I caught up with my friend Kakul Srivastava the other day. She’s now working a head of product for WeWork, the largest…
Read MoreResearch
Workforce-as-a-service, while precarious, is here to stay
The online marketplace for creative and professional freelance work is growing steadily. One indication came last week as Fiverr raised $30 million…
Read MoreThe gig economy is here, and it’s not a pretty picture
The discussion about the changing nature of work — specifically with regard to the shift away from full-time employment to a freelancer-dominated,…
Read MoreKevin Kelly’s cool tools for self publishing Cool Tools
I guess it’s not surprising that Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of Wired and now the magazine’s Senior Maverick, would be using state-of-the-art…
Read MoreWhy do we still charge by the hour?
I read an article by Adam Davidson in the NY Times Magazine, discussing so-called “cliff jumpers”: service professionals that have dropped the…
Read MoreFreelancers and the shifting foundations of work
How much is the growth of freelancing driven by the desire for autonomy and personal achievement, and how much is escaping the prison of job dissatisfaction?…
Read MoreWork Market raises $10M to move the freelance labor “placeform” forward
Expect to see LinkedIn making a push here, too.…
Read MoreODesk Spring 2013 Online Work Survey is out
Seventy-two percent of those who freelance while holding down regular jobs want to become 100 percent freelancers.…
Read MoreFreelancers need agents like companies need head hunters
A new milestone in the shift into the freelancer economy: the rise of greelancer agents. These are companies that represent top freelancers…
Read MoreTaking the friction out of a fast-and-loose work economy
I had a call this week with the CEO of oDesk, Gary Swart. Swart caught me up on oDesk’s growth: more than…
Read MoreAre you in a ‘revolving door’ career?
I was reading more predictions for 2013 — generally a useless exercise — but mbopartner’s Countdown to 2013: Five Key Predictions for the…
Read MoreClarify helps scheduling — and charging for — phone calls
It's great tool for freelancers or anyone tired of playing email-appointment tag.…
Read MoreGuess what? Your workforce is using Dropbox. Yawn.
Corporate storage company Nasuni is using the time-honored technique of white paper scare tactics to try to roll back the inexorable adoption…
Read MoreIs the free agent mindset infecting employees too?
You have probably heard about the rise of the independent worker and the impact of this trend on business practices. But your team is still all traditional employees, so this shift doesn't affect you, does it? Maybe more than you think, argues SAP's Julien Vayssiere.…
Read MoreHow to make contingent workers feel like family
Call it the gig economy, Generation Flux or Freelance Nation, but whatever you term the rise in independent workers, the trend is reshaping management. How can you ensure that the contingent workers on your team feel as engaged and appreciated as the long-term employees?…
Read MoreCan’t we all just get along? Employees, freelancers, entrepreneurs and coworking
Coworking, originally a movement dominated by freelancers and entrepreneurs, is increasingly attracting more and more remote corporate employees. Do their expectations line up with other members? Do they get as much out of the coworking experience? A new survey aimed to find out.…
Read MoreIndependent work: Not a young person’s game?
New research from independent work consultancy MBO Partners out today reveals that while people across the generations are interested in breaking out of the corporate grind and going solo, Baby Boomers are the most satisfied working independently.…
Read MoreAre women better suited to the gig economy?
A long-time, female freelancer argues that, though the reason may be nurture rather than nature, women are often better equipped with the skills demanded of independent workers, including empathy, creativity and the ability to accept an uncertain, lower-status work style.…
Read MoreWork 3.0 is just getting underway, says oDesk’s Gary Swart
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 MoreIndependent workers: No mask required
Corporate America earns praise for being efficient, creating economies of scale and bringing the wide world’s goods and services right to the doorstep of consumers. Among the things traditional big business isn’t so good at – authenticity. Working independently is a whole other story.…
Read MoreHow to become a million-dollar freelancer
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 MoreAre freelancers putting a crimp in small biz hiring?
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 MoreAre online marketplaces driving down web worker salaries?
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 MoreAre “rebel” remote workers good for business?
Are "untemplaters" -- contract web workers unfettering themselves from the conventional freelance model -- a good skill resource for businesses? To many employers this breed of digital professional might seem flighty and unreliable. Where's the accountability? Can a project as important as yours rest on their contribution?…
Read More