Archive for October, 2007


October 26th, 2007 by Michelle

Offshoring, Homeshoring… Seems like these days you can add -shoring to anything and make it a buzz word. But what do all of these terms mean? Here’s our little guide to the world of remote work:

Outsourcing – Asking an expert (or a firm with experts) outside of your company to do something for you more efficiently and in a more cost-effective way than if you were doing it yourself. Companies outsource all sorts of tasks, from software development to network administration to graphic design. But outsourcing isn’t limited to business tasks — my personal favorite is the guy who outsourced his dating life.

Should you do it? Perhaps you’re thinking about redesigning your website. Could someone with more technical expertise do it better?

Offshoring — Essentially the same thing as outsourcing, except that this refers to when the work or product is done by someone in another country. But Thomas Friedman would agree, if someone can get quality work done better and faster, it doesn’t matter whether they’re in Minnesota or Moldova.

Should you do it? Establishing a clear communications strategy is the best way to ensure your offshored projects will be successful. You’ll have to consider time zone, language, and cultural differences.

Nearshoring — Much like offshoring, but instead of outsourcing to people anywhere in the world, outsourcing to people who are working nearby (in a nearby country, for instance). Some companies want to work with providers who have a similar culture, share a similar language or are in the same time zone.

Should you do it? Depends. If working with someone in the same time zone is essential, this might be the thing for you.

Homeshoring — Outsourcing your work to someone within your own country. People prefer working from home for a variety of reasons. Some want to avoid commuting, others have children they’re taking care of at home. Companies such as Jet Blue became well-known for their homeshoring strategies, but you don’t have to be a big corporation to take advantage of skilled workers who prefer to work from home.

Should you do it? Need someone in your timezone? Country? Can you deal with a flexible schedule?

Crowdsourcing — Ah, the power of the crowd. Why use one mind when you can use many? Essentially, this refers to having a crowd of people work together to produce a product. A great example: Wikipedia.

Should you do it? Netflix did. They posted a $1M prize for anyone who could improve their DVD rental system. Cons? You can’t have everyone sign a contract or an NDA.

Farmshoring – Moving jobs from urban centers to rural communities.

Should you do it? We believe it doesn’t matter where you work, but whether you have (a) the skills to do it (b) the tools to do it (c) the motivation to do it.

Posted in Tips 3 Comments »

As anyone who has been watching the oConomy Facts tab on our homepage will know, the oConomy has been growing rapidly.  It wasn’t until yesterday, though, that we learned just how fast our revenue growth has been when compared to other young companies.  We’ve been named a Rising Star on Deloitte’s 2007 Technology Fast 500.   A special category, the Rising Star list ranks the 20 companies that have been in business a minimum of three years, but less than five years, that showed the highest percentage of revenue growth over the past three years (2004 to 2006).  Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 is a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications and life sciences companies in North America.

We love winning awards.  We’re gunning to win a spot on the Fast 500 list once we’ve been around long enough to be eligible, so please keep the feedback coming and let us know what we can do to better serve you.  Thank you!

October 23rd, 2007 by Michelle
Welcome to our monthly newsletter! This is where we share new features, our perspective on outsourcing, homeshoring and offshoring topics, star providers, success stories and interesting discussions.

This month:

State of the oConomy
Providers 25,624
Jobs
(currently open)		 1,888
Earnings
(last 90 days)		 $3,677,699
Rates by Feedback
$16.43
$16.17
$14.8

Round of Applause

Kudos to all of the providers who got their first oDesk job in September! The oDesk community has continued to grow steadily and more providers are finding great jobs.

327 providers from 33 countries, including Argentina, Egypt, Australia, Jamaica, Japan and Turkey started working for the first time in the oDesk network this August. These 327 providers have already racked up 9,353 oDesk hours and over $125,716 in just one month!

A special round of applause to the top new providers by total earnings:

Dhruvraj Z., Prodan A., Michelle A., Vladimir G., Eugene M., Vinod S., Dedy P., Banibrata B., Michael T., Anthony R.

Want to see your name listed here next month? Apply to job openings.

An oDesk Perspective

Effective Interviews

Though the newest member of your team may not be walking in the door tomorrow, hiring a freelancer to become part of your business is often like hiring another on-site employee. oDesk’s multiple tools, including enhanced provider search, skill tests and feedback rating system can help you find quality candidates, but the interviews you have with the providers will ultimately allow you to make your final decision.

To help you streamline your interviews, we’ve compiled a few points to guide you through this important process.

