “You get to know people’s skills pretty quick and can recommend them for jobs and vice versa.

“A lot of times, because you were working alongside someone you would end up working with them on projects.”

One question though is whether co-working spaces offer more than cafés. Both provide coffee and both tend to have wireless connections, which means that laptop-wielding workers have all the office they need. But café-working tends to come with two-hour limits, the most you can reasonably squeeze out of a single cappuccino and tend to be much less sociable than a co-working space which brings in the same faces day after day. And when you’ve paid $200 in advance, you’re much more likely to make the most of it and spend as much time there as possible. Remembering that you’ll need to cough up a few bucks for a cup of something hot and frothy might well put you off leaving the house.

But co-working does break one of the most important of our rules for café-working: the rule against talking to people. Chatting to other telecommuters might be informative, entertaining and occasionally even beneficial but it does get in the way of work. According to Ryanne though, it’s still more productive than trying to do it from home.

“The great thing about co-working is that it didn’t have the distractions that home often does. When you’re taking a break, you go back to work. Sometimes at home, you take a break and never go back to work.”

And there is one more advantage that co-working spaces have over cafes: they’re expanding. Starbucks outlets on the other hand, might soon be harder to find than a telephone booth.

Twitter, as you probably already know has taken the Internet in a frenzied storm. Everywhere you look, bloggers advocate Twitter and how cool this micro blogging tool really is.

I must confess that they are all right. But if you are anything like me, you probably get addicted to the Tweets and therefore never get anything else done.

But what type of tweets do people send each other anyway?

In short, those can be anything you like. The idea behind Twitter is to find out what you are doing right now and publish that to the world. While we don’t really want to know your most intimate information, many Twitter users use this medium to lighten up their day and stay in touch with their online friends, family and business partners.

For the best tweets ever, check out the following list:

1. Will You Marry Me

A Marriage Proposal In True Twitter Style.

Thinking of proposing through Twitter for the world to see? Why not. Do as Sean Bonner did and have the world celebrate with you. Of  course she will have to say YES first.

2. The Power of Twitter

See The Power Of The Twitter Community In True Style.

Amazing how one distress call can help you out of a tight spot so fast with the help of the Twitter community. See how one guy was able to solve his urgent problem within the hour! Now THAT is called immediate solution provision with a little help from your online friends.

3. Arrested Development

No, It’s NOT What You Think!

Imagine being stuck in a foreign country jail with only a computer at hand. Here is an idea for you if that should ever eventuate.

4. Pay Per Tweet

Haha.

This is one of the occasions when Problogger Darren Rowse played a joke on the whole Twitter community. It happened - you guessed right - on April Fools Day.

5. Don’t Tweet When You Are Drunk

Celebrity Shamble

Imagine you are in the spotlight of the Internet and thousands of people worldwide know who you are. Now take this one step further and get horribly drunk, then go and tweet to the world how to ban this one guy you can’t stand or are jealous off. All I can say is oops!

6. Bitch Slapping

Be Warned!

Calling people names when the world is watching is perhaps not such a smart idea. Especially if your name is Evan Williams and you are the founder of Twitter!

7. Lights Off!

Fancy Controlling Your Home Lights With Twitter.

Smart people are inventive and Twitter user Justin Wickett has taken invention to a new level by allowing Twitter to switch on or off his lights at home. See how it is done…

8. Tweets in eBook Form

What A Cool Idea.

Now here is a way to take your past tweets to a new dimension - by creating a long lasting and a good looking comic eBook like the one featured here.

9. You’re Fired!

Or Are You?

Reading this tweet makes you wonder why people have to do their fighting in the public eye. Just remember, don’t sack your staff through Twitter, it might have complications.

10. Be Aware Of Your Date!

First Date Madness.

Imagine you go on your first ever date and then get asked to do a threesome with the guys wife?! Eek, whatever next. On the “badfirstdate” tweets you see the unbelievable come true.

As you can see, all these tweets amuse, shock, or anger us in some ways or another. It is interesting to see that Twitter followers throw all caution into the wind when they present themselves to the world and act like they were on Big Brother. Perhaps Twitter is a reality show of its own anyway.

What do you think? Do you tweet?

—ed. note:  Make sure you follow us on twitter and read our free twitter ebook. You might also want to look at our post on the Best Spam Messages Ever.

For the sake of reference, I’m calling this approach “reverse tunneling,” and it builds on similar ideas as in the previous article, but also upon a goal setting process developed by Brian Azar, a personal and professional coach also known as the Sales Doctor.

Brian Azar’s Goal Setting Process
Brian Azar developed his goal setting technique over the years, using his early experience in social work, then as a personal/ professional coach mostly for salespeople, and also his recent work teaching kids tips on how to have an entrepreneurial mindset.

The basic process is that you define your goals and then step backwards to determine what “X” has to come before “Y”, then what “W” has to come before “X”, and so on until you come to present day.

His approach usually is applied to a five-year period, and the step-back period is one month. So you start with your goal for five years from now, then step backwards one month at a time, determining what needs to be done in the month previous to achieve the next month’s goal. Keep stepping back until you are in the “now.”

For example, if you want to build up, say, $50,000/year in sales in month 60 (five years from now), what do you have to do or achieve in month 59? What do you have to do or achieve in month 58 to get to month 59? Write down what you think you need to do or achieve in each month going backwards, but stay open to the possibility that there may be one or more alternatives to achieve the sub-goal in month X. Make sure you break monthly goals down into weekly and/or daily goals, as appropriate.

Adapted Process
Brian Azar’s process can be applied to personal and professional goals. Many of his clients are salespeople, though his method can be adapted for many uses including typical entrepreneurial goals. In experimenting with his process, I realized that it could be adapted to the tunneling method of problem solving discussed previously.

In adapting the process into “reverse tunneling,” I’ve used a looser time frame. You should not skip the stepping backwards process, but you do not have to bind yourself to a month by month timeframe. You also can just set goals for one or two years from now. Many people get intimidated by having to produce five-year plans, even though that’s fairly standard advice for entrepreneurs starting a business. Still, there’s nothing wrong with easing into the process by setting goals for a shorter period.

So step backwards, to break your goal down into sub-goals. Decide later when certain sub-goals need to be achieved by. Make the process organic, leaving room for some changes in timeline. Determine bottleneck goals.

To summarize:

1. Keep a short time span. Apply the reverse tunneling process to 1-2 years of goals first. After solidifying your action plan, you can think about longer-term goals.
2. Step back at comfortable levels. You do not need to step backwards only one month at a time. If what you need for month X requires something to be achieved 3 months back, that’s okay. But steps of one month backwards tend to be less overwhelming.
3. Apply a final timeline afterwards. This is less intimidating and helps you to gauge what’s realistic. A particular achievement might take more than a month.

