Wow, that's easy! Or is it?

We went on holiday to Turkmenistan, a country with a dictator, whose face is plastered everywhere, with monumental buildings and a reasonably good vibe. We had stopped for lunch at a wayside restaurant when I received a call from Armenia. I don't know anyone Armenian... The caller was a British guy, owner of a financial funds transfer firm who wanted to create an online version so foreign workers could transfer money using their phone. Kinneret Yifrah had recommended me to their design firm and could I start working as soon as I got home? Could I? Of course, I could.

That started a great working relationship between myself and NAFCA, the branding and design agency, and I did a voice and tone analysis, created the microcopy and wrote web content. I had a great time and the work was spread out over a few months.

Sometime after that (and microcopy for another business under my belt), a company creating software for product managers contacted me, could I come to visit them. I naïvly went along and only when there realized that I was one of many and I had to prove myself. I was shocked because until then I was the only contender and no questions were asked. Needless to say, I was totally unprepared - I had no portfolio, no ready-to-hand recommendations, etc. - and didn't get the job. I was mortified. Kinneret told me that this was the norm and that I had been living a charmed life until then.

So I created my professional website (jacquilicht.com) using Wix. I had a ball and it's really easy. I also created a basic portfolio. In addition, the microcopy community in Israel was putting up a resource web page and Kinneret listed me there (you needed a website so mine was ready just as the page went live - a happy coincidence). 

Now, whenever I'm asked for a portfolio, I customize my basic version according to their needs and present that. Nowadays, if I don't get a job it's usually because of the price.

Talking about pricing. Apparently, the hourly rate that I'd worked out in 2010 was too low for the microcopy market here in Israel. I was told to up it considerably and only go lower if more than 50 hours of work was involved. Over time, I've settled on two hourly rates, one for large corporations and the other for startups. This works for most customers. I refuse to lower the rate any further because then I believe that my work will be taken for granted.

How I changed focus

I hadn't realized how long it was since I last wrote a post! One of my sons is setting himself up as a consultant and I linked him to one of my earliest posts where I worked out how much to charge per hour. A lot has happened (good stuff) since 2014, so where to start? 

In the summer of 2015, I saw a post on LinkedIn from a friend of mine asking if anyone out there did English microcopy. I looked up "microcopy" and realized that I had been doing it for years. As a product manager, I always defined the interface and what to write where. For more about microcopy see What is microcopy?.

This company had heard about microcopy from Kinneret Yifrach but she doesn't work in English, thus the post. We met up, she told me more about today's microcopy and how first we would define the voice and tone of the brand. This was something totally new and fascinating. We decided to work together for this project.

I learned so much, especially in defining the brand personality and how to use that when creating microcopy. Today's writing is much more conversational and liberating. I went on to do the microcopy for two more projects for this company. Kinneret also entrusted me with translating her book, Microcopy - the Complete Guide, into English.

I'm no translator and told her so, but she was so disappointed by the results from real translators that she asked me to try one chapter. Which I did. Kinneret has her own personality and way of expressing herself, which by now I knew really well, and I attempted to keep that in the translation. She loved it and so did other people she showed it to, so I ended up translating the whole book. I got paid for this and don't receive anything for each sale, but still, it remains the ultimate guide to microcopy and I strongly recommend it.

I haven't gone into the translating area, only sometimes when a client needs me to translate web content for use on a site I'm corroborating on. What I have delved into, with some success, is microcopy. I define the voice and tone of brands, I create the microcopy for products and occasionally write content for websites. I still do technical writing, but it is a smaller portion of my workload. 

One last thing. What's the difference between microcopy and UX writing you ask? I don't know if this is the official differentiation, but for me, microcopy is writing when you have defined the brand's voice and tone, whereas UX writing is more generic. It still sounds good, follows all the rules, but without a defined personality. 

I'll write more posts about how I progressed after this first job, and what brought me to create my own website. 

