Collaboration — Collaboration | GigaOM

Collaboration

In honor of tax day, a look through the annual explosion of articles offering tax tips for independent workers, weeding out the obvious and repetitive and highlighting the genuinely helpful, including the SEP IRA and a round about approach to sorting out health insurance. Read More »

At Net:Work Gene Zaino of MBO Partners made a bold prediction: Independent workers will be a majority in the U.S. by 2020. Can the same be said in the UK? A new survey offers evidence that at British small businesses freelancing is on the rise. Read More »

 
 

Gary Swart, CEO of freelancer sourcing site oDesk took the stage at Net:Work 2011 to talk about how work is changing in the face of remote work trends. He started by pointing to a key competitive determinator all companies seek and must compete for: talent. Read More »

Landing good remote workers in an ailing economy

Many digital freelancers earning U.S. dollars are now receiving substantially less for the same work, as their own nations’ currencies gain strength against the U.S. dollar. The rates that U.S. companies offer to remote workers may no longer compete with their local firms. Read More »

Business is all about the bottom line and web work offers new ways to bolster that bottom line. But not everyone sees paying according to the prevailing local wages as without its moral complexities, especially when companies begin to look overseas for additional help. Read More »

Like it or not, these days, if you’re in public, you’d better be comfortable with anything you do being captured and possibly even posted online. I thought I’d provide some tips from the PR industry to help you feel better prepared for those impromptu publicity events. Read More »

Side projects can be businesses or just-for-fun efforts that we do in our nonworking hours. While there are some risks with taking side projects, I strongly believe that most of the time they benefit both the individual and the employer. Read More »

A beginner’s guide to international tax worries

As I noted in my post about the amnesty offered by the IRS for those with hidden overseas assets, the flexibility of web work can encourage cross-border collaborations and contracts and allow location-independent workers to live abroad for a period of time. Taxes, predictably, get complicated. Read More »

I’ve been given a sneak peak at an Elance study that investigates the attitudes of “millennials” to work, their careers and job searching. Perhaps the most interesting finding in the study is how positive the millenials are about freelancing as a career choice. Read More »

Solo is a project management app with a difference: It’s beautiful. Designed and built by U.K-based company Thrive with solo creative freelancers in mind (hence the name), Solo’s clean, attractive design means that it’s much nicer to look at than most clunky project management apps. Read More »

Independent online workers appear to be doing relatively well, according to a report from Elance, which shows earnings increasing for online workers in 40 out of 50 states. And that’s true even for those workers are located in places where other job hunters seeking are struggling. Read More »

New data released today by online work marketplace oDesk shows that small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) are making use of freelancers in record numbers. oDesk says that the data points to an increasing number of SMBs using contract staff to grow their businesses. Read More »

More Must Reads

Despite a fairly weak jobs market overall, freelancers should be optimistic. Online labor marketplaces oDesk and Elance have both released data showing strong growth in demand for freelance workers over the past year, with both sites reporting a large increase in the number of jobs posted. Read More »

As crowdsourcing goes mainstream, there’s a heated debate going on about whether the practice commoditizes expertise. Having built an expert crowdsourcing site for the past year, I’m convinced these services don’t have to commoditize expertise. Quite the opposite, I think they can give it direct value. Read More »

DoNanza has just released its quarterly Work-From-Home Market Trends report, which tracks the demand for freelancers in various job categories. To gauge how well the report may actually reflect reality, I decided to analyze my own niche to see whether it tallies with my experience. Read More »

At the beginning of a new project, it’s easy for the freelance remote worker to leave the decision-making about the project to the client. Often, I find myself thinking, “Well, they know what they want; I’ll let them explain it.” Read More »

We’re always talking about tough clients, bad clients, boring clients. But what about the great clients who are simply having a hard time? When you work remotely, it can be difficult to tell when clients are having trouble achieving a task you need them to do. Read More »

There are a number of downsides associated with freelancing, which is why I’ve made the decision to go back to a full-time corporate job as a community manager. I’ll still be a web worker, but I’ll be doing it as a full-time employee. Read More »

When you’re trying to run your own business, you need time to experiment and try new methods and approaches to your systems and your work, but you also need time to reflect on what’s working so that you can modify your direction as you go. Read More »

These days, I tend to think of my approach to work in terms of “work policies”. That way, I get a degree of distance — the kind of distance that makes it easier to see things objectively, and change them relatively painlessly to greater effect. Read More »

What’s the one thing you need to do on a regular basis to keep your car running? It needs fuel or else it stops running. Every car needs refills — just like every business needs clients to bring in income. However, a car runs better and … Read More »

Web work can be an unstable ride. Since we are all independent, we have varying ways of dealing with challenges and opportunities that arise in our work. I don’t think there’s one strategy that fits us all, but there are four aspects of our careers … Read More »