Ask detailed questions to verify skills

  • You already have the provider’s resume and work history at hand through their oDesk profile, so dig deeper by asking detailed questions to verify if the provider has the skills and experience you are looking for. For example, if you are looking for someone to design an ecommerce website, ask about which gateways they’ve worked with in the past.
  • As you discuss the provider’s work history and your own assignment, evaluate whether the answers sound reasonable to you. Is this person familiar with the technical terms you are using?

Inquire about Samples of Previous Work

  • Carefully review these samples and ask specific questions about how the provider went about performing the job. For instance, if the provider designed a website for another client, ask how he or she divided up the tasks. How long did each phase take?

Asking for an Estimate

  • Once you are ready to ask for an estimate, ask the provider if he or she thinks the assignment requirements are complete and clear.
  • Determine whether the provider has the right tools for the job (including hardware and software).
  • Discuss how many hours the provider will likely spend on the project each day. Take into account the number of hours that will be needed for testing, and most importantly, make sure the estimate sounds realistic.
  • Think about how you will communicate with the provider. Will you check in every day with an email? Will this work for both of you? Agree to a clear and consistent communications strategy.
  • Before embarking on a large project, ask the provider to do a small test project first.

Many Buyers have successfully found long-term outsourcing solutions with providers from oDesk. By carefully selecting and interviewing the right provider for the job, you’ll be able to take care of all of your outsourcing needs.

For more tips on how to interview providers for your outsourcing needs, visit the oDesk website.

Success Stories

Provider Interviews

From writing technical reports and translating materials for the U.S. Navy to editing technical manuals for Booz-Allen Hamilton, Kristin G.’s work experiences are rich and varied. She scored in the 99th percentile for the English Test in Sentence Structure and in the 98th Percentile for Technical Writing Skills Certification.

How did you start your career as a freelancer?

After serving in the Navy for 6 years, my family and I moved for a change of lifestyle, and I decided to try freelancing back in 2004.

How have you found oDesk’s Team system?

I like oDesk Team because it makes it easier for me to keep an exact record of my hours. I prefer an hourly rate over a project rate because not all jobs take as long as some job providers think. Quality of work is always more important, I think, than speed of work.

Read the interview with Kristin G. on the oDesk website.

Provider Spotlight

Get to know these highly rated oDesk providers:

Vicky G.XHTML, CSSTotal oDesk Hours: 241Feedback: 4.7Comments: Great Web 2.0 Designer. Would definitely hire her again.
Peter S. MS Excel, Web DeveloperTotal oDesk Hours: 31Feedback: 4.5Comments: Peter did an excellent job working on this project. He was insightful with suggestions on improvements and delivered work on time as requested. He was a very good communicator and kept us posted on status and potential issues. We look forward to continuing to work with Peter.
Vladimir S.AJAX, ASP.Net/C# DeveloperTotal oDesk Hours: 966Feedback: 5Comments: Vladimir is an excellent addition to any team. Would hire again.
Valerie M.Web and Graphic DesignerTotal oDesk Hours: 128Feedback: 5Comments: Five Stars for Valerie! The results were based on Valerie’s ability to understand my needs and supply a draft without countless direction… Valerie was right on top of the changes that I put forward in text and design.

Features Launched

Refer A Friend to oDesk — Make money when your friends sign up on oDesk! Earn $50 when referred Providers earn $1,000 or referred Buyers spend $1,000 through oDesk. Post the banners and links we provide on your blog, website, forums or emails and start earning some cash. Many of our current users are already reaping the rewards of referring their friends and colleagues to oDesk. Join them by learning more about oDesk’s referral program.

Weekly Limits Can Be Increased Immediately — When the Provider and the Buyer have reached a comfortable working relationship and agree to increase your weekly limit, the Buyer can now make that change immediately! Decreases in weekly limits will still post the following week. Read more about weekly limits on our website.

Upfront Payments — Providers can now request a percentage of your bid price on Fixed Price jobs. Before asking for an upfront payment, we recommend you read through a few tips on how (and when) to go about this process.

Print Individual Invoices — Print official invoices for each transaction. Access PDFs by going to your Account Activity tab and following the links on the Ref ID column for each of your Hourly and Fixed Price transactions. See your invoices at my.odesk.com.

Billing Choice Options — Starting later this week, Buyers will have the option of setting up primary and back-up payment methods within the oDesk console. Set up a back-up payment method (such as another credit card) to avoid service delays should your primary payment method fail or expire.

Discussion of the Month

Our new job search functionality now allows you to filter jobs by Buyer Facts. We are working on creating a more extensive Buyer profile and want your input. What would you like to see in the Buyer profile? Join the oDesk discussion on the forums.

oDesk Tool Spotlight: oDesk Share

Remember the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words?” Use oDesk Share to share your desktop with your remote team members. Our screen-sharing application is particularly useful for training, weekly meetings, demos and QA sessions, but we’re sure you’ll find many ways to benefit from it. Download it for free from our website and start making use of it today.