Reliance - an exciting startup

In previous posts I mentioned that I am part of Reliance (רליינס), a startup that tries to make sense of the relationship between landlords and their tenants. 

We want to provide the means to make payments online, enable messaging between the landlord and his or her tenants, enable them to find quality maintenance personnel, keep the books so that they have a full record of income and expenses, and much more.

For example, John and Sue have rented an apartment from Mr. Smith. He has asked them to give him 12 post-dated cheques for the year's rent, plus other securities. Two months later, a pipe bursts and floods the hallway. John and Sue send Mr. Smith an urgent message. He instructs them to have it mended and provides them with the details of his plumber. He'll pay them back by cheque.

With Reliance, Mr. Smith enters the rent as a recurring expense, it is automatically deducted each month, and for the month with the burst pipe, John and Sue only pay the rent minus the cost of the repair. Not only that, but if they don't know a plumber, they can locate trusted maintenance people on the site. Once a maintenance item is identified, a docket is opened and its progress can be tracked by the tenants and landlord.

Both the tenants and the landlord can keep track of their detailed monthly expenses and income, and the landlord can quickly understand what each property is earning or costing.

So that's the idea, and currently we are getting close to releasing the MVP. This is the basic product, and will be used for the pilot. Not all the features I mentioned will be there, but they will be available soon after (we hope).

We have a web page up, www.reliancerent.com, that provides more details. You can sign up to be part of the pilot. 

What do I do for this project? Well I started out by taking the concept and creating well documented user stories so that a developer would know the logic behind each step. Of course these are constantly being updated. In addition I do whatever is required - that's the great thing about startups; you are exposed to so many other facets of running a company. This is not the first startup I have worked at, but it is the first that I am so emotionally invested in. 

The view from our startup space and entering the Challenge Cup

The Library (the space that we call our office) is situated on the 9th floor of Migdal Shalom. Built in 1965, Migdal Shalom was Israel's first skyscraper, and the tallest building in the Middle East. But even though we're only on the 9th floor, the view is amazing. You see the oldest buildings in Tel Aviv, built at the end of the 19 century by people trying to escape the overcrowded Jaffa. And of course you see the Mediterranean.

View from Migdal Shalom with Jaffa and the Mediterranean in the background

So Reliance  (רליינס) was asked to take part in the Challenge Cup 1776 (http://challengecup.1776dc.com/). 

This is (as they tell it)

"a global competition to identify and celebrate the most promising startups tackling the biggest challenges. The competition will center on startups innovating in four primary categories: education, health, energy, and smart cities"

I think we were only asked to fill in the numbers for the Smart Cities section. All the other entrants are up and running with users, whereas we will soon start our pilot. Different traction entirely. But we are looking at it as a learning exercise as the guys receive pitch coaching.

Update after the event: It went brilliantly. Both co-founders learned a lot and also had exposure to other startups. Omri (the CEO of Reliance Rent - www.reliancerent.com) gave the 1-minute pitch, and though I may be biased, it was a good pitch. As we thought before going in, we didn't have a chance as some excellent up-and-running products were introduced. But a good time was had by all.

Working with a startup

Wow, it has been a long time since I added an entry to this blog. I have been working as a freelancer for three years. At the beginning I was very busy, and then life settled down. 

Me with the Reliance team

Today I work with four companies. I do the documentation for two companies and product management for the other two (plus documentation as required). There are times when I am rushed off my feet as all companies approach a similar deadline, and other times when I have hardly anything to do. Funny thing is that when I actually do a scan of my average income it isn't that bad; it isn't what I used to earn as a salaried employee, but then I work much less hours (which is a good thing as I find myself tiring a bit more). I have made the decision not to actively search for any more work, but am happy if someone approaches me to help them.