While many of us love working in our home office or other alternative venue of choice there will often be times when your projects take you to a client site for an extended period of time. I’ve spent time on and off client sites … Read More »

If you want to hit 2010 running, you may well be planning to update your portfolio over the next month or so. It can be tempting to just gather together all the projects you’ve done recently and drop them into your portfolio alongside everything else, … Read More »

I’ve written previously about how I find it often more trouble than it is worth to take time off of work for vacations. But many of us in the first generation of web workers are part of the so-called “sandwich generation,” caring for kids … Read More »

For those perfect freelancers who remember to carefully record and track every expense, there isn’t much to do at tax time other than hand over their perfectly organized documents to their accountant. For the less perfect among us, we probably have some work to do. … Read More »

We all have stories of that great project we worked on once, or that fabulous client with whom we established the world’s best working relationship. These experiences make inspiring stories that spur us onwards and upwards, to new projects, and new adventures. But this week, I … Read More »

When did Noah build the ark, Gladys? Before the rain. Before the rain. - Nathan Muir, Spy Game In recent months, I’ve become acutely aware of how life and business can easily conflict with each other. It seems that the work involved in creating a successful business … Read More »

Although freelancers and corporate employees both have stages of moving on in their careers, it tends to happen more often in freelancing. Clients sometimes lose funding or focus. Other times we’re called in for short-term projects and aren’t hired again. But there are other times when … Read More »

While not all web worker are freelancers, a good portion of them are — and a freelance lifestyle is part of the appeal of working from home. The fact is, working as an independent contractor is not all wine and roses. Personally, I wouldn’t have it … Read More »

Most of us don’t just work on the web, we kind of live on it too. And our virtual neighbors are people who speak our language. But you must not forget that people like us are still the minority, even in places that have universal Internet … Read More »

If you’re a freelancer, learning when to turn down a potential client is crucial to your success. The wrong client will be a drain on your resources, sapping your energy and taking time from those with whom you work well. Over on A List Apart, Greg … Read More »

Including free or “freemium” elements in online software and products has become the norm. There are several existing discussions about this business model, some questioning its effects on the industry, others touting its success. Whatever opinion you may have, freemium is the … Read More »

Losing a big client actually launched my freelance writing career, but not all stories end as well as mine did. Today, I try to make sure the income I receive is spread across more clients so I don’t get into that situation again. You can’t … Read More »

Whether freelancing, or in the corporate world, we all have to contend with deadlines. Deadlines generally come off sounding like shlock horror villains: they inch closer, approach, loom and grow larger. I’ve worked in settings where deadlines were paramount, and followed rigorously, and in situations where … Read More »

Not long ago, I wrote about TDWcamp, a BarCamp-like event for web workers held in Paris a few months ago. It was useful, edifying and a ton of fun. Today, while browsing some showcase articles at Smashing Magazine, I discovered Freelance Camp, … Read More »

Two years ago I was starting to get conscious about my online presence, so I Googled my name. One of the first things I saw were links to my earliest projects, which were how-to e-books about dating and seduction. I remember using a pseudonym at that … Read More »

This week I’ve been speculating on the Future of Work and the types of skills that might be required. However, hindsight can provide useful clues to the future, so it’s important to reflect on existing behavior in order to determine where we’re headed. Between April and … Read More »

There are many symptoms of a stagnant freelancing career. They include boredom, complacency, apathy and the inability to picture what your work should be like a year from now. If you can relate to these symptoms, then it’s time to face facts: you’re stuck. Additionally, you … Read More »

Being a web worker can mean learning to handle many facets of running a small business, including dealing with difficult clients, which can often be one of the biggest frustrations that come with the territory. But how do you know if your clients are abusing you? … Read More »

It’s a strange thing, but in times like these, when prospective clients have fewer dollars to spend and when there’s more competition in the marketplace due to higher unemployment rates, instinctive responses have a tendency to take over our business decisions. It’s easy to get trapped in … Read More »

nim·ble : quick and light in motion; marked by quick, alert, clever conception, comprehension, or resourcefulness. Being a web worker has its advantages, and one of the biggest is that you can build a very adaptable and nimble business. Here are a few of the ways we … Read More »

The two biggest problems for most small business owners when it comes to marketing a business are effective planning and consistency. After what seems like a lot of effort attempting to drum up new business, it’s easy to get discouraged when you aren’t seeing results, but with … Read More »

Starting a business can be a huge undertaking, but fortunately for the aspiring web worker, it doesn’t have to be. The really great thing about starting a web working business is that it getting set up can be easy and low cost. Read More »

Palms and crystal clear water. White powder and blue skies. Camels and rippling sand dunes. Whatever your idea of a perfect vacation, if you’re not on a permanent salary, your dream getaway can all too easily stay that way: a dream. If you don’t get paid … Read More »

loading external resource
Click to log in with: Not you?
Comment as guest:
By continuing you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Submitting comment...
results