Day 3 in Hvar and the final day of the Ouishare summit before the island tour tomorrow, oh and the party tonight. It’s been a tough assignment!
There were many great sessions today, connections and knowledge sharing, which is what I love about these events. There has been another collective inspiration gained that having so many people doing super cool stuff brings. However, the standout conversation was on terrace with Matija and his super cool Mum.
Matija is freelancer and he also organises Freelancer Week, which is in October, an open event to bring freelancers together all over Europe. We discussed together the ins and outs of being a freelancer.
Firstly, being a freelancer is not this cool nirvana of owning a shiny MacBook, consulting with Microsoft and working part of the year on beach. It’s a hand to mouth struggle for many all over the world, who have often become a freelancer because their previous job disappeared forever.
Second, many freelancers are isolated, depressed and struggling to find help.
Thirdly, they are living in the shadow of the glitzy over-hyped startup circus.
The conversation centred on what can be done to highlight these issues, to connect freelancers and to look at how we can change the understanding of what being a freelancer really is and how collectively we can help each other.
Freedom is something that a freelancer aspires to have but many are hooked up in replicating what they previously did for their former employer in a never ending race to the bottom where they find it harder to sustain themselves. Their rights that they enjoyed as an employee have also gone.
We need to unite and find a way of bringing a greater focus and understanding and to realise as AI gathers pace we may all find ourselves in the shoes of a freelancer or unemployed.