The diagram above shows a loose action plan followed by the same plan with a timeline applied to it.

Benefits of the Reverse Tunneling Approach
The benefits of this approach is that you have a visual process for setting your goals, and a loose timeframe in which to achieve them. You can adjust your timeframe as necessary. This breaking down of goals is far less intimidating, and it’s easier to feel that your end result can actually be accomplished.

Examples
Because my life and work are so intertwined at the moment, I tend not to separate work and personal goals. Do whatever works for you. This method applies equally well to both personal or professional goals. My feeling, though, is if you’re going to plan, plan big. Just keep in mind that big plans can be and usually are overwhelming, which is why breaking your big goals down helps. You can have personal work goals or goals to be achieved with a business and or life partner. Just be clear, for your action plan, who is being included.

Example 1
The image below is a bird’s eye view of my approximate plans professionally and personally. The timeline runs across most of the width of the image. The thin blue lines running down from the timeline attach to personal goals, many of which are in turn driven by professional goals.

Don’t be concerned with my actual goals (since you cannot really make them out in the images below). Just get an essence for the process and apply it to your goals to produce an action plan.

Example 2
Here are some slightly larger views of pretty much the same example as above. The focus is on the professional goals. While I have goals for what I’d like to achieve in gross revenues per month for all my efforts, either on my own, with my fiancee and with other partners, I’ve also broken down daily achievements (first image) as well.

Here is the professional goals action plan fleshed out a little bit more, minus the daily breakdown.

It’s probably been said countless times: humans are visual-oriented creatures. Yet, many people do not use any form of visualization capabilities, whether for goal-setting or simply solving problems.

My research and personal experience shows that problem-solving is easier when you approach it from a “visual thinking” process. This can be as simple as creating a few sketches or as complex as a structured diagram using predefined symbols.

Diagrams stimulate both the creative (right) half of the brain as weil as the the logical (left) half. Using colors helps, too, especially if there is some structure in how you use color. For example, you could use different colored text to represent different types of solutions, or colored lines, backgrounds, borders, etc.

Some Elements of Visual Thinking and Diagramming

Here are some of the more common elements you’ll find in diagramming or visual thinking methods in general.

1. Text - for node, line, and callouts.
2. Color - borders, connecting lines, text, backgrounds.
3. Shapes - typically for nodes.
4. Borders - node border shape and color.
5. Texture - backgrounds.
6. Connecting lines - with/ without arrows and end symbols.

Visual Thinking Styles

Not all of the following are part of pure diagramming but they are part of visual thinking processes.

1. Doodles - These are less formal than sketches/ drawings, and often aimless.
2. Sketching and drawing - Sketches are “practice”, whereas drawings are a finished product.
3. Diagramming and schematics - E.g., UML diagrams, state diagrams, flowcharts, blueprints.
4. Mind mapping - Sophisticated mind mapping packages can double as diagramming tools.
5. Image snapshots - e.g., computer screen snapshots produced with a tool such as SnagIt.
6. Presentations - E.g. slideshows, PowerPoint presentations.

Benefits of Diagramming and Visual Thinking

Here are just some of the benefits of approaching problem-solving from a visual thinking mindset.

1. Stimulates both creative and logical halves of the mind
2. Easier to absorb visuals than a mass of text.
3. More universal than words. (See #2.) Back in the late 1970s, many common signs in North America changed over from text-only to having an image and text or sometimes just an image. E.g., bathroom signs. Visual lexicons were created and often used in various parts of the world.
4. Easier to modify/ update/ transform a diagram than to have to rewrite text.
5. Starting with, say, a sketch, you can transform it to a diagram to a drawing to a solution, or something along those lines, depending on your need.
6. They’re a great memory trigger for a more complex concept. So if you only have time to sketch out an idea but in your mind you have some complex thoughts about your idea, a diagram can help you retrieve your thoughts at a later point.

Downsides of Visual Thinking

For those of you inclined not to think visually, trying to adapt visual thinking to your problem-solving approaches might initially have its downsides.

1. Might suffer from blank-page syndrome.
2. Might feel compelled to be an artist.
   Just sketch, use schematics. This is not a drawing. Don’t doodle, as that usually is not a productive activity. Even professional artists might sketch elements several times before they decide to finalize a piece of work. If you’re embarrassed about your sketches, there’s no need. Who’s going to see?
3. Might feel like you have to get it right immediately.
   Maybe you don’t want to waste paper. For this reason, I often use recycled notebooks for initial drawings. Ultimately, I end up finding I switch over to a clipboard full of printer or scrap paper.

If you want to use a formal approach, you have to either learn or develop a set of symbols to represent various elements. This is the hardest part for some people. Some diagrams look suspiciously mathematical, which tends to scare a lot of people. It takes a certain “geek” mindset to want to even work this way, but hey, this is Geekpreneur.

What type of symbols you use really depends on what types of problems you are solving. For structured diagrams, there are different approaches for different purposes, each with its own tightly-bound set of symbols. For example, many of you might be a bit familiar with flowcharts from when you took that college computer course. Then there’s  UML, or Unified Modeling Language, which is a general-purpose diagrammatic “language” used for software engineering. Basically, it’s a much more advanced form of flowcharting, but has its computer and business analysis elements.

What I’ve done over the years to take elements of various diagramming approaches and come up with my own hybrid visual thinking process. My version only means anything to me, just like Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings at one time probably meant something only to him. My diagramming approach is organic, and it changes frequently, when necessary. Overall, since I use diagramming/ visual thinking to solve all types of problems, including writing, coding, design, finances, and even goal-setting and achievement, I’ve found that not worrying too much about structure appears to be the best approach. I do often use mind mapping, but my paper-based mind maps usually turn into some sort of hybrid diagram that looks like a combination of football plays and wizard incantations. And it works for me.

Visual Thinking Tools

Some people prefer working with pen(cil) and paper, others like to work digitally. For me, it depends on whether I’m just sketching or producing a finished visual. Unless I have access to a sketch tablet, it’s easier to sketch on paper. Sketch tablet prices seem to go up exponential as they increase in square inches of drawing area. So it’s not always feasible to have a suitable for all types of visualizing. What’s more, paper doesn’t feel so restricting. You can always tape pieces together if you have to. However, for finished diagrams/ visuals, I do use digital tools.

Here are some of my visual thinking tools, past and present.

