Of course the reality of the situation is that the ‘office’ is more of a conceptual space, manifesting itself physically anywhere from the confines of my bed to the slightly more upright setting of the dining table. It’s been courtside at the Australian Open, castle-side in a coffee shop in Prague and poolside in Sri Lanka too. But try explaining that to a traditional client expecting secretaries, desks and boardroom tables, which seemingly add significant credibility to a professional undertaking.

The idea of opening up a brick-and-mortar office has certainly crossed my mind. After all, it would be nice to see my staff members more often. And to have a central point of operations on those days filled to the brim with inner-city meetings. And, you know, to work upright and avoid the persistent finger cramps borne of seating scenarios wildly unsuited to work.

But is a lack of back spasms and a largely unvisited boardroom really worth the significant expense it incurs? Sure, it’s great to show clients around from time to time and really own a space that speaks to your brand. But how often does this ever really happen?

By and large, clients (like most of us), are far happier to have you over to their offices, as this saves them the hassle of driving, parking and risking possibly inferior coffee. Chances are, if they ever do decide to visit you, it’ll probably be out of obligation. In short, everybody loses, and most of all the person paying that exorbitant rent cheque every month.

Of course much of this amount is paid towards a ‘reputational expense’ of sorts, as when you break the news to clients that you and all your staff members just work from your respective homes and seldom even come into contact with one another, you’re probably going to have them giving that contract a second thought.

You see, for those with more traditional professional leanings, a lack of office can mean one of two things: either you’re dirt cheap or flat broke, neither of which is exactly a scenario that inspires confidence. But here’s how I see it.

Firstly, by eradicating the expense of an office, you free up your resources to pay for more important things, like your employees’ salaries for instance. Secondly, with the world becoming more of a global village by the day, clients are no longer concentrated in a contained area, meaning the likelihood of satisfying the lot of them with a single space is highly unrealistic.

Additionally, if you’ve ever spent hours stuck in traffic, cursing the poor driving skills of your fellow office-bound brethren, you’ll know just how much time you waste simply getting yourself to and from work on a daily basis. Now imagine the time you’d save by simply rolling out of bed and switching on a laptop? Sure it doesn’t sound super professional, but chances are you’re getting a hell of a lot more done than the suited and booted who spend a vast majority of their lives on the road.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, doing away with an office space offers up creative free rein. When your working world is contained within your laptop, you can set up shop anywhere that inspires you, creating daily changes of scenery that enable you to draw on diverse influences that the boardroom-bound are sorely lacking.

So there’s nothing to be ashamed of the next time your client asks where you work. After all, how many people can legitimately call the world their workplace?

Thanks to glorious tools like Skype and Slack, the more antisocial among us are now able to go about the business of running a business without ever really having to hold a conversation with another human. Yes, today we can lord over our empires (admittedly small as they might be), assembling teams from across the globe, and all the while never having to engage in minor pleasantries of the ‘how was your weekend?’ variety. Thank you internet.

Whilst this approach to leadership might fly in the face of literally all advice ever given, it’s not necessarily as outrageous as you might think. You see, to a new generation of digitally savvy workers, the thought of actually talking to another human being seems entirely unnecessary – after all, why would you do that when you can WhatsApp, text or Snapchat?

It’s based on this reticent approach to social interaction (as well as my own relative lack of enthusiasm for small talk) that I went about establishing a business located entirely in cyberspace. Instead of an office, we have Skype. Instead of working hours, we have WhatApp. Instead of conversation, we have communication.

Yes, the two are in fact different. You see, when you’re in the same room as someone, you’re inclined to talk a whole lot about nothing. Do you really care how your colleague’s weekend went? Or what they’re doing this evening? Probably not. Will you discuss these things during the course of the day? Most likely. Yet all you’ve achieved as a result of this unnecessary bout of dialogue is a headache and the sneaking sensation that you probably should have made plans of your own.

When communication takes place exclusively on digital platforms, you’re far less likely to become embroiled in unnecessary chit chat, saving your interactions for work-related topics that in fact further productivity. And while that’s not to say there’s no room for banter on Skype, you’re probably more likely to think twice before you say something.

‘But what about keeping tabs on your employees?’ is the one question I get over and over again. And it’s true that this virtual existence does make it harder to stay abreast of your workers’ movements. Hell, they could quite possibly be having their nails done or even taking a nap while you’re knee deep in deadlines. Has this happened before? You bet. But does it really matter at the end of the day?

You see, the virtual world works slightly differently to its in-person counterpart, requiring less in the way of actual time and more in terms of output. So whilst you might not exactly be overly thrilled that your top performer has stepped out for a quick cut-and-blow in favour of doing anything remotely productive, the bottom line is that there are deadlines to be met. If you can restyle your hair AND get that article in before 5pm, that’s fine by me.

Naturally, there are those who will take this type of freedom too far, which is why it’s imperative that you get your recruitment efforts just right. It takes a very specific type of person to master the type of discipline required to take on a job with negligible boundaries, not to mention one that offers very little scope for social interaction. But find the right person that you can trust, and you’re onto a winning wicket.

If you’ve got a team you need to manage, but would rather do so behind the cloak of invisibility afforded by the internet, here are a few top tips to bear in mind:

1. Be very careful about who you hire – self-discipline isn’t a common trait, and a misstep in this regard could leave you with a team of slackers with exceptionally well-maintained manicures.
2. Trust your people. If you try to keep tabs on your employees’ movements you’ll do nothing but bring about a premature heart attack. Your employees will sense your trust in them, and usually do their best to honour it.
3. Communicate efficiently. When you have less time to chat, the words you do choose to share are more significant, so it’s important that you express your needs clearly and succinctly.

