Week 26

The end of this week marks 6-months since I decided to take City Infinity forward as my full-time job and quite honestly, I have no idea where this time has gone. A good appraisal system will have regular reviews and so 6-months seems like a sensible place from which to take the time to reflect.

In the first few weeks, I was completely up for another role with a consultancy and I'll be forever grateful to those who I had such discussions with about a potential role. Doing my own thing full-time was certainly an option and if I am being honest with myself, being in my 30th year in the industry post-graduate means that I would have been having a serious think about the idea come next summer anyway.

Still, we have to play the hand we're dealt with and thanks to some established relationships, the first couple of weeks in my new role had me pretty much full blast with barely time to think! When I did have a little more time to think it was about other permanent roles, lots of "what ifs" and conversations about bids and commissions.

I wouldn't be honest if I was saying that I have been 100% busy since May, and so one of the things I learned about pretty quickly was to have other (professional) things on the go because I need the routine of sitting down at my desk and working. It was the ideal chance to pull together evidence for a professional diploma, to plan some technical writing and to say yes to a couple of things that wouldn't pay the bills, but were interesting and would help others with campaigns that needed a technical eye.

I was initially looking forward to dropping the corporate baggage that goes with consultancy, because being my own boss allows me to do what I like right? Well, no. I still have timesheets to track my spend against budget, a pipeline tool helping me to look at the future, an idea of a revenue target, and the bones of a business development strategy. I'm also my own IT and admin support of course, but I get to choose the office biscuits.

Yes there's stuff you have to do, even if it is just you; however you also have bags of freedom. My clients obviously need me to deliver to their brief (and hopefully with some added value), but I now have complete autonomy on how respond to those briefs and how I deliver my work. The buck stops with me, but I decide how I play my hand (the term has its origins in poker as it turns out).

So, how am I doing with the work I am producing? Early days for sure, but I think getting repeat business and being recommended is encouraging, as well as (with others) securing work competitively, including something that was against stiff competition that has turned out to be incredibly interesting and fulfilling to me as a designer.

What do I need to work on a bit more? I'm happier delivering work than winning it (within that wide definition) and so I need to work harder with the whole positioning piece and getting out to talk to people. It's not my skillset or comfort zone and so I just need to keep on pushing and trying harder. On the flipside, getting to speak at events, workshops and conferences is always a good conversation starter for me, so there's my "in" to this trickier part of my practice.

What am I doing well on? I'm delivering good advice, giving good options and I think in some cases, helping clients to admit to some of the issues they kind of knew they had to overcome, even if it was going to be challenging and difficult in the short term. I'd also say I'm helping with some tricky issues; even if my solutions are not going to be able to be taken forward in the short term, they are helping people to imagine the art of the possible.

So where next? Fortunately I am quite busy until Christmas and there are a couple of projects straddling the holiday period, but I am going to be seeing what I can get booked in or off the ground to keep things moving in January - so do drop me an email if there's something you want to chat about ([email protected]). Into 2025, I would be very pleased if I could come back with a year-end update at the beginning of May in which I can report that I'm continuing to deliver an interesting work for a mix of clients, both with and without partners and collaborators.

I'm not the first engineer to try their hand at being an independent and I won't be the last. I don't have any immediate ambition to expand into a larger entity, my interest remains with trying to solve tricky issues. I'll be disappointed if I fail, but at least I will have tried and that's the main thing I have picked up in the first 26 weeks of this (whatever this is) - have a go at it because you might like it. The terrifying thing is with every week that has slipped by, I am less and less interested in being an employee again. Maybe it's not terrifying, maybe it's actually excitement messing with my brain!

Thanks to everyone who has given support, encouragement and work this past 6-months. It has been very much appreciated and I am in your debt.

Alt text on photograph - A red two-way cycle track with a centre line marking. To the right is a black footway at a slightly higher level and a verge on both sides. There is a family in the distance walking along.