1. Paper - loose sheets in a clipboard, or a bound sketchbook.
2. Pilot HiTecpoint V5 Extra Fine ink pens. As a hardcore pen addict, I’ve wasted a lot of money on pens over the years, but these seem to work the best for me, both for writing and for visual thinking.
3. Sketch tablet - I always keep a couple of small ones on hand but rarely use them. If you’re going to, get the biggest one you can afford, and then design your workspace with the tablet in mind.
4. Visio - Visio, part of MS Office, is probably the granddaddy of digital diagramming tools.
5. Gliffy - Can’t afford Visio? Gliffy is web-based and free, though not as powerful.
6. SnagIt - SnagIt is a powerful screen capture tool from TechSmith.
7. Smartdraw - SmartDraw is like Visio on steroids. It probably costs more, but it’s worth every cent because of all the extra features.
8. MindManager Pro - MindJet’s MindManager Pro is not the only mind mapping package nor the first, but in a 1.5 year study of about twenty packages, I found it to be the most sophisticated.
9. Adobe Illustrator - One of the kings of vector-based drawing tools.
10. Adobe Photoshop - One of the oldest and most comprehensive raster-based image tools.
11. Adobe Fireworks - Fireworks is like a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop, offering both raster and vector imaging features. Once a rival of Adobe products, now owned by them.
12. Gimp - The Open Source lover’s Photoshop.
13. Inkscape - An OpenSource beta competitor to Illustrator and some Fireworks features.

I also spend a great deal of time visiting David Armano’s site, Logic + Emotion, for incredible visual inspiration. I highly recommend his site, and you should also check out his L+E Visual Thinking Archive at Flickr. For more discussion about visual thinking, diagramming and sketching, be sure to check out Sketching is the New Black, which links to numerous articles on these topics.

What Is Bootstrapping?

Bootstrapping, in a nutshell, is a simple business self-financing process whereby an entrepreneur spends only what is absolutely necessary and reinvests most or all of the profits until the business is self-sustaining. Or sold. I.e., little or no outside capital is used, at least initially.

By bootstrapping, entrepreneurs have built many successful businesses. If the business means enough emotionally or financially to the entrepreneur, the lack of capital can be the impetus to run the startup as efficiently as possible. Or they can go broke trying - which does happen, of course.

One of the most entertaining examples of the application of a bootstrapping mindset comes from the website One Red Paperclip. The right-hand sidebar has a pictorial explanation, but it goes something like this… Canadian Kyle Macdonald started with one red paperclip and, through a series of swap transactions across North America, managed to end up with a house. He started with essentially nothing and kept trading up in each transaction.

The fact that other people participated made a huge difference, of course, but these people were likely fascinated by his mindset and were glad to participate. Now this is not exactly how bootstrapping works, but the mindset is similar: start with what you have now and build it into something better. Kyle Macdonald did “work” for each transaction by starting conversations with people and promoting his “cause”. This helped him achive the transactions he needed to increase his “value” until he got what he wanted.

You can apply a similar bootstrapping mindset to a business startup. Even for an offline business, you can leverage the Web to promote and build your startup.

Mind Mapping Your Bootstrapping Plan

Notes
For this article’s example, I’ve used MindJet MindManager Pro software to create the mindmaps. You can get a free, fully functioning trial of MindManager Pro for Windows (30 days) or Mac (21 days).

Alternately, you can use any other mind mapping package, including FreeMind (multi-platform), Mindomo, MindMeister, or Comapping. (The latter three are web-based and only basic or trial versions are free.) Note: Mindomo has a desktop version which actually runs on Adobe Air.

If you prefer not to use mind maps, also consider using a spreadsheet (MS Excel, Open Office Spreadsheet, Google Spreadsheet) or diagramming software (MS Visio, SmartDraw, Gliffy).

Mind Mapping Process Overview
The assumption here is that you are picking an entrepreneurial opportunity that has some potential, and that you’ve done your research already. You’re simply going to map out your current status and some of the goals that you hope to achieve. The example I’ve used below is for building a web video publishing business.

Step 1
Start with two nodes: here/there, start/end, now/then or whatever you prefer. I’ve used Now/ Then in the example.

Step 2
See the diagram above.

For the “Now” node, list what you have to start your business with, including equipment, skills/ knowledge, leads, partnerships, startup funds.

For “Then” node, list what you aim to achieve. Include a time frame if possible (but be flexible), what revenues you’d like to be earning and how, whether you’ll have any staff or freelancers, equipment, etc.

Step 3

This is an administrative step I’ve added simply for reader clarity. Here, I’ve split up each list to prepare them for Step 4.

Step 4

Pair up current and desired items as best as possible, using a “strategy” node between pairs. In some cases you might have multiple lines in or out of a “strategy” node, as per the diagram above. Use what’s appropriate for your business scenario.

Step 5

Now fill in each strategy node with a brief note about what approach you might take. Don’t get too detailed just yet. Keep bootstrapping principles in mind: spend only what you have to; reinvest as much of the profits as possible.

Final Thoughts

You now have a very basic roadmap for working towards what you want business-wise. By breaking down short- and long-term tasks this way, the process should feel less intimidating than, say, “achieve success in this venture”.

Of course, you’re not done yet. This is only a starting point.  You still need to produce a more detailed plan for each strategy node (not to mention perform all the necessary tasks over time.) If you’re using mind mapping software to produce the detailed strategy mind maps, you can link each strategy node to a sub-map. So your master map will be organic, growing as necessary, or linking to new sub-maps.

To produce the detailed strategy maps, use whatever methods of problem solving (e.g., brainstorming, visual thinking, etc.) that you prefer. Use diagrams and images in your strategy maps, to help visualize what you are working towards. Try listing multiple options and later filter out those which are not feasible. Let your overall bootstrapping plan develop.

That’s the gist of the “tunneling” method of complex problem solving described here. The idea is to start by describing the current problem, writing down the desired resolution, and then exploring your options and building upon them. The entire approach uses what some people call continuous improvement, incremental change, stepwise refinement or even Kaizen. They all amount to doing things one step at a time. [Note: my use of the term tunneling is not the same as Ben Popken's use in The Consumerist, when talking about how to move to NYC and stay sane, but you could use visual tunneling described here to map out the solutions he provides.]

You can use this approach to solve very complex problems, starting with partial solutions. As you accumulate more information or additional options, you can expand your problem solving map accordingly.

Tools

This approach to problem solving is very visual. I’ve used the MindJet MindManager Pro mind mapping software (some alternatives: FreeMind, Mindomo, Mindmeister, Comapping), though you can pretty much use any sort of diagramming application (MS Visio, Smartdraw, Gliffy). Many of these apps either have free trials or free options. FreeMind is entirely free and multi-platform.

Problem Definition Process

1. Define your problem. This is your “start” state.
2. Define your ideal solution state. This is your “end” state.
3. Draw two nodes, “Start” and “End”, and sketch a path between them. (See the top half of the diagram above.)
4. List all the solution options for your problem that you can think of. Do not rule anything out just yet, no matter how absurd. Brainstorm if you have to, talk to people, research. Spend as much time as you need (within the timeframe that you have to solve a problem.) Keep in mind that a “solution option” can simply be a few words suggesting a solution. You do not yet have to come up with a complete plan.
5. Incorporate these solution options into a revised version of your problem map.

