What is a freelancer ? See Wikipedia article here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer
In short, it says "A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term."
Now, how about Greece? What is the value of freelancers in Greece? Do the Greek Startups need employers or freelancers? Do they have a place to find some and rate them before they hire them ?
Lets talk about the Freelancers in Greece and the World, in the past and in the future.
In Greece, during the past ten years, the Freelancer worker type was underestimated or greatly misunderstood. Employers were thinking of freelancers like some kind of an exotic species. If you were a freelancer, you were though as having at least one of the two following attributes :
- You could not find a decent job inside a company since you did not want to be part of one, OR
- You considered yourself too good and you thought that sharing your expertise with your many clients is a more productive job.
Nowadays, freelancers are weighted in a very different way. A freelancer is something a business wants to deal with, a startup wants to find and hire, because costs are flexible and competition fierce. So a freelancer should be competing in the price race and could hence leave space for cost reduction during the crisis ages.
Well, not all of them. It depends heavily with who you are dealing with. An expert Freelancer is not cheap. He could be double or triple the price of a full time employee, and at the end the employer could gain more from such people. I have never thought of a "Commercial Director position" as a freelance job, but I would point to such jobs as a generic "Consulting freelance job".
The most difficult part in choosing a Freelancer for a specific project or position, is how one can evaluate his expertise and at the end his price tag of the person.
So, "Digital Mediation" is going to be a new kind of service, quite different from what most of us have in mind when we visit sites like "experts exchange" and oDesk.
These services, had a great success, but IMHO they are incomplete. They make good money till now, but they have a better future ahead.
Not a long time ago, I heart people saying : " The Internet is the technology that pushes the mediators out of the picture". Now, after some years, i think that quite the opposite is true: " The Internet is so vast and complex that we all need a mediation service to find the right service for us".
Digital Mediation as opposed to good old Mediation?
Mediation is indeed an old art. It has been known to man since the very early years of his existence. According to historians, early cases of mediation have been known to exist in Phoenician commerce. But the practice of Mediation has been extensively developed in Ancient Greece, then in Roman Civilization (where the Roman Law recognized mediation) and since then, in all modern societies.
One of the fundamental laws in mediation is the existence of a third party, the Mediator, which brings the other two parties “face-to-face”, in order to find mutually agreeable solutions.
In the Digital Age, Mediation is known in many areas, mainly in e-Commerce, e-Law and other fields, and it is usually referred as “On-Line Mediation”. The most important points On-Line Mediation adds to the traditional Mediation process are:
- Brings parts together even if they are in geographically distant locations, using new technologies and telecommunications.
- The On-Line mediation process can commence almost immediately, without waiting for any previous meetings and can continue at any time between meetings.
- The whole process can be monitored and accounted in every step of it, to ensure the integrity of the outcome.
- It makes the usage of both parties’ time more efficient.
- The process is completely based in the professionalism, the confidentiality, integrity and security of the Mediator.
- It can use and enforce codes and best practices, at any time, on top of the basic mediation process.
Based on the previous points, a New Perspective was conceptualized by some companies and brought to life by developing new and innovative technological methods to implement flexible, extendable and solid frameworks for the new Digital Era.
We are now talking for a "Digital Mediator" that will bring parties together through networks and telecommunication technology and take the overhead of the payment and rating process off the shoulders of the Freelancers. Whatever job the freelancer is an expert at.. Scientist, Doctor, Writer, Translator etc etc.
Keep visiting this space for more ...
