fckie.com

I had the honour of being a judge at the D&AD Awards recently, in the ambient category (one of the categories where no awards were handed out, sorry for that). Every morning of the judging period, there was a short presentation on the what, how, why and who of judging. On the ‘who’ slide, D&AD recognised there was a “growing army of freelancers” out there, which they increasingly wanted to involve in the judging process. It got me thinking about the growth of the freelance army in ad/marketing country.

The growing number of roaming ‘guns for hire’ has to do with a few things:

• increasing number of start-ups (at their highest level for 20 years in 2007), in search for cheaper and more flexible solutions than the traditional agency model
• the need for more specialists in a changing industry (from web designers to game developers, from sustainability experts to mobile marketing experts)
• agencies embracing more open agency models, involving ‘outsiders’ as a way to guarantee fresher thinking to clients (Adam & Eve is a recent example of an agency who has embraced this principle)
• people increasingly looking for a better work/life balance

What is interesting to witness is how this growing freelance army is finding ways (both online and off) to organise themselves, and make the most of their collective brain. These are some of the initiatives I’ve come across which seem to be riding this wave, finding various ways for free-riding individuals to join forces (sorry for the London bias, but that’s where I happen to be based):

There’s the Jelly initiative, which seems to be spreading across the globe: people from various backgrounds working alongside each other, whether it’s in somebody’s house or in other spaces. The London Jelly is still very fresh, only 7 people so far (ao Tony Sephton from web design agency Hype London, graphic designer Christopher Riding, Dan Pegine from Honesty Box, social media & collaboration expert Lloyd Davis).

The Purple List is PSFK’s online community of trends and innovation professionals, spread across the globe. Their sales pitch goes like this: “There’s no longer a need to find inspiration from the other side of the world by hiring a big local agency - simply contact a member of The Purple List.”

The Tuttle Club (named after the movie Brazil’s Harry Tuttle, the ultimate freelancer) holds a Social Media Café every Friday morning at the Coach & Horses in Greek Street, Soho, W1D 5DH. They’ve also started a wiki listing all the free and open spaces in London, “where smallish groups might congregate to do something, like talk, understand things better, make plans, organise other things.”

Behance Network is a free platform for the world’s leading creative professionals. They enable users to form groups (”circles”), to gather around interests, share content, get feedback.

Meetup enables real gatherings of like-minded people. Time described it as “a convenient, non-threatening way to connect to other people who share similar interests and live nearby.” Some of the more popular marketing/innovation-related groups are the London Creative Enterpreneurs, Minibar (for the web 2.0 geeks & freaks) and The London Graphic Design Living Room

The Hub offers office space (& much more) to social entrepreneurs. They are, in their own words, “an incubator for social innovation. We offer membership of inspirational habitats in major world cities for social innovators to work, meet, learn, connect and realise progressive ideas.” They’re based in London, Johannesburg, Rotterdam, Bristol and Sao Paulo. I visited the London space recently and it looks like a great environment.

There’s probably plenty more, and plenty more to come too. So happy to hear about any other related initiatives.