At one of the companies, Reliance (רליינס - www.reliancerent.com) I work for free. The idea belongs to my son and I believed enough in the idea to work on it with him. I'll talk more about it when the right time comes, but it is taking much longer than we anticipated, mostly because we are trying to get to the beta stage without external investment. As it is a company that will be dealing with payments, we made the decision that quick & dirty  was not an option. I do hope that we made the correct decision.

We have each (four of us) been working out of our own homes, and meeting once a week (or more as needed). We have just been accepted to "The Library" (http://www.thelibrary.co.il/). Tel Aviv municipality offers startups practically free facilities. So now we have an office - well a shared table - we can call our own. There is a meeting room where we can hold meetings, say with investors, and a number of other groups that we can brainstorm with. I see that the site is not yet updated, so we don't appear yet as residents.

The team at 'The Library'

Anyway, as I work less hours nowadays, I decided to offer my services as a mentor (no money involved) to anyone at the Library who needs advice on turning their idea into a product. That was yesterday, and that evening I saw that my LinkedIn profile had been visited my many people, and I also received new invitations to connect. Interesting.

It will also be interesting to see how I manage now that I need to get to an external site; I have become attached to my home office. 

Closing the Third Project

I was invited to Europe to pass across the project (#3). The trip was scheduled for just a few days before we go away on our 7-week trip, but that’s life. I made the most of it and saw friends in the evening. I believe that the project is in good hands and that they have hired an experienced technical writer.

I spoke to the CEO and head of product management to see how they saw our future connection. I was pleased to hear that they believe that there will be so much work that I will again be asked to help. If I am lucky, I might also receive some product management work as they are reopening a project that I was in charge of when it was created. So I come away feeling optimistic and knowing that I finished off in a professional way.


Notes on travelling and being a freelancer

I was told that I either collected receipts for everything or received ‘eshel’, a Hebrew acronym for food, drink and sleep. I did both and I’ll let the accountant decide. Company #3 paid for the air ticket, hotel and taxis to and from the airport. I only needed incidental expenses, such as food and local taxis.  So looking at that I think ‘eshel’ plus taxi expenses sounds about right.

This will be my last post until May as I will be in the far south with only satellite contact. But as that is a pleasure trip and not work, the only thing I could publish would be my diary…

Winter and Spring

Tel Aviv had a few days of absolutely wonderful spring weather. Clear atmosphere, small clouds lightly scudding across the sky, 23 degrees, absolutely the sort of weather we wished we had all year. Birds were busy singing and trying to attract mates, cats were hissing to get their females.

Then winter came back and that was also great, as we don’t have enough days of rain. I felt like I was back in London. Heavy rain then lighter rain; grey and perfect in its own right – especially as it is only for a couple of days at a time.

I am busy finishing off my large project (#3) handing over to the new and full-time technical writer. The release was delayed for a month, so she has time to get to know the subject and finalize the content. I have created a guide with steps of what needs to be done and how. Next release she can work out what the best process is for her.

Winding up the tax year

This is the first time that I need to actively submit a tax form. For the last three years my husband has had to because he is no longer employed, but now I have to declare my earnings and expenses. Today I visited my tax advisor and brought with me all the ledgers, receipts, and invoices, whatever I had collected for 2010. She was very pleased that I had done what she had requested of me back in October and then went on to point out a few errors that I had made – nothing too bad, mostly transport related. For example, you can register the full amount of a car expense (garage work, etc.) but only two thirds of the VAT. I had entered two thirds for both. For the buses, where you top up a card, you enter that expense, and not, as I had done, each journey.

She now has to sift through it all to make the correct claim. I still could not give her my 106 for the months I had worked as an employee last year, the bank form for all the taxes they took from me, and all the pension funds and other deductibles end-of-year summaries.

It will be interesting to see what the end result is. I have not yet paid income tax for the months I worked, so will that be more that the rebate we (the family unit) should receive? 

