So I guess I’m offering independent contracting services now…

Back when I was a product manager at Printrak and then at Motorola, waterfall development methods were the rage. They involved a lot of documentation. I or one of the other product managers would write a marketing requirements document, and then someone would write a technical requirements document, and then other people would write other documents such as design documents and test procedures and the like.

Of course, modern evolved people don’t do that stuff any more, because we are all agile. And if we think that the term “agile” is just too trendy, we can buck the trend and say that we’re “iterative.” Whatever term we use, we’ll do something, tweak it a little bit, and then do it again, hoping that each iteration is an improvement on what we were doing previously.

Sometimes we decide on Day 1 that we are going to do The Big Thing and use iterative processes to do it. And sometimes…it just happens.

When I became a “free agent” in early July, I was devoting my time to landing another full-time position. (I still am.) So, I was busily doing that when I received a message from someone in late July. I’ll paraphrase the message:

Hey, John, I know you’re looking for full-time work, but in the meantime I have a small project that perhaps you could complete for me.

This sounded interesting, so I provided a quote for the project, completed it, got paid (which is always important), and learned a lot in the process.

Around the time that I completed that project, I received a message from someone else. Again I’m paraphrasing it.

Hey, John, I know you’re looking for full-time work, but in the meantime I have a small project that perhaps you could complete for me.

This one sounded interesting also, so I provided a quote for the project, completed it, got paid (again), and learned a lot in the process.

And then last week I got a message from a third person.

Hey, John…

So, without planning it, I find that I have become a de facto independent contractor. I’ve had to research a LOT of topics along the way (here’s an example that I tweeted about publicly), but in essence I have iterated myself into a professional provider of marketing and writing services.

So while I’m still looking for full-time employment (see my LinkedIn profile if you want to see my qualifications and experience), I’m taking independent contracting jobs as I receive them. If you want to see a list of the types of services that I can provide, please visit my Independent Contracting page.

And don’t forget to come back in a week or two to check it again. I may potentially iterate the services that I can provide. Or perhaps I’ll start a company that is publicly traded on NASDAQ. Who knows?

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