If you’re a freelancer, you’ve probably run into this scenario: a client calls with an “urgent” project that needs you right this second! You reluctantly agree to do a preliminary conference call to see what’s going on, and while everyone is thrilled to have you on the team they manage to dance around your questions about 1) when the project officially starts and 2) how and when you’ll get paid.

Keep asking those questions. And don’t stop until they are answered satisfactorily. Producers and project managers especially are very often brought into a project in the early formative stages, even before a proposal is approved. Yet savvy clients understand the value this role brings to the eventual on time delivery and profitability of a given project. So those are the kinds of clients you want. You want clients who will pay you for your time on the conference call and any follow up work you do (such as writing a detailed proposal) before the project gets the green light.

If the project gets approved, everyone on the team will benefit from the up front project planning and know what to expect going forward. And what if the project doesn’t get approved? That happens occasionally. But if you’ve set expectations appropriately by not doing any discovery work or proposal writing on spec you’ll at least get compensated for whatever time you have invested in the project to date. And this might do the whole industry a big favor.

Well, it’s been a long time since my last post. I’m back, and with a cause. I just returned from this year’s SXSW Interactive show in Austin, and it wasn’t nearly as good as last year. At the 2007 show I came away energized and full of great information to take back to the office. This year I came away frustrated because much of the session content lacked clarity and focus.

The schedule seemed a little out of balance this year. It was as if all the good sessions were scheduled together at the same time. The two best sessions IMHO were Tim Ferriss’ The Art of Speed and Bloggers Who Made It. At both of these presentations the moderators were organized and gave each panelist a fair shake to express themselves. And the panelists were good!

And the Mark Zuckerberg keynote? No comment. If you were there you know the deal. If you weren’t check out Tech Crunch’s video and link to all the hubbub here.

Now to be fair - I missed the Friday sessions due to a flight delay, so I can’t comment on those. All I know is that if I’m gonna shell out this kind of cash next year the session content needs to improve. SXSW has amazing potential to be one of the premier thought leadership events in the interactive space. It’s time for it to step up again like it did in 2007.