Need to look further afield

I have been busy of late, mainly with contract #3. Contract #1 had a product release at the beginning of the month, so there won’t be much work this month; #2 is cash-strapped so is only providing work when there is no other way out. #3 has a release date in March, so I should be chock-full with work, especially as I started late. But no, as I feared, the developers are so busy developing that they do not have time to provide details for me to document, or even to pass comment on what I worked out for myself by using the product. So far I have kept myself busy comparing what was there the last time I documented (in June) to what I see now, and updating the online help and written guides. To be fair, I have had some contact with a couple of developers on new features – but not nearly enough.

I was informed on Thursday that they have been interviewing local technical writers and that my services will probably not be needed after the upcoming release. I am going on a long holiday just after that, so it means that when I get back I’ll need to go project hunting. I thought of trying now, but companies do not want to talk now about their documentation needs in May.

Anyone need an experienced technical writer?

I can work anywhere

I needed to go to London to visit my ailing mother. It is wonderful being close to her, and now that I am a freelancer I can work anywhere, as long as I take my laptop with me. No more asking for favours from work, or using up precious vacation days. So here I am, working as usual, and mum can see me while I am working and smile.

Generally, I have been working hard since I last wrote an entry. There is a tremendous amount of work and my major problem is getting feedback from subject experts. But it is great fun and I am enjoying myself.

Now I just have to lug my laptop back home at the end of the visit.

I feel great

I need to access a remote site for project #3. I installed the Shrew Soft vpn but was always timed out when trying to connect. The IT person was unable to locate the problem, but remembered reading something about a problem with the software and Windows 7 Ultimate. I decided to go hunting on the internet, and after a number of false starts found a recommendation to disable the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter. I did this and now can access the vpn. Cool!

Now that I had access I could check for the documentation items opened for the next release. Some were easy and I have already fixed them; others I need access to the system to check or I need expert input.

I also had a call with one of the developers where he walked me through his new development. I asked questions and elicited more info, and it really felt great to be part of the system again.

Drumming up work

When you work for a company you do not need to worry about the work coming in. Usually you are overworked (at least in hi-tech). Occasionally I would hit a dry spell and then look around for things I could improve, such as initiating a project to update an online help (written before my time) that made it very hard to understand the application. Someone pointed me in the direction of an old tutorial, written for the antecedent of the product, which I could use as a base. I worked through the tutorial, learned the new product and updated the material to what is now in place. This became part of the online help, and also enabled me to improve the rest of the help.

Now I am independent. Theoretically, if the work comes in as anticipated I should have no free time (I have three long-term projects); but that isn’t the case in practice. Project #1 is inconsistent – sometimes a lot of work and other times nothing. Project #2 seems to have dried up. Project #3 is in the holiday season.

So what do I do? Look for new projects or try to see what’s happening in the current projects? At the moment I have taken the easy path, i.e., e-mailing my contacts at the three projects to get the material moving to me. I must become more proactive…

Sometimes work can be a slog

I think that when people come on board as product designers/business analysts, they think that the work is exciting. They do not realize that some of the work is absolutely fascinating, such as requirements gathering and analysis, but that there is also a lot of slog work involved – writing the requirement spec, keeping it up-to-date, etc. That of course is life, and I always made a point of not putting off the boring stuff.

As a technical writer more of the work is of the boring type. For example, I have just spent the last week rebranding the complete documentation set for project #3, which was sold to another company and thus has a new look and feel. Working on the new template was fun – making sure it fit our documentation needs, but then came the actual process of moving each document across. Boring is the only word that fits. Thank goodness that part is finally over and the more interesting material should start flowing in once the holiday season is over.

Having said all that, I am of course grateful for any work I receive and get paid for, boring or not!

I sign my third contract

I signed my third contract, just before the Xmas vacation started. I have to admit it was a wonderful contract in that it was straight forward and I understood every word. Amazing (compared to the contract I received from the first company I signed with).

I have already started working, as there is so much to do in too little time. There is a massive rebranding exercise and then I can start modifying documents or creating new material, based on the current state of the product. I hope that the subject experts will put aside time to bring me up-to-date as soon as the holiday season is over.