Here’s an example of the type of map you’ll end up with:

Tunneling Process

Now comes the “tunneling” part, as shown above. You have a basic solution map at this point, which is the “big picture, ” focusing on the end result. Now focus on the small picture, the details. How can you get to your desired result from where you are now? Which options seem most feasible? Do you know what each option requires?

Use whatever techniques you have in your problem solving arsenal to explore each option: brainstorming, visual thinking and diagramming, critical thinking, idea generation, etc. From this point until you decide on a final solution, you’re going to explore each option, adding in greater details, tunneling your way to a full solution plan.

The gist is that you do not know which option is best yet. That’s what you’re exploring. Add increasingly more specific details to each option in your problem map as you go. If an option is in itself complex, recursively apply the same approach to it as to the entire problem. Break it down into sub-problems and sub-options. Create a separate map for an option if necessary. The overall result is similar to a decision tree, but if you’re “tunneling” your way to a solution.

Here’s a look at the type of map you’ll have now:

Each solution option has a different level of detail, though any of this could change. This is an organic process. As one option very obviously becomes nonfeasible, eliminate it. Add new options if they occur to you. Add option details as you decide upon them. Draw diagrams, add charts or images if they help you. Break all problems and options down to their most “atomic” level.

This iterative, visual approach to problem solving is far less intimidating than mentally trying to solve complex problems. Each step of the refinement process gives you small “wins,” motivating you to keep exploring.

On the other hand, the mental approach to complex problem solving usually becomes overwhelming, making it far easier to give up. Even simply writing down your problem and options is an advantage over a mental approach. The power gained from a visual approach to problem solving should not be overlooked. A visual approach helps stimulate both the logical and creative facets of your mind.

Example

Up until this point, there’s no mention about what type of problem you can solve using this tunneling method. The answer: pretty much any type of complex life and work problem. Though since life problems tend to take longer to solve, at least in my experience, there’s a lot more time to collect and explore options and filter out what will and will not work. An example tunnel diagram is shown below, which for personal reasons have the details blurred out. It is “in progress,” and still has to be fleshed out some more, but the ultimate goal is starting to show a few clear option pathways. It should show you the essence of the tunneling method, visually speaking.

Final Thoughts

The tunneling method can be a valuable tool in your problem solving arsenal. There’s a great deal of room for flexibility to apply the methods you prefer to use, so use it as a basis for solving the more complex problems in life and work.

How long you take for the entire problem solving process really depends on how complex the problem is and how much time you have. I use this approach for very complex problems that might take 9-12 months to completely solve. Shorter-term problems can be solved the same way.

References

A tremendous resource for visual thinking and modeling is at Idiagram. Start at the home page and explore the rich collection of visual models, and try to absorb some of the processes described there. One section to focus on is The Art of Complex Problem Solving, which has some impresive visual aids.

This of course comes in handy if you’re involved in any sort of creativity work or activity. Greater flow of creativity and productivity translates either directly or indirectly into greater income, especially if you’re a freelancer or work for yourself.

It’s also possible to lose the flow, if you don’t sustain the necessary creative environment. What’s necessary for achieving this state of mind? Mental stimuli and breaks from whatever you’re doing “right now”. At least, that’s been my long-standing experience, both as a programmer and as a writer.

The crucial ingredient is a constant stream of input. Back before the Internet, that might have been newspapers, books (fiction and non-fiction) and magazines. Nowadays, you also have your pick of countless websites.

My own experience is that when you “feed your brain,” with stimuli (text, images, video, audio) from several niches, you cause the opportunity for ideas to intersect. (A fascinating book called “The Medici Effect,” by Frans Johansson, discusses the intersection of ideas in great detail. You can get a free PDF copy at the main website.)

Some Tips for Revitalizing Your Creative Flow

Those of you who’ve suffered creative blocks for long periods of time get into a cycle of doubt. But the solution might be a lot simpler than you think. Here are some suggestions for stimulating your creativity, regardless of what kind of creative work you do.

1. Consume voraciously. Whether it’s newspapers, magazines, books, websites, movies, whatever. The more mixed, the better.
2. Surf the web. Browse at least 50-100 web pages/ articles in a short period of time, say 1-2 hours. You do not have to do this every day - just when you’re feeling your creativity and productivity turn to a trickle.
3. Take notes. Glance at article and section titles. Save links or snippets of text and notes to a mind map.
4. Feed your eyes. Take in as much visual stimuli as possible: images, diagrams, video. I like to mix in browsing of design sites with whatever other topic I’m trying to write about. Flickr is a great place to start.
5. Feed your mind. Don’t just browse; try to do some reading as well.
6. Feed your passion. Make sure that your consumption of information includes topics that you are passionate about. If you’re lacking this, no amount of input is going to help your creativity.
7. Take a break. Go for a walk and think of something unrelated to the type of creativity you’re trying to stimulate. If you can’t take a walk, take some other form of relaxing break: watch comedy, listen to music, take a shower. Physical activity is often best.

My preference is to build up a mind map while consuming information. Not everything you see/ browse/ read needs to be saved - only that which catches your attention or begs for further exploration. Keep building the map as you go. You don’t need a new mind map for each day, though you can break the map down by date if you prefer. When you’re finished with some bit of information, you can remove it from the map to reduce clutter. (Or you can move older information off to a separate mind map.) Keep your “research” mind map organic.

This process will help you to store trigger points for later creative thinking. The break from your research environment is critical to generating ideas. It doesn’t mean you have to go for a walk every time you want to generate ideas, but it doesn’t hurt. As odd as it might sound, walks and showers seem to a great trigger for coming up with fresh ideas.

Some Caveats

The drawback is that regularly absorbing all the stimuli that you need to keep your “creative flow” does take time. If you’re a freelancer or contractor, you probably know this more than others that “time is money.” However, the alternative to not taking the time is to suffer a creative block - sometimes for long, fruitless periods. Find the time, make the time. Make it part of your work.

If you use an RSS feed reader such as Google Reader to track articles on websites in one or more niches, just keep in mind that it’s possible to get carried away. As a word of caution, I’ll point out that RSS overload last year led me to abandon subscribing to 1000+ feeds and I went the opposite way: not following any. So even though I kept visiting sites on occasion, my source of creative stimuli dried up, causing a several months long creative block. Now, even though I’m still staying away from feed readers, I’m making sure I have a flow of stimuli to keep my creativity and productivity going.

If you find yourself in the state of mind of not knowing what to do long-term, consider using a mind map for career planning. Whether you’re a freelancer trying to supplement your income with online and/or offline gigs, or you’re transitioning between careers, you can apply the method discussed below.