But whilst entrepreneurship is full of unexpected (and usually costly) surprises, there are a few aspects of the job that 100% live up to the hype. Perhaps my favourite is the fact that I am never really required to be dressed. Yes, the days of pressed pants and crisp shirts are now a thing of the past, traded in for loose-fitting tracksuit bottoms and dishevelled hair that leaves me looking more like a demented old professor than a highly motivated professional.

For many this may sound like a dream (and aside from the occasional bed sores it generally is), but there are in fact a few downsides to this picture that can get one in trouble from time to time.

Firstly, this pyjama-clad lifestyle renders one completely incapable of dressing like a normal human, which becomes a problem on those rare occasions one has to encounter clients. I do find that when asking someone to pay you, it’s generally best to look vaguely respectable. But when you only have two formal shirts in your closet (one for meetings, one for weddings) and have long since lost the ability to iron anything, this is a tougher ask than you might think.

On countless occasions I’ve come screaming into a meeting ten minutes late (another ability lost is that of being able to understand traffic), frantically patting down my woefully creased pants, strategically using laptops and briefcases to cover up the evidence of my less than stylish lifestyle. Bless my suit-clad clients for their charitable willingness to look the other way and explain me to their stakeholders with the all-encompassing phrase: ‘He’s a creative’.

Yes, a creative, desperately trying to be a businessman, but failing more often than not. Do I know how much profit we make in a month? Not likely. Do I have any understanding of financial forecasts? Not a chance. Do I rock a pair of flip-flops and shorts? You bet I do.

Given my line of work, I tend to hide myself behind the digital divide for the most part, cloaked in invisibility and masking my inadequacies with well-worded emails signed off with professional platitudes like ‘Kind regards’. But even the Internet is no longer a safe haven for the unsuited and booted. Curses be upon those who developed the concept of videoconferencing, which, thanks to increased bandwidth capacity, is now something that can be initiated without any warning – something that has led to more than a few awkward virtual encounters.

There’s nothing more horrifying than that moment a Skype conversation escalates into a full-blown video conference, as the promise of a casual audio catch-up reveals itself to be a room full of respectable looking individuals expectantly gazing into the camera waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Now it’s bad enough that you look like you just crawled out of a gutter, having last shaved sometime the previous week and foregone a shirt altogether in light of the warm weather. Add to that the fact that you are in your bed and now staring down a corporate firing line and you have yourself something of a conundrum.

I’ve blamed the poor African Internet a few times (luckily a story anyone who lives elsewhere believes wholeheartedly), and on occasion I’ve simply pretended to turn my camera on and feigned some sort of technical error while I frantically run a comb through my hair and relocate to a sitting position.

So for all those of you looking to live the freelance dream, let me offer you the following words of wisdom:

1. Always look respectable, at least from the waist up
2. Always expect that your clients will want to activate video when you Skype
3. Practise your ironing….often
4. Try on your formalwear every now and then – working from home means easy access to food and nobody wants to have their pants split in the middle of a client meeting.

Canvas ads and their new simplified siblings – collections – are doing the rounds on Facebook these days, with marketers relishing the opportunity to play with Zuckerberg’s shiniest new toy. And while there’s no denying that these mini publications are impressive and visually rich, the question is, do they really work? It’s all very well to create a stunning showcase for your business, but what does it even mean if nobody is clicking on it?

Ultimately, every audience is different, and it’s important that you understand its dynamics before tossing those tried and tested tactics out the window. For instance, if your users are mostly desktop based (and unbelievably this remains the case for many), they’re basically going to be confronted with what literally equates to a blank canvas – an unclickable area of dead space that does little to further brand equity.

So, when do you venture into unchartered territory and when should you apply an ‘if it ain’t broke’ stance? Here are a few options to consider before diving down the Facebook rabbit hole:

How does your audience interact? 

Only mobile users are going to be able to access Canvases and Collections, so if your audience is mainly desktop based – think 9 to fivers who predominantly use their lunch time to browse the net – you might need to think twice before testing these new toys.

However, if your business objectives include driving product discovery on mobile, delivering a seamless browsing experience and converting demand into sales, then Canvases and Collections can work wonders when delivered to the right audience.

Where are your clicks coming from?

For any content strategy to be successful, it’s important to understand how users engage with your content. Are they more responsive to deeper, immersive content such as blogs or are they better triggered by targeted sales drives? While each element has its own role to play, differentiating between which element works hardest for your consumers is vital for any business.

What’s your objective?

Looking to showcase a brand-new offering or introduce a more complex campaign? Then canvas is going to serve you well. But if it’s pure sales you’re after, you’re likely to convert more effectively using tools like Carousels, which quickly drive both desktop and mobile users into the sales funnel by identifying key products and deals. If brand building is your aim, then a canvas or collection ad offers you a unique way to present your product or service, enabling you to insert impressive visual elements on a tight budget.

Experiment

It’s important to get to know your audience and to establish what makes them tick…and click. As such, it’s never a bad idea to sample the latest offerings, but it is important to constantly evaluate and re-group based on business results. Yes, it might get you brownie points from a client to show off your understanding of the latest and greatest technologies, but ultimately, it’s important to go with what works, based on your overarching goals and objectives.