The concept of sitting at home and earning is a privilege no longer restricted to a small section of
skilled society. A boom is in the making for people with all kinds of skills, who find themselves, for
any reason, unable to stick to the rigidity of office infrastructure. It’s called Ework, and it looks like
it’s here to stay.
Web sites like Arzoo, Hotdispatch, Ants and Serwiz are offering corporations around the world a
new way to outsource professional services and, at the other end of the spectrum, individuals the
opportunity to hawk their skills to the highest bidder.
The procedure is simple -- all you have to do is sign up, put your skills and profile online and pitch
for jobs by checking out the kind of services being demanded. Profiles are the key to the success in
these online service marketplaces.
There are a plethora of jobs for the taking, essentially those that can be transacted online… web
and page design and development, graphic design, logos, brochures, banner ads, programming,
flash, software and technology applications, accounting and finance, bookkeeping, financial
planning, databases, administrative support, data entry, presentations, printing, business strategy,
business plan, marketing plan, writing, copywriting, translation, articles, web content, editing,
personal resumes, tutoring, advice, legal, contracts, incorporation, project management, sales,
photography… the list is endless.
The good part is that if a category you are looking for is not there, you can go ahead and create it.
Websites like Ants (www.ants.com) are more than willing to add your profile to their already
burgeoning list.
Says Rick Davis, President and CEO, Ants.com, “After over 20 years of experience in building and
managing high-tech companies serving the small-to-medium-sized business market, I feel a deep
understanding of the freelance marketplace from the perspective of both the buyer and provider of
professional business-to-business services.” A reason, perhaps, for the site being one of the best in
the market, with an average eyeball-figure of about a million a month. Over 70,000 members and
more than 70 categories of job descriptions make Ants.com the fastest growing marketplace for
freelance work, expanding at a rate of about a percent per day.
Among the benefits offered to members are the options to learn a new skill, or upgrade existing
ones. Online courses can keep you up-to-date without taking you out of the loop. What's more,
certification for the course you might do come from corporations such as Microsoft, Linux, Novell
and Brainbench, to name a few.
Ework Exchange (www.eworks.com) is another site that’s fast catching the fancy of big players
internationally. Membership at Eworks gets you facilities as diverse as conducting online meetings,
sharing information, documents and applications. It also helps you build a web presence, and
market your own websites, as part of the fringe benefits. Freelancers such as Linda Pliagas find
‘e-working’ an ideal solution. Publisher of her own magazine targeted at English-speaking Latinas,
Linda’s career came to a shaky halt after her first child. "But my career since handing over the
reigns of the magazine has actually improved. I actually have a better career as an e-worker," she
says.
Pliagas has developed new technical skills, which have enabled her to expand her services to offer
not just writing, but also graphic design, marketing and publicity. "I earn better and have more time,
with a lot less stress," she says exultantly.
Pliagas landed one of her biggest assignments with www.eworks.com itself. “We had received
feedback from working mothers who wanted more information about working at home. I saw Linda
as the perfect person to fulfil this need,” comments Kathy Arizon, Director, Content at eWork
Exchange. After reviewing Pliagas’ writing samples, she was hired to write for their online magazine,
eWorkZine. "I can write about the thing I know well: being a work-at-home independent
professional," agrees Linda. Being an active contributing member of eWorkZine, there has also been
a substantial increase in her freelancing opportunities for other publications.
Such exchanges turn out to be a good source for independent professionals. Interaction with other
writers, reader feedback and more reading, when applied suitably, make for better opportunities.
There is no dearth in the number of professionals in India for whom such opportunities would be
tailor-made, and Arzoo is one such opportunity. Run by Sabeer Bhatia, this portal gets expert
programmers to cash in on their talent by answering questions from people who need technical
help. The kind of aid and assistance offered here is of a very high level, one which would cost quite
a packet to hire. Freelancing makes it cheaper for the employee, while also making it more effective
for those who wish to free-lance by the side.
Arzoo’s promise: ‘Whatever your project, the answers you need may be minutes away.’ This site
gives you instant access to thousands of qualified technology experts from all over the world. The
system followed here is bidding -- you bid for a job and then win it off the competition. Hotdispatch
(www.hotdispatch.com) is another virtual market for technical expertise.
How does one evaluate competency, while hiring help across the world? Sites like Serwiz
(www.serwiz.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Satyam Infoway, takes the trouble to check,
qualify and rate people whose services are offered, so that companies hiring through them don’t get
the short end. Even those who put up their services benefit from Serwiz’s evaluation of their
competency, which distinguishes them from the rest.
Some sites also take a few steps forward, such as giving employee benefits to freelancers. While
this is an unheard of concept, websites such as Freeagent (www.freeagent.com) make it a
wonderful reality. Of course, this is applicable only in the Unites States yet, but the management is
not closed to the idea of extending the benefit to members elsewhere either. Freeagent offers life,
disability, liability, health, retirement, dental and medical insurance to those who are a productive
part of their network.
Workexchange (www.workexchange.com) is an agent providing web-based project exchange
software to bring together projects (onsite or remote) and people with the business processes
required to staff, perform, and deliver it across all major business functions. Fully project-based, the
skills they exploit are mostly financial and management-based. And the exchange program, on
which the site bases its fundamentals, calls for an exchange of market-driven solutions and services
within and without the community it targets.
To grow effectively while providing excellent solutions and services, WorkExchange develops strong,
strategic alliances and partnerships -- and with big names, such as PrO Unlimited (a $600 million
company, and a strong force in the market). It is also teaming up with leading corporations,
consulting companies and professional portals to deliver complete web-based project exchange
software to bring projects, people and processes together.
There are many more like eLance (www.elance.com) and Bid4Geeks (www.bid4geeks.com) which
offer more of the same. And people have found life as an eWorker far more efficient and stress-free
than standard work arrangements. The world work order is changing. Are you?
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