Career Planning Approach

The mind map above shows an initial approach, though this is refined in later. In essence, you want to list all possible opportunities, then filter the list with criteria that’s important to you. Pretty simple, right? (Note: the above diagram indicates a “realstic” measurement scale of 1.0-10.0, which I did not use in later diagrams. The idea is to refine your mind mapping approach as you go, and as it suits your needs. This is what I wanted to illustrate.)

Step 1: Brainstorm Work Options

Start by brainstorming all possible sources of income that you are currently involved in or have an interest in. Don’t “edit” mentally as you list items. By “source” I mean type of work, not a specific client. In the example below, I’ve intentionally included both offline and online opportunities to better illustrate the approach.

Step 2: Add Filtering Criteria

Now you can start the filtering process:

1. Which of these are work options are desirable to you?

2. What’s the $revenue potential/ month? You can be specific or you can just put down high, medium, low. You can also add in “very high” and “very low”, or switch over to a numeric scale. Remember that you are only apply your own frame of reference, in terms of the work currently/ possibly available to you.

3. How is realistic is it that you will get any work from this source? You can apply a high/ med/ low or a numeric scale. Use what you feel comfortable with. Keep in mind that over time, the “realistic” measure of an opportunity might change. That is, say, three months from now, you might find something is far more realistic.

4. What are the drawbacks of pursuing this work? Include any thoughts about time investment, physical or mental toll, training, etc. For example, you might want to do something and know that there’s a market for it, but there might not be any direct revenue. (One example from my list is WordPress plugin development.) Note that every opportunity can have its drawbacks. All that matters is whether something is a problem for you or not.

Step 3: Sort Your Work Options

To make this step easier to follow, the diagram above is the same as the one in Step 2.4, except that I’ve added color-coded lines (dotted) between column critiera. What we want to do is rearrange the list so that our best options are at the top.

I’ve put “Desirabilty” as the leftmost column of the filtering criteria. This comes from years in the workforce, and the realization that work enjoyment matters far more to me than money. The beauty of this mind mapping method is that you can rearrange the filtering criteria to suit your needs. For me, “Potential” comes after “Desirability”, followed by “Realistic”.

Consider: not being happy in what you are doing means potentially sloppy work, which means potentially unhappy clients, employers, or end users.  You can add other criteria to suit your needs. For example, you might put in a column of “Positives,” to compare against “Drawbacks.” I find that I’m intrinsically already thinking of positives, but if an opportunity is new to you, it might help to write them down concretely.

Rearrange the remaining items from most likely to least likely to bring you short-term income. The result will be something like this:

Step 4: Cull Your List

Now that you’ve arranged your options from what is the best course of action to the least, long-term or short-term depending on your criteria, you’ll want to cull the list down. Remove any items that have little possibility of bringing you revenue in the next, say, 6 months, or will bring you so little return and might interfere with more lucrative opportunities. Focus only on the short-term. You can work on longer-term goals separately.

Above, I’ve only removed a few items, regardless of what their desirability was: editing, podcasting, freelance diagrams, co-producing (film). I love podcasting and diagramming, but neither is likely to bring me much revenue in the short-term. As for film producing, that is a long-term goal, so I’ll revisit it in another year or two. On the other hand, I left a couple of options with low desirability simply becaus they are highly likely to bring me some short-term earnings.

Final Thoughts

This method isn’t perfect and you do have to adjust your filtering criteria according to your needs (short-term, long-term, freelance, entrepreneurial, contract, salaried). Overall, this approach to career planning allows you to see that something you thought you wanted to do might be better as a short-term, means-to-an-end opportunity rather than a long-term career path.

Still, going through this career management process with a mind map will give you a bit of a blueprint of where you might want to focus your career efforts. Just keep in mind that this plan can and should be organic. Revisit it every few months, or whenever you’re finding what you’re currently doing is unrewarding.

Notes

The maps in this article were produced with MindJet MindManager Pro. You can get a free, fully functioning trial for Mac (21 days) or Windows (30 days), but you do have to sign up.

In theory, it should be the solution to the ultimate challenge for the one-person freelance business. How can you take on more work when you only have one pair of hands and 24 hours in a day?

Sure, you can start earlier and work later. You can give up our weekends and dream of retiring early. And you can raise your rates until your lower-paying clients squeak and disappear.

But working longer hours can lead to burn-out, and saying “no” to work as a freelancer can hurt as much as carpal tunnel syndrome. Worse, it effectively means that you’re never going to grow. After all, if you ‘re not expanding when you have more clients than you can handle, when are you going to do it?

The Two Ways to Earn More

There are only way two ways to earn more income as a freelancer: charge more money; and take on more work. Ideally, we should all be doing both of them, and the best way to do that is to look for help.

Outsourcing projects to other freelancers is a common practice, and one not often discussed with clients who might like to that the person they’re speaking to is the person who will be completing the project. But many freelancers have a half-secret list of helpers that they know they can turn to during crunch times, and when it works, it can be very rewarding. Instead of sweating for your salary, you get to see someone else sweat while you take home a tidy commission for relatively little effort.

Find someone good, in fact, and it can become addictive. Gradually, you can shift from being a hands-on freelancer to being a freelance agency in which work is passed along for a fee. That’s fine if that’s the way you want to go. It’s still work though; it’s just a very different kind of work.

If you want to do both – to accept freelance projects that you do yourself while outsourcing work that you can’t or don’t want to do – it’s important to know which work to pass along and which you should never share.

Projects provided by your best clients, for example, you should always do yourself. The 20 percent of your clients who provide 80 percent of your income need to be well looked after. They form the bedrock of your business and the only way to be absolutely sure that they’re getting exactly what they need is to do it yourself. If your helper decides to move on and do find another job – which, of course, they can do at any time — you don’t want to be in the position of having to scrabble around to find and train someone new, and risk losing the biggest source of your income.

What’s your Signature Worth?

The same is true when you’re hired to produce your signature work. Designers, writers and other creative freelancers might all offer similar services but we’re all unique, with specializations and styles that are often the reason we’re hired. Some clients will want talent rather than style – they’ll be pleased with the help of any capable freelancer. Others though, will want what you bring to the table. Chuck Anderson, for example, is a graphic designer known for his psychedelic style. When he’s hired by clients like Coca Cola and Nike to produce that style in their ads, it’s unlikely that he outsources. He might do that though if he’s asked to produce work that anyone could do.

Those two conditions depend on the type of projects you’re asked to produce and the people who are asking you to produce them. But who you’re giving them to is important as well. It’s a mistake to believe that outsourcing your work is entirely effort-free. One of the biggest advantages of bringing in help is that the work gets a second look before it’s passed on to the client. You get to check the quality, tidy up any typos or mistakes and give the client work that’s truly finished. That takes time, and it’s time that has to be paid for.