That is always the major problem when working with R&D. Documentation is only dealt with at the last minute, when the developer in question has finished his work. This leads to overload on the part of the technical writer. We use Agile, so the developments could theoretically be provided to me at the end of each sprint, but that rarely happens. For this release, I am coming on board rather late in the process, so I really need to have the material provided on time. Here’s hoping.

Being sociable

No, I do not mean going out in the evening or weekend and meeting friends, I am talking about one of the changes I am getting used to by working from home. We all know how productive we are (not) in the office, with so many people around us and the endless meetings. I used to come in very early so I would have a couple of hours of uninterrupted work. But talking to people, basic interactions, gossiping in the kitchen, going out for lunch are all missing now that I am at home. I can work harder, I can work whenever I want to and go out and do other stuff during what was once defined work hours, but I do not interact with my workmates. That’s not quite true of course as I do occasionally talk to someone on the phone.

About once every two weeks I go to contract number 1 (my previous place of employment) and make sure that all the documents on the server are the latest versions. Today was one of those days, and I thoroughly enjoyed the gossiping and going out to lunch with good friends.

Is it possible to lose one’s social skills? I think you can, and so I must remember to be sociable from time to time. It is so easy to get lost in work, or a good book, or TV.

Work, work and more work

So if I have to work so hard on my third project, I need to get as much work done as possible on the first project, which has a final release date of beginning Feb. All the basic work has been completed, and I am now waiting to receive feedback (if any) from QA that might change a detail here or there.

In the meantime I have finalized (proofed, PDFd and linked to the documentation set) all those documents I think are OK, in order to cut down on work at the last moment. If QA find any last minute mistakes I will need to re PDF, but it should take much less time as all the prep work has been completed.

The third project is on average 10 hours’ work a day (!), but that takes into account that I receive on time the information required on new features and changes to the system.  I am supposed to go and visit the office, but by the time we closed the deal it was too close to Xmas. Maybe that was lucky in that Europe is totally snowed in. See below for a wonderful photo a friend at the office sent last Friday showing her way to work. They will try and arrange remote access so that I can play with the system and access documents. In the meantime I am busy doing a rebranding exercise.

The third contract saga continues

It currently looks as if I will not take the infamous third job. I feel as if they are playing around with me. I originally proposed a price and they never got back to negotiate with me, so I didn't know if the price I offered was reasonable. Last week I was asked to rephrase my proposal so that it was only for the next release. I quoted a price based on feedback I received from them of the expected amount of work, and sent it off.

My contact tried to reduce the price. I wouldn't mind so much if I knew what the acceptable price per hour was. I originally told my contact how I came by the price I had quoted and told him to talk to me if my information was incorrect. He told me that they were looking for a quote from a local person to put mine in perspective, but I never heard back.

What I thought that they were trying to do was save money by saying that it is only three months’ work. So I wrote an e-mail to my contact and his boss and explained how I got to my price structure and had asked for feedback, and that the amount of work was the same, never mind if I started in November or January, just more hours work in each day. They were supposed to phone me yesterday, but didn't, and if I don't start soon I will not be able to complete the work anyway. So basically I have given up.

Strange, but I feel relieved.

Update: Well it all goes to show – I received a call yesterday and they are offering me a contract for the project. They asked for a slightly lower rate, which is acceptable to me (at least now I know what they expect for an hourly rate). It is actually a project price but based on my assumption of the amount of work involved. So (1) my fears were unfounded; and (2) if I start next week I can still manage the project, albeit by working flat-out (10 hours a day versus the original 6.5). But now I know that I have guaranteed income until I go on my long vacation. After that I’ll need to start acting as a real freelancer and start lobbying for work (and also get used to the idea that some customers will try to make me feel bad about the price quote as part of their strategy).

