Henriette Weber

SXSW has been great. Yesterday Bruce Sterling took the stage and did a keynote – and it was an absolutely amazing keynote. He also mentioned the “global microbrand” a term that Hugh Macleod has been discussing for a couple of years now.

Global Microbrands are or companies without space and time, that everybody know of, in small fragments of a much bigger industry. So people behind these microbrands are extremely valuable speakers at conferences, advisors etc.

I have actually been thinking about it for a while – I love my work. I love running Toothless Tiger, but sometimes it seems like I don’t “do” anything. I talk. I tell people what to do to make things work on the web. My clients think I rock.

Yesterday I even caught myself considering a really great joboffer for a fulltime job. Something I don’t do normally.

I think that even though I like the might and glory of being somewhat of a global microbrand (I don’t see myself as a global microbrand – im probably a mutation of it =) I really want to do something. Because in my head it feels like Im not doing anything. I don’t work. I talk. I write. I help people do kickass projects. But I don’t have a project of my own that I can take to webheaven, a project that is useful for other people and that I have time to work on.

My project is so far going to involve geekculture, sustainability, action instead of talking and is going to be based on community and the now-open-sourced-former-fantastic-rockstar-client jaiku.com. I think I might toy around with it since even though with all this twittering, my heart still belongs to jaiku. Maybe I’ll even do two projects. A geekculture one and a actionpacked sustainable community based on Jaiku.

I dunno yet. In my honest opinion Jaiku is the best functional microblogging service out there. It’s just not being developed anymore and I want to change that.

I have decided to add some pratical community experience to henrietteweber.com. Let me introduce “I heart communities” – it is going to a “how-to” column where I will react upon questions that is often asked me. I have been thinking about how I could actually answer these questions and then get them out to a broader public.

So I hope you will enjoy “I heart communities” as much as I love to write about it.

peace out =)

This is my office. Well yeah duh! You’re probably thinking. But really, this is where all of my work lies – I really don’t need anything else than my laptop, a notebook, pencil and my phone to get my day in order.

I have had an office, where I went to work in the middle of Copenhagen for the last couple of months. Which has been great – but, it has been an ekstra stress factor to my day that I felt that I HAD to go to my office. The other thing is that I haven’t been that good at using it, because I very soon found out that I couldn’t write from there. When you’re writing a book it’s kinda obvious that you need to be in a place where you can write.

So I moved my office back to Hvissinge.  And I cancelled my office in Copenhagen, even though I am going to miss the EXCELLENT people sitting in there. I can work from anywhere really. But I think my base needs to be my home, when I get my first employee (as I have planned in a couple of months) the tune is going to be different probably – but for now, my office is my home.

so here’s the 10 things I love about my home office.

1. I don’t have any stress getting to the office

2. I can work whenever I want as long as it doesn’t collide with my family time

3. I can wear slippers – that’s a big deal for me (heck I could even wear my pj’s too if I wanted)

4. I can dance

5. I can nap (I love napping)

6. I don’t have any extra costs of an office in the city, or transportation to it.

7. I get a lot of city anyway, and I see people because I have client work in there almost everyday

8. I get to have an office dog ( and he’s really happy im home, even though he’s just sleeping all the time) (picture below)

9. I get to make my lunch myself

10.  Im relaxed but focused and at work. for some reason it’s easier to me to do all the business-y stuff from home. phonecalls skype calls, etc.

This message has also been posted to all other social communities im in ( like a wildfire!) I haven’t been updating henrietteweber.com that much lately, and I am turning the website into something more than a blog ( basically because I haven’t prioritized the blog that much since I became a freelancer. So now – look out – Henriette Weber.com is going to sum up everything I do in my work and personal life ( yeah it’s gonne be chaotic, but awesome in it’s own Henriette way)..

“So Christmas has finally entered the Weber household. Today I have an excuse of contacting all my fans around the globe.

