If you imagine that online freelancing is mainly the preserve of male techies, it’s time to revise your understanding. A new survey of the sector by consultancy Zinnov reveals women make up 55 percent of the online labor pool, along with other insights. Read More »
Collaboration
A new oDesk survey of users who hire workers through the online labor platform reveals most of the businesses using oDesk view hiring remote talent as a long-term strategy to boost competitiveness rather than a short-term stopgap or means to cut costs. Read More »
From the rise of sites like Elance and oDesk to the opinions of researchers and anecdotal evidence from knowledge workers, evidence is mounting that the future will feature a lot more contract workers. Now another survey is supporting the rise of the gig economy. Read More »
As in-house counsel charged with procuring outside legal services, corporate lawyer Nick Cronin saw how inefficient the process of sourcing professional services could be for businesses. He decided to do something about the problem, and niche online labor platform ExpertBids was born. Read More »
The economy might not be booming but online labor platforms sure are. Last month, oDesk announced impressive growth and today rival Elance is doing the same. Elance says this is great news for US professionals who can export their services abroad. Is it really? Read More »
Think of independent workers, and you’ll probably imagine a lone professional staring at his laptop all day, supporting himself in his slippers. But there are some freelancers who build their solo gigs into thriving, and lucrative, businesses, employing others. Here’s how they manage it. Read More »
Work used to be a place. Increasingly, we can get stuff done from nearly anywhere. That’s changing how companies procure talent and workers build careers, but how fast are these changes are percolating through the economy? Today oDesk puts some numbers to the trend. Read More »
No segment of the economy looks exactly buoyant right now, and small business hiring is no exception, but what does that have to do with the future of work? Plenty, suggest new reports showing that tepid hiring, is partially down to rise of freelancers. Read More »
Among business leaders, knocking the competition is an age-old pastime, and when we reported on complaints that online labor marketplaces like oDesk are driving down wages for freelancers, Mike Paolucci, CEO of U.S. focused labor platform Solvate, saw his opening. Meanwhile, oDesk fires back. Read More »
When it comes to piecing together a career as an independent worker, online marketplaces like Elance and oDesk can seem like all upside. But is this the whole story? A small business consultant suggests these sites present an often overlooked problem for freelancers – lower prices. … Read More »
Consider this: managers spend between 30 to 80 percent of their time in meetings and more than 50 percent of them consider many meetings to be a “waste of time.” oDesk CEO Gary Swart shares his proven techniques for running a successful company meeting. Read More »
It’s not unreasonable to wonder if competition between web workers is fierce, with those with a super flexible gig or a fabulous freelance client fighting to keep rival workers away from their plum assignments. But is this really the case? Not according to research from oDesk. Read More »
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