If you’re finding that the time you spend editing and correcting pays less than the amount you would normally have earned, then your outsourcing isn’t working and you should probably be doing the work yourself – or turn it down.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, you shouldn’t outsource your work when you don’t completely trust the person who’s supplying it. It might take time to build that trust — and that’s always a tricky period – but even when you do have it, you have to understand what sort of work you can trust them with, and you have to know you can depend on them to deliver on time, time after time.

Outsourcing your freelance work can be an ideal way to grow from a one-desk enterprise into a small business. But it has to be done carefully, and with the right judgments about what to keep and what to share.

Just about all entrepreneurs have the same dream. We all want to see our services and products used by large numbers of happy customers. We all want large incomes. And many of us want to become the owners of big companies too with lots of contented, grateful employees. And if we have to buy lava lamps to make those team members happy… well, that’s just a price we have to pay.

A price we might not be prepared to pay though is the risk involved in borrowing. To expand from a one-man graphic design firm to a small design business with employees and fixed costs is a big step, and it presents something of a Catch 22: you can’t hire employees if you don’t have the work to pay for them but you can’t take on the work that would pay for them if you don’t have the staff to complete the projects.

Traditionally, the way to break that dilemma has always been to ask the bank to lend you some cash. These days, that’s about as much fun as asking your parents. Banks have stopped giving money to people just because they knew how to say “please.”

Hiring without the Salaries

There is an alternative today though, and that’s to remove the fixed costs of renting an office, paying for insurance, stumping up for health care, and so on, and build up a virtual team. Made up of people scattered around the country and even around the world, virtual teams don’t need offices, insurance, water-coolers or any of the other things that get in the way of hiring and building. They work from wherever they may be, sending in the tasks as they’re completed. If you pay them on a per-project basis, they won’t even need salaries.

It’s an approach that increasing numbers of companies are using. A survey taken in 2006 found that 23 percent of workers were either working at least part time from home or could do so, while Deloitte estimates that 100 million people could be doing some of their work without leaving the house by 2010.

But virtual working isn’t a perfect solution. Studies have found that productivity falls when workers switch to telecommuting (although it rises once a new routine has been created and they find there are no colleagues to chat with around the photocopier). Even established virtual workers though can suffer from some inefficiencies caused by distance working.

The most obvious is slow responses. Although some communication between virtual workers and their real employers is done by telephone and Instant Messaging, convenience means that much of it is done through email. It’s the best way to cope with differences in time zones and also in flexible working hours – one of the prime advantages of virtual work. But it also means that the employer doesn’t get an instant response and can’t know whether the work is on schedule. Questions and answers can be a slow process, something that can be particularly frustrating when deadlines are tight and projects need to be completed fast.

The best solution is to try to think ahead. Virtual companies might be more flexible than real ones but because the communications are clumsier, a message that might take a minute or two to convey in an office can take several hours to reach its target when delivered through email. Those delays have to be taken into account when giving timelines to clients or when planning a working schedule. Adding regular real-time chats can also help to smooth over any potential delays before they become surprises.

The Amazing Disappearing Worker

Worse than delays though are disappearances. It’s not unusual for an email to take 24 hours to be read, acted on and replied to. When that becomes two or three days though, either there’s been a breakdown in communications or the virtual worker has done a real bunk. This shouldn’t happen often but it can happen when an employee takes on more work than he can handle – or even if he’s just sick, suffered a technical problem or gone on vacation without telling you. Ideally, you’ll want to have more than one way of getting in touch with your virtual workers – a telephone number is ideal even if you never actually need to use it – but you can also get around this problem by making the deadlines clear and the times to speak regular. As long as everyone knows when the work has to be delivered, where the worker will be before then won’t be important.

Perhaps most important of all though is that you have to be able to trust your virtual team members. You have to trust them to meet deadlines and you have to trust them to deliver work at the quality you need. That means choosing them carefully – not an easy task when so many people think that to work from home, a computer and an Internet connection are more important than skill and knowledge – and it means holding on to them when you find them. You  might not need to pay a salary but you will have to beat the pay offered by competitors who want your talent. Loyalty isn’t always a big thing in virtual teams.

On the other hand, that applies to the employer too and while virtual workers do bring the odd disadvantage, not only can those difficulties be removed, but so can a virtual worker who brings more of them than he should.

There are times when you just need the work. Maybe your schedule isn’t full or a project’s been cancelled. Maybe you’re just starting out in the world of telecommuting and want an easy way to get your feet wet.

Or maybe you’ve just had it with clients and want to accept projects from someone who treats you like a friend instead of an employee.

Working for a freelancer may sound like you’re simply swapping one type of client for another but taking someone’s overflow can be a whole different experience. Someone who’s been in your position, who understands what it’s like to work from job to job and who knows how to put a request in an email in a way that’s clear and to the point is less likely to pay you late, promise projects that never pan out or ask for a million-and-one revisions. They’ll be understanding when it looks like you’re going to bust a deadline and they’re not going to keep making a project bigger while expecting you to keep your estimate the same.

Freelancers Make the Best Clients

That’s the theory, at least, and although the “client” will still have to meet deadlines, work within a budget and receive work at the right quality, on the whole, the theory seems to stand up.

Freelancers really do make the best clients, even if their own commissions mean that they’re rarely the best-paying.

So how do you find jobs like this?

Perhaps the easiest is to head to one of the freelance sites – eLance is miles ahead of the competition – and ask one of the top service providers if they need any help. There’s a good chance they will – or at the very least, will want someone with a good portfolio easy to hand when they do. That’s because if you look at the number of jobs the top bidders have won and the amount of money they’ve earned (both statistics are easily viewable at eLance), you’ll find that many of the top providers are taking on far more work than they can possibly handle. They’re accepting multiple jobs at the same time then farming them out to other providers. It gives them a chance to take a cut of the revenues while still milking a large and regular supply of work.

You might need to write to a few of the most successful providers before some of that overflow starts heading your way but indicate that you’re available – and show the sort of samples that fit their needs – and you should find that you’re soon attracting the attention of a very different sort of client.

But your approach has to be right too, and that’s a little trickier than tracking down busy freelancers in the first place. It’s not difficult for a major freelancer to look through the list of service providers and choose someone, but when he does that, he faces the same challenge that job suppliers have to overcome: how do they know that the person they’re hiring is both skilled and reliable?

Help the freelance to solve that problem and you’ll be starting with a huge advantage.

Again, your portfolio of work is going to be important but when you make contact, indicate that you’re  not a freelancer in desperate need of work – the best freelancers rarely are – but rather a professional who sometimes finds herself with time on her hands. Point out that you don’t really have the time to look for work and bid on projects but you’d be happy to consider providing any help they’d need if they think your experience and skills suit the project.