Toothless Tiger has been my bread and butter since I got married ( to be exact since the 21st of may) and so far things are going really great. I have developed myself as a freelancer in ways I haven’t even thought about, I have become so much clearer on what I do and what I don’t do… and…

Today, I celebrate.

Why ?

because over the last couple of months I have been working hard to get a message across to the world. Both in form of a book, but also in form of a talk and an idea I have been working on for ages.

In addition to that my book is almost ready to be published, some of you know that people have actually placed bets on me being able to transform the danish publishing industry ( and maye the global)..

the story: My book was dumped by a publising house. After licking my wounds I found out again that I need to do everything myself. It’s hard to be a kick ass expert with no apperent need to compromise and become mainstream. Hence came Toothless Tiger Press into works. It is a publising house – with one eBook so far =)

Today I am on 24ways.org writing about rockband’ism. In addition to that, my small publishing house called Toothless Tiger Press has opened with it’s first eBook (my own) called “why every company should be a rockband”. I hope you will find your way to toothlesstigerpress.com and read it =)

It’s such a thrill to me, to know that I have the support of you guys to actually change the business world.

Have a great christmas – next news from here will be when the big book is out ( working title is : online presence strategies – and the art of being where people are)…

hugs from a happy tiger !

Henriette

I am still very much in love with my life as an entrepreneur and a freelancer. It rocks! and it rumbles..

My biggest fear is that I will be estranged from my family life because “mom/wife is working all the time” – Clients are happy and I think I might have developed a strong workethic. Even though everybody tend to want to get a hold of me most doing my dinner hours ( from 17 – 19 each day) which needs some moderation from my point, because otherwise I can’t get to do all my cookin’

I am currently working from my in-laws house in Aabenraa, which is about 300 miles away from CPH and I am sitting here in a comfy bear chair writing and blogging.

When I get back to Copenhagen I will give you your ears full about the new coworking copenhagen scheme which is not completely done and statemented but it will be soon =) I will be working from Østerbro around 2-3 days a week being much more productive – we are setting up an “office enviroment that is quite exceptional and connected” with a lot of different creative minds coming in on a daily basis =)…

As you probably have notised, my creativity is springing around like a kid in toyland and I love being able to be selfsustainable…

Oh and I have several trips out of the country coming up…

Also, I have had a proposal for changethis.com accepted, so everybody go and vote for me ( and please tell your friends to vote for me as well =)

Next really big thing coming up is the raw material for my book which needs to be finished by August 1st… wuhu =)

so.. Toothless Tiger is going really well ( big YEY). Which also means that Im blogging waaaay much more on the Toothless Tiger blog than here… This is my personal blog, but since Toothless pretty much is my personal life these days, much of the action is happening over there..

SO ! my first lesson in selftaught entrenpreneurship  is: I need to get out of here, I must find an office where I don’t have 1000 silly excuses for NOT working… I borrowed a desk from Troels the other day (at his office called basement) and I was highly effective… more effective than I am at home.

So now I am looking for desks… everywhere across the city of CPH… then I can’t do any napping, washing, singing etc or anything else during my workday…

One thing that I am really happy that I decided to invest in is highrise and  a free productivity tool called hiveminder

So I am still working on my workethics.. apart from that I am enjoying freelancing in a way that is extremely positive for me… this is what I was supposed to do..=)

So.. this is my first day as a freelancer (and first workday as newly-wed)… and there’s a lot to be taken care of. As I have previously written on this blog, Thomas has given me a lot of freelancing books on how to manage everything. I am currently looking into deploying a good workethic working at home.

So the first steps will be:

- No checking email except for lunch and after work

- using productivity tools to actually keep in mind what I should be doing (The last thing I do when the workday is over    is that I set new to-do’s for the day after

- no IM or Skype unless necessary

- no naps ( even though I love a good mid-morning nap)

I have an idea that this is going to be a freelance blog for a while now =) anyway, I hope you like my considerations