October 17th, 2007 by Josh

So you’re a freelancer at an online site with 25,000 providers to choose from. Seems like it might be hard to stand out to prospective buyers.

Here’s my advice:

  • Spell-check for goodness sake. There is no faster way to look unprofessional than to have “poorgrammer” as part of your title.
  • Links, and links, and links. Whenever you can - show links to prior work, prior companies, anything to give the reader a better idea of who you are and what you’ve done.
  • Be creative with your title. You have about 0.1 seconds to make an impression when your profile first appears in search results. Better have some standout keywords in there. Be creative, be fun, be a “java ninja” or a “php rockstar”.

    • AJAX

  • Upload a picture of yourself. Josh Breinlinger at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo While your coding ability may have little to do with your appearance, every buyer I’ve ever asked has told me that the pictures gain their attention. btw, logos don’t have the same effect.
  • Prove your skills. If you can, take online certifications. Take oDesk tests, or Brainbench tests, or pursue a certification from Zend, MS, etc.
  • Prove your identity. Check out some of the online tools and sites for getting a stronger online identity. Beenverified.com has an embeddable online ID verification.
  • Don’t forget your keywords. Think as if you were a buyer. You’re looking for a professional just like you. What keywords would you use in your search? If you know some unique skills, put them in your profile. It’s not going to hurt and it will increase your profile views.
  • Set reasonable expectations. You may not find Google recruiting at oDesk today ;-) , but you may find some outstanding long-term clients. Set the right expectations and the right hourly rates or bids with the right audience in mind.
  • Stay on top of tech trends. Is Ruby hot right now? Have you been an admin assistant and now you want to do some technical writing? Know what skills are in demand and seek out learning opportunities. It may take you a long time to become an expert, but the rewards could be worth it.

    • Skill Demand and Supply

  • Include testimonials or references. It’s nice to read paragraph after paragraph about previous client work that you’ve done, but a good old fashioned customer testimonial and reference is often the most powerful message on your profile. If you don’t have any yet, do a tiny project at a reduced cost to gain the experience and the reference-able customer.

    • Posted in Tips 3 Comments »

    October 16th, 2007 by Michelle

    Every once in a while we hit a milestone at oDesk that makes everyone in the office stop and say “wow”. This morning we noticed that the 25,000th provider was going to join the network. We watched as the numbers approached this important milestone…

    We eagerly awaited this milestone!

    And here she is, our 25,000th provider:

    Samantha K., welcome to oDesk!

    Samantha and our extensive network of providers will find a variety of cool and interesting jobs on oDesk. Just browsing through the job posts Buyers have put up in the last few days, I found a job listing for a music video, one to write courses for airplane pilots and one calling for PHP/MySQL/HTML experts to create a graphics design website for a banner and magnet company. It’s neat to see all of the creative ways people are using our site.

    To give you a sense of our growth, approximately 80 providers join our network each day. Our base of affiliate firms is also growing: currently, about 1,500 providers in our network are part of affiliate firms. In the last 90 days, oDesk providers have made nearly $3.6 million.

    But we’re really not just about the numbers. People working in the U.S. and abroad have found job opportunities they would have likely not found locally and Buyers have seen great results. Here are some of the feedback comments Buyers posted on our site today:

    “Shibu B. (of the Affiliate Firm Cabot Solutions) did a great job on this project and produced all deliverables on time. We’ll definitely work with him again in the near future.”

    “Kostya is an excellent PHP developer and I would be happy to hire him again.”

    So good luck job hunting, Samantha (and providers 25,001, 25,002…etc)!

    October 15th, 2007 by Abid

    music-notes Dmitry Sokolovksy, our QA master, is also a bayan guru, which is a type of accordion.

    He recently brought his accordion to the office and played a bunch of his favorite songs. Some really impressive finger work, I’m sure it helps in typing fast on the computer :)

    Check out this video:

    I hope you noticed:

    The scary cat pictures cat-pics
    My South Asian bobble-head bobble-head
    The wink wink

     

    :)

    -
    Abid Mohsin
    Abid’s Work Diary

    Our friends at Predictify launched their service earlier today and we’re giving it a whirl.  Predictify is sponsoring an oDesk-related poll to help predict how large the oConomy will be in Q4.

    Those of you that frequent the oDesk homepage have probably noticed that the oConomy is growing faster than ever - nearly $3.5 million in the last 90 days!  You can see total provider earnings for the last 90 days on the “oConomy Facts” tab of our homepage.

    Make your prediction for total provider earnings for the period from October 1st through the end of the year.

    The most accurate predictors will split a pot of $250.

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