As another Black Friday arrives, it might be useful to observe a trend that’s going to shape some future Black Fridays. The glory of ownership is over. That’s right, I said it. You might think that’s overblown, but just look around you. The cornerstone of the culture of ownership – the house – is failing [...]
Back in the mid 1990s, it was quite common to hear people say “I just have no need for e-mail” and “I believe in doing everything face to face.” The verbal emphasis on the “e” in “e-mail” was one of rolling the eyes or sometimes derision. A bit later, it was common to hear the [...]
“I like working with customers who are making the new rules’of work. So most of my clients are in high tech or new media sectors. I am not good at working with people in institutions who [merely?] want to improve the efficiency of existing systems.” – anonymous freelancer quoted at the Strengths Foundation
I saw this on the site of Harvard Business Services, my registered agent, and liked it for our blog.
In my youth, I spent some time in and around a kind of fundamentalism that placed a special emphasis on the concept of “authority”. I never have been really good at caring about what people use that word to mean. For one thing, when I say “authority”, I’m referring to something corresponding to reality. If [...]
You know about the robosigners, right? The middle manager types who work at large mortgage loan companies and sign papers all day that say they’ve personally reviewed a lot of other papers which they don’t have time to have reviewed, because they’re busy signing the papers saying they reviewed them. Best to quote the Wall [...]
I recently made a little chart distinguishing a few common perceptions from contrasting facts on the ground. It occurred to me that these are related somehow, that something lies in them to be learned: Portland, Oregon is widely considered to be one of the hardest cities in the US on small businesses, due to taxes, [...]
I’ve been through three generations of work, so far, in my lifetime. The bootstrap era, the authoritarian era, and the era of free agents. The Bootstrap Era: When I was young and jobless, seemingly talentless, and officially skill-less, my grandparents would describe the world of work: You go where they’re hiring, you do what they’re [...]
The assumption of employment is all around us. I’m not knocking employment. Quite the contrary: Image via Wikipedia Rule of Work: Your work is not the venue. Whether your work is best conducted as an employee, contractor, entrepreneur, or volunteer, pursue the venue where you can derive from your work all the meaning you are [...]
I do project work and consulting, and my office is one of the largest rooms in my home. Like a lot of home office workers (I prefer “home office professional”), I always have multiple projects at once. So working all the time is just part of the deal. If I’m not working on a client’s [...]
CBS was talking this evening about the growth of freelance work – projecting significant growth over the next couple of years. What was striking was how negative the reporting seemed. One of the two people interviewed was saying “the important thing is not to be idle” and the reporter presented freelancing as being just one [...]
Usually, I won’t make political comments, but in this case, they’ve walked into territory we’ve claimed as our own, so here goes: Image via Wikipedia The latest move by the Supreme Court to lift all corporate limits on campaign contributions is clearly aimed at preventing a repeat of the Obama election, who didn’t put them [...]
A friend and I were talking the other day about how we’re so used to thinking, as employees, of everything as net. The company takes out taxes and healthcare, and what’s left – that’s what you live on. But when you’re self-employed, you pay self-employment tax on top of your income tax, and you have [...]
Have you heard about Kiva? Kiva is a free web site that lets you provide micro-loans (in amounts of $25) to impoverished entrepreneurs needing investment to make their businesses thrive. The entire loan amount goes to the entrepreneur and is facilitated through Kiva’s partnership with local micro-lending organziations in each country. The micro-lending organization collects [...]
I’m not a believer in discounts, unless they are part of a marketing campaign. Half-hazard discounts, just because someone asks for one, force you to work harder for less pay to justify your normal price. And you’re not giving them a reason for the discount, so what does that say about what you were going [...]
Your local NPR or public radio station “The Take Away” is running talk about how freelancers are treated unreasonably (I’d say prejudicially) for mortgage loan applications vs. job holders. Got an offer letter or a couple of pay stubs from a job? You’re on the fast track for refinance or a new mortgage. Freelancer? They [...]
A colleague and I are constructing a new type of organization, and at times at the outset I felt overwhelmed and a bit paralyzed. It comes with having an enormous vault of ideas, and a need for speed, while needing also to quickly put up an infrastructure (in this case a marketing infrastructure) that is [...]
Personally, I rarely publish prices for services, because I think it encourages price shopping, and creates a climate where I can’t add value, and so I can’t compete. That’s bad for the client, because they always get nickel and dimed with mediocrity. With pure price shopping, I’m competing even with unscrupulous and dishonest service providers [...]
Here it is, time to write another resignation letter for a family member. This is sort of my role in our family. The reasons for leaving are employer incompetence, but naturally I reach for the most tiny, most dull, most trivial format there is. Yes, I’d like to say, “you people are tards who are [...]
One of the things I like seeing about this economy is the spirit of resistance and, often enough, of triumph that is coming in response. You can see it in the blogosphere. There’s a lot of BS out there, about how it’s going to be ‘over’ in a few months. I don’t think so. We’re [...]
Daniel writes prolifically about subjects ranging from work to social justice, does literary writing, and is Marketing Director of Free Agent Source. Daniel founded JobHacker (formerly the Rules of Work) blog when the bottom fell out of the mortgage market, and the US economy started its death rattle.
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