Gig Worker, Freelancer, Independent Contractor … Whatever you call yourself - this is important …

Both these extracts taken from Stowe Boyds’ Newsletter today If you sent already track him … you should.

Uber

”These requests put Uber in a bind. The firm insists that its drivers are independent, self-employed sole traders. But the drivers suspect that full datasets would show that Uber uses information it gleans about drivers to manage them through algorithms, highlighting a lack of independence that weakens Uber’s argument.”

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Freelance Journalism

”But it’s part B that presents a problem for freelance journalists: someone is an independent contractor only if they perform work “outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.” In the archetypal example, a plumber fixing a restaurant toilet clearly qualifies. A freelancer journalist writing a column for a magazine? Not so much.

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My Take

It is an ongoing problem that needs a real resolution. Fast. It serves Corporates very well to allow them to lower headcount and increase freelancers for any number of reasons … but people are still just counted as people.

If Corporations really are people (thank you Mitt) - … they’re not - but lets say that we accept that … then People are Corporations. But that is not how we are treated. We are still treated as a cog in a corporate machine.

What say whether you work independently or for a corporation … you get to choose how your taxes are paid / collected .

You get the benefit that IF you earn a lot of money on one year - and not so much on the next that you can manage the two years together and reduce your tax burden

If it made no difference as to whether a person was employed full time inside of a corporation or as a freelancer or worked for themselves, then don’t all these problems go away? Well - ok - not the Uber problem … that’s different - if connected.

Outsourcing Helps You Manage Your Business. True. But this advice is just plain wrong. Let me explain …

Rampton writes:

”One of the best ways to manage the multiple parts of running a business is to get help. For example, instead of spending so much time on administrative tasks you can hire a virtual assistant. The key is to outsource things that don’t make you money so you have time to focus on the things that do. Here are some of the things you can begin to outsource:

Administrative tasks like

• Customer service and email management.
• Accounting, bookkeeping and invoicing.
• Social media management.
• Public relations and pitching media
• Web and graphic design

Do you need to outsource all of these things at the same time? No. Start with the most important things and then work the others in over time. This also isn’t an exhaustive list. Depending on what kind of business you have, you may think of other tasks that can be outsourced.”

John Rampton

The Full Story

My Thoughts

I think I disagree with

”Start With The Most Important Things”.

and

”Social media management”.

No wait, I totally disagree. Here’s the problem

Outsourcing is hard. Outsourcing takes skill. Outsourcing can go terribly wrong. So why start with the most important? Start with the easiest and least important (they may not be the same). Get practice in understanding how outsourcing works. How much of your time is still going to be taken up with it. Outsourcing is not abdication of responsibility.

As for outsourcing Social Media Management … first ask yourself do you need it … at all. And if you do - you do it. How can you outsource you, your thoughts, your pithy comments, your ideas. If it is going to be bland uninteresting stuff - why bother?

I have so much more to say - but I’m just going to ge this out through the door.

On Perception

”There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”

Aldous Huxley

On Humanity

”All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Blaise Pascal

The Demand of 2020: Law and Order

”This brings me to 2020 and what should be its defining issue, which is crime. Trump’s election, and his policies eliminating a century of business regulation, have thrown gasoline on the fire of a business crime wave unparalleled in our history. There are no longer any rules, or so it seems. You can fire people at will, your waste can destroy their land, air and water, and everything the government touches is for sale to the highest bidder. That’s not capitalism. That’s not even socialism. It’s kleptocracy. It’s Russia.”

and

”This coming election is not about capitalism or socialism. They are not in conflict. It needs to be about criminal behavior vs. honest behavior, ethical behavior vs. unethical behavior.”

and

”There’s a joke that “I won’t believe corporations are people until Texas executes one.”

Dana Blankenhorn

The Full Story

May is Utterly Unfit to Lead

“(Almost) everyone knows that to leave without a deal will be a disaster. Everyone also knows the Commons has it in its power to avert that disaster. And yet today we have taken another step towards it, led by a prime minister utterly unable to lead.”

Jonathan Freedland

The Full Story

On Digital

”But just as elevators have changed the shape of buildings and cars have changed the shape of cities, bits will change the shape of organizations, be they companies, nations, or social structures.”

Nicholas Negroponte

On Answers

”If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”

Thomas Pynchon

On Dying

”Dying is active. Dying is not what happens to you. Dying is what you do.”

Stephen Jenkinson

Remaking the Servant Economy

“An unkind summary, then, of the past half decade of the consumer internet: Venture capitalists have subsidized the creation of platforms for low-paying work that deliver on-demand servant services to rich people, while subjecting all parties to increased surveillance.”

Alexis Madrigal

The Full Story

My Thoughts

One beef …. why ‘unkind’ … that is exactly what is going on. Encapsulates my thoughts completely. And nobody … nobody seems to be concerned.