Help Offered

Create the impression that you’re offering help, not looking for it, and the other freelancer will see you as a team member rather than a member of staff – and that’s really what working for freelancers should be about.

But there’s one more thing that working for freelancers should be about, and that’s receiving not one job but a regular stream of jobs from someone prepared to do the searching and pitching for you. When you get the relationship right, you should find that it changes from being one of client/provider and even team member/team member to agent/client. Instead of spending time seeking out projects, making pitches and negotiating fees, you’ll have someone to do all of the dull stuff for you, letting you focus on your most valuable actions: designing the Web pages, writing the content, creating the code or whatever it may be.

The secret to keeping that work flowing is to resist the temptation to see the service you’re supplying as assisting another freelancer, and to consider it as doing your own work instead.

That’s not as easy as it sounds. You’ll be aware that anything you submit will be reviewed, edited, and maybe even changed in important ways before it’s passed on. It will also carry the “client’s” name not yours so your reputation will be left relatively unharmed if you fail to come up to scratch.

All of those things just add up to an interesting test of your work ethic – with valuable rewards if you come through. Not only will you have a steady supply of work, you’ll also have reduced your own job-searching workload, and you’ll have picked up a client you can rely on and enjoy working for. That’s the sort of thing that can lead to some very good times indeed.

Mastering a niche is one shortcut to success. Instead of competing against a large  number of established businesses, you can spot a gap in the market, pitch your services to a small number of people and put down some firm roots. From there, you can grow gradually into any field you want without risking your entire business.

It’s a strategy that’s worked for Microsoft, which started with operating systems but now produces products from media players to game consoles, and it worked too for any number of now-large corporations which started with soap, records, insurance and who knows what else then expanded to become today’s multinationals.

But what happens when the expansion begins? How do you avoid diluting trust in your brand… and how do you do it when you’re just a one-man band trying to widen your income base?

Pick up a Book

One example to look at is the way publishing companies work. The publishing industry is dominated by a small number of major firms but that’s not the impression you get when you browse a bookstore. Pick ten books off the shelf on ten different subjects, and you might feel that they’re coming from ten different publishers. In fact, they’re likely to be imprints owned by just two or three major publishing houses. Random House, for example, owns DoubleDay, Fodor’s, Ballantine and a whole host of others. And the company itself is just one division of Bertelsmann, a giant, German media company.

Random House doesn’t hide any of this stuff. Its website lists all of the publishers it owns and the imprints that they own. But it doesn’t go out of the way to make those details clear to shoppers either, and nor do other publishers. Someone who picks up a Dummies guide, for example, understands exactly what he’s getting: a brand that he trusts in a niche offering basic information about a topic. He doesn’t know – or care — that he’s actually holding a book produced by Wiley, publishers of Frommers, The Unofficial Guide To…, and owners of WeightWatchers.

Look beyond large companies though, and you can see the same thing happening in small businesses too. Web design firms like Peppercorn generally offer a wide range of services from basic design to search engine optimization to on-site games and print services. When they pitch for a job though, they only focus on the tasks the client wants to achieve. Portraying yourself as a specialist is always going to be more persuasive than appearing as a generalist.

But those other skills could be useful too so it doesn’t pay to hide them. The fact that Peppercorn can also create small online video games, for example, could be of interest to a firm that asked it to design a gaming review site.

And Here’s My Other Blog…

The same principle works for bloggers. Blogs are usually the ultimate in long-tail nicheing. They focus on one specialized topic – in our case, helping experts turn their knowledge into money – and they appeal to a very select audience. But it’s possible to offer information of similar quality to other, carefully chosen audiences on other topics. ButtermilkPress.com, for example, is a blog about Southern food but its author also runs a host of other blogs about cats, self-help, Hollywood and even office stationery. Each blog is independent but there’s no reason why lessons learned researching one topic shouldn’t enhance blogs on others. (We also produce Photopreneur, a blog that helps photographers earn income from their images. The actions and strategies that we see photographers take while researching that blog are often applicable to experts in any field and enhance this blog too.)

That means that branching out from one niche into another – even when your business is as small as a one-person blog – isn’t difficult but it is a balancing act. The different niches need to be kept separate – as separate as publishing imprints – but they shouldn’t be hidden. Knowledge from one niche can certainly help another and the cross-promotion can be beneficial too. Do well in one niche and you already have a market, at least some of which is likely to be interested in your other field of knowledge.

And that’s the real benefit of branching out into new topics. You get to grow and expand your business. You also get to refresh your enthusiasm and appeal to new markets. But most importantly, you also find that it gets easier every time you do it because you already have at least one market to draw on.

Choosing a niche may be difficult. But choosing two niches can make your life a lot easier – and wealthier too.

It all used to be so easy. If you were a team leader and you wanted one of your team members to do something on your project – change the icons on the interface, for example, or completely rewrite the code so that it works – all you’d have to do is tap them on the shoulder in their cubicle or hunt them down in the photocopy room and tell them what you needed. The whole conversation would last about five minutes. You’d have to suffer the behind-your-back eye-roll at the end of it but you could be sure you got the message across and that they’d be getting on with the work. Just as soon as they’d finished reading The Onion or chatting up the secretary.

These days, when team members can be scattered from Kentucky to Kazakhstan, it’s not so easy. If you want your team member to change the design of the home page so that it looks like a news site rather than a MySpace page, you have to describe exactly what sort of layout you need. You have to put it all into an email, send it off and wait until they read it.

And if you don’t explain it clearly enough – or if you use the sort of vocabulary not easily understood by a native of Almaty – you’ll have to wait another day or two to receive their questions. The whole process can drag on for days, adding a whole new meaning to “virtual working.”

See You on VOIP

There are ways around the problem, and most of them involve skipping the email and adopting a more direct approach. Merav Knafo, for example, co-founder LookBetterOnline and founder of iJoomla, two companies whose staff are based in Russia, Romania, India and California, opts for Skype, preferring voice communications to written instructions. She even finds that the distance makes these sorts of meetings briefer than they might have been in real life. And less fattening too.

“Usually these are very short conversations and very straight to the point,” she told us. “While in corporations meetings can take hours, in the virtual world it’s only a few minutes. And no need to bring donuts.”

Skype is certainly faster than email, and privacy issues aside, it’s going to be a lot cheaper (especially when you don’t have to pay for a box of sugary buns) than dialing direct. But it still means passing on messages and requests verbally, a system than can leave room for misunderstanding, especially when at least one of the team members isn’t a native speaker of the language being used. Merav’s first language is Hebrew which means that both she and her programmer are using a foreign language, so gets around the problem by using detailed diagrams decorated with big red arrows to indicate exactly what she wants.

“The communication is very good,” she says.

Clearly though, all of this requires a greater investment of time and effort than simply bringing up a Web page on a monitor, pointing at the navigation bar and saying, “That’s horrible. Make it prettier please.”

