Melbourne’s creative and freelance community gather for Australia’s first National Freelance Day

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Ashley Playsted NFD.jpgOn November 12, Melbourne’s creative and freelance community celebrated Australia’s first National Freelance Day at General Assembly.

Australia’s freelancing community, estimated at more than 3 million, had their first chance to gather together to celebrate their independent way of working on Australia’s first ever National Freelance Day last week (12 November).

Over 100 Melbourne freelancers descended onto General Assembly for Australia’s first National Freelancers Day to discuss how to future proof a freelance career, scaling a business, and living and working a life on their own terms.

Diana Thornley.jpgSeven speakers presented seven minutes of wisdom in a series of lightning quick, TED-style talks, on the theme of ‘Future Proofing Your Freelance Career’ from speakers who are either past/current freelancers or work with freelancers.

Will Dayble founder of Squareweave discussed the art of turning a freelancing business into an asset Kristen Boschma, Susan Young, Ashley Playsted, Bob Watts, Rachel Service.jpgyou can sell, which raised interesting points about exit strategies and leaving a legacy.

Digital and social media strategist Kirsten Boschma shared her insights on marketing yourself at the rate you deserve and the value of developing a ‘portfolio career’, which would be representative for how future talent will be assessed upon.

Bob Watts, technical director of DT Digital, opened a discussion about what he and other agencies look for in a freelancer, and award winning art director and designer Diana Thornley inspired attendees to learn the art of the elevator pitch and how building the perfect freelance network may be as simple as ‘inviting the world to coffee’.

The audience then heard from a panel of experts including Wealthie CEO Ashley Playsted and personal branding expert Susan Young to discuss pay negotiations, articulating your value as a freelancer and how to develop your elevator pitch for future opportunities.

Freelance Australia founder Cameron Rambert said the interest and feedback from participants had been astonishing.

Says Rambert: “Freelancing is increasingly being touted as the ‘future of work’ with numbers of people involved in some sort of freelance work increasing every year. Platforms such Freelancer, CloudPeeps and Gigster have highlighted the impact technology has had in creating a freelance workforce.

“National Freelancer Day exemplifies why flexible working is synonymous with the Future of Work. There has never been a time as good as now to become a freelancer.”

Rambert says the next National Freelance Day will build on this year’s successes and look to open up accompanying events in additional states.

For more information head follow Freelance Australia on Twitter and Facebook or visit www.nfd.org.au.

(Picture 1: Ashley Playsted, Picture 2: Diana Thornley, Picture 3: Kristen Boschma, Susan Young, Ashley Playsted, Bob Watts, Rachel Service)