Pension fund and income tax

When I stopped working, my pension fund was freed by the company I worked for and became my property. This is considered a tax event (iru’a mas) because I was not employed by another company after that. The form stated that I owed taxes on a certain portion of the pension, so it was explained to me that I needed to get the income tax office to sign the form that I was not taking the pension out, but leaving it to mature.

I went into the tax office with the form and my last three pay slips. I expected to see a clerk and took with me something to read while in the queue. I went to the information desk on the ground floor and asked where the tax office information was. The website had said that it was on level 0. She told me to go up two floors and it was on the left, and when I queried the level 0 bit, she said, yes that was level 0 - weird.

Anyway, I found the desk in question and the nice lady took the form and told me that she would pass it on the correct office. She gave me a phone number in case I didn’t hear back from them within one week. This is surprising on two levels, first that she volunteered such useful information, and second that she expected me to receive the signed form within a week. Not only that, a real tax officer phoned me a couple of hours later to confirm the details.

And that was that, I got home 75 minutes after I left it and was in time for breakfast.

Update: I received the signed form today – 2 working days after I handed it in!!!

On a less positive aspect, there was a newspaper article today mentioning that some pension funds had actuarial problems and would need to reduce the monthly pension. My pension fund was listed (with a deficit of 9.3%), and I have only just over one year before it matures (at the previous female retirement age). Now I have to go check this out.

A great five minutes

This weekend we planned on going on a birding trip down south with some friends. We were to meet them at 6:30, which entailed us leaving the house at 4:30 (AM!!!). We went down to the car and the remote wouldn’t open it. Shaul went upstairs for the other key and that also wouldn’t open the car. Once we worked out how to get the manual key out of the remote (we have a Prius), we could get into the car but not start it. It was totally dead.

So we phoned up the friend we were supposed to pick up and others we were supposed to meet and cancelled our participation in the trip. We then waited until 7:30, phoned the Toyota garage who told us not to touch the battery but to be towed in (he said that you don’t touch a Prius). Our insurance company wouldn't agree to this and a technician came out and started the car with leads. We then drove to the garage where they changed the special battery. This took nearly one hour as it is located in a very difficult spot in the car. Luckily the battery was still under a partial guarantee, and we only had to pay 50%. So we became NIS 605 poorer but drove off with a brand new battery for our hybrid.

The upside of this is that because I am now self-employed, two-thirds of my car expenses are recognized, and I also get back some of the VAT. So our day was pretty boring, and not what we had planned, but then I heard rolling thunder getting closer. Eventually it reached us and it also started raining. I went and stood on our sheltered balcony and then suddenly the heavens opened and it absolutely poured down for five minutes. It was such strong rain, that I got Shaul to come out and we stood there together and just watched this (for us) rare phenomenon. The rain hit the dry earth and the smell was heady. For those of you reading this outside Israel, we have had a terrible drought this year and there was no rain in November; we had a few minutes of light rain early last week, and c’est tout. So those were my great five minutes, which I would have missed if I had gone birding.

Walking around Tel Aviv

I have just come back from a lovely walk around the part of Tel-Aviv that was built from 1909 to 1924. The original neighbourhood built outside of Jaffa was called Ahuzat Bayit, and was considered a sleeper neighbourhood for the Jewish merchants working in Jaffa. Many houses no longer exist, others are falling down and a few have been restored, but the atmosphere is charming and quite European. At the northern end – around Rothschild Avenue, it is very leafy with mature trees providing a lot of shade; the noise of the cars does not penetrate and there are wonderful overhanging balconies replete with flowering plants. The whole neighbourhood is full of street cafes – definitely continental in feel.

A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the dead period for work, we took a walk in and around Jaffa, looking at the original Arab buildings and the Templar buildings. In the renovated railway station (originally providing pilgrims with a way to get from Jaffa to Jerusalem), you actually see both styles right next to each other.

So one of the benefits of working for myself is the ability to take a few hours off and just walk and relearn the city.