What’s the Time in Astana?

It also means paying attention to the timing. One of the disadvantages of virtual working is that each member might be operating in a different time zone. And one of the advantages of virtual working is that each team member can also set their own schedule. The result is that you can never quite know when a team member is working, when they’re working for you and when they’re off picking up their kid from pre-school, training for a triathlon or out on a date with the secretary at their last company.  Merav makes her Skype calls at a set time rather than when a problem arises. For her that usually means first thing in the morning, but that’s also the end of her programmers’ workday so she has to wait until the next day before she sees the results.

Presumably, it also makes it harder to be spontaneous but perhaps that’s not a bad thing. Ask any cubicle worker what they find the most annoying about working in an office and after considering the commute, office politics, paper jams in the photocopier and the limited salary, they’re likely to say the team leader poking his head around the cubicle wall every five minutes with a bunch of new instructions that contradict the last set of instructions.

When a team member is easily available, he’s also easy to bother, a tendency that doesn’t lend itself to maximum efficiency. And besides, when you’re constantly tapping him on the shoulder and pulling up Web pages, how is he supposed to get The Onion read?

They thought they were so clever. And they were right. But clever people tend to attract attention and sometimes lawsuits too. Sometimes that’s just because they’ve made a lot of money and someone else wanted a slice. Occasionally, it’s because they got curious and stepped on someone’s toes. But it might also be because they’ve been naughty and need to go to prison.

Here are five of the ugliest court cases to hit geeks of different types.

Gary McKinnon – Alien Hacker

One case currently underway involves British systems administrator Gary McKinnon. Keen to find evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology and free energy, McKinnon made his way into 97 computers used by the US Air Force, Army, Navy, NASA, Pentagon and Department of Defense in 2001-2002. He also left a message promising continued high-level disruption and signed himself “SOLO.”

The Americans weren’t very sympathetic. They called his actions “the biggest military computer hack of all time” and estimated the costs of his actions at $700,000. In July of this year, UK Law Lords agreed that McKinnon could be extradited to face trial in the United States where he may receive up to 70 years in prison. His lawyers have lodged an appeal based on his Asperger’s Syndrome.

McKinnon claims that he found evidence that proves the existence of everything he was looking for. Describing himself as a “bumbling computer nerd” he also told the BBC that he accessed the computers using a Perl script that searched for blank passwords and that he usually hacked while under the influence of beer and cannabis.

Vladimir Levin –  Master Criminal

Another hacker who faced extradition to the United States was Russian Vladimir Levin. In 1994, Levin succeeded in gaining access to accounts held at Citibank from which he transferred $10.7 million. Three of his accomplices were arrested trying to withdraw the funds from accounts in the US, Israel and Europe. Levin himself was arrested in 1995 during a layover at London’s Stansted airport and extradited to America where he received a three-year sentence. He was also ordered to pay Citibank $240,015 in restitutions. The bank says that it recovered all but $400,000 of the stolen money.

It was ten years though before it was revealed how Levin managed to penetrate Citibank. A member of a group of hackers sold the systems analyst the access information for $100.

Mark Zuckerberg — Facebook Hero… or Geek Thief?

It could have happened to anyone. While studying at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg was hired by classmates, Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss to write code for their networking site ConnectU.

A short while later, Zuckerberg launched an oddly similar service called Facebook from his dorm room. The site took off, signing up more than two-thirds of Harvard’s students within just two weeks. Zuckerberg’s former bosses then sued him, claiming that he had stolen their idea, design, business plan, and source code.

The suit was dismissed without prejudice in 2007 and refiled shortly afterwards. In June 2008, Facebook settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The New York Times has also reported that emails prove Zuckerberg took ideas from Aaron J. Greenspan’s houseSYSTEM website.

You’ve Been Robbed by the Geek Squad!

It’s not just teenage game junkies who use pirated software. A 2006 lawsuit filed by Texan software company Winternals accused Best Buy’s Geek Squad of using its programs without a license. The two companies had been in negotiations to use Winternal’s systems recovery and data protection software and Winternal had supplied sample licenses for the duration of the talks. When the discussions broke down, Best Buy neglected to tell its Geek Squad agents to stop using the $1,200 software.

A judge granted a restraining order, demanded that use of all unlicensed software be stopped, and forced Best Buy to turn over all copies of Winternal’s programs within 20 days. Eventually, the case was settled and Winternals, then owned by Microsoft, released a licensed version of its program to the Geek Squad.

Bratz: The Lawsuit

Photography: callme_crochet

Not all geeks are computer nerds though. In a case that should have scared the bejesus out of creative types everywhere, in 2005, Barbie-makers Mattel sued Bratz manufacturers MGA Entertainment and designer Carter Bryant for $500 million.

Bryant, the company argued, had produced the sketches for the best-selling Bratz dolls while employed by Mattel, and sold the ideas to MGA. That breached an agreement that Bryant had signed granting Mattel the rights to anything he designed during his time as an employee.

Bryant and MGA argued that the designer had produced the sketches between April 1998 and January 1999, when he was not working for Mattel.

In July 2008, a federal jury found that Bryant had created the Bratz line while was working for Mattel. Mattel was ordered to pay $100 million in damages. Bryant settled out of court.

It’s blogging’s fault. The idea that anyone can write the first thing that comes into their head and that other people would find it interesting was always going to be a bit self-indulgent. It can happen. But it happens when publisher moves away from him- or herself and follows a few rules. They don’t have to follow all of them but just including one or two in a post can be enough to turn a website into a favorite site and a post into something worth reading instead of browsing and leaving.

Too Many Websites Think Research is Repeating

The first rule is to provide new information. Far too many websites consider research to be repeating what’s already been said on other sites, and usually without attribution. The only way to gain readers doing that is to hope that yours is the first site that your readers see. When the subject’s popular, the odds are going to be low.

New information though doesn’t have to mean breaking into the Googleplex to steal their corporate secrets. It can be something as simple as pointing out what other sites are doing, or even better offering interviews. China Beat, for example, examines media coverage of China but rather than simply repeating what news sites are saying, it also contacts scholars and runs Q&As with them. That could be done with a quick phone call or even a list of questions sent by email. It takes a little effort but the results will always be original and new. It’s good content.

A second rule is to serve the community. Digital Photography School does this very well. Run by professional blogger Darren Rowse, the site operates in a very competitive environment offering advice to budding photographers. DPS manages to stand out by offering advice that others wouldn’t have thought of but mostly by involving the community of photographers. Obviously, you have to have a community to do that – which requires offering good, original information in the first place – but once you have those users, making them feel a part of the community keeps them loyal and returning.

Forums are Content Too

Darren does that by making clear that he too is a photographer with the same interests as his readers (as well as being a professional blogger, something he doesn’t try