Comments on: Blurring Identity to Clear It Up http://garrickvanburen.com/archive/blurring-identity-to-clear-it-up User Experience Strategy, Ruby and Rails Web App Development Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:04:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Steve Borsch http://garrickvanburen.com/archive/blurring-identity-to-clear-it-up/comment-page-1#comment-27497 Steve Borsch Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:26:56 +0000 http://garrickvanburen.com/archive/blurring-identity-to-clear-it-up#comment-27497 Oh yeah...you buyin' lunch next time? ;-) Oh yeah…you buyin’ lunch next time? ;-)

]]> By: Steve Borsch http://garrickvanburen.com/archive/blurring-identity-to-clear-it-up/comment-page-1#comment-27498 Steve Borsch Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:26:37 +0000 http://garrickvanburen.com/archive/blurring-identity-to-clear-it-up#comment-27498 What I'm thinking about is more along the lines of Rent a Coder (http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/default.asp) but the leap I'm wrestling with is this: a) Having a very specific task or project to be coded in mind means that it's relatively easy to scope something and thus "let" a request for bid and somewhat easy for coders to respond b) The tough part is knowledge work that's more amorphous. Let's say that you have a business solely focused on telephony services (this is a real-world example I know of personally). You understand that VoIP and Asterisk type software are huge disruptors of your business. You need to build a strategy and contact Accenture, Telecom Consultants, Inc., Joe's Pretty Good Tech Consulting and hope you get the right strategy built...but the bids are $500k down to $10k since the measures of quality, scope, skills, and knowledge are HUGELY different c) Another real-world example: you need to build a living magazine and are exploring Wordpress, Movable Type and Joomla. Bids come in from $5k (for the WP) to $50k (for Joomla) until someone points out the $49.94 iJoomla magazine plug-in. Blogs make more sense as an engine, but the Joomla CMS is more powerful. A small organization wrestles with what to do (strategically), get it built and deployed (tactically), and figure out how to maintain it long term. This is tough stuff. I know I'm comparing apples-n-oranges, but it's the "Rent a Strategist-or-Idea Jockey-or-knowledge worker" that's really needed and to which reputation, identity and a value exchange marketplace applies. What I’m thinking about is more along the lines of Rent a Coder (http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/default.asp) but the leap I’m wrestling with is this:

a) Having a very specific task or project to be coded in mind means that it’s relatively easy to scope something and thus “let” a request for bid and somewhat easy for coders to respond

b) The tough part is knowledge work that’s more amorphous. Let’s say that you have a business solely focused on telephony services (this is a real-world example I know of personally). You understand that VoIP and Asterisk type software are huge disruptors of your business.

You need to build a strategy and contact Accenture, Telecom Consultants, Inc., Joe’s Pretty Good Tech Consulting and hope you get the right strategy built…but the bids are $500k down to $10k since the measures of quality, scope, skills, and knowledge are HUGELY different

c) Another real-world example: you need to build a living magazine and are exploring Wordpress, Movable Type and Joomla. Bids come in from $5k (for the WP) to $50k (for Joomla) until someone points out the $49.94 iJoomla magazine plug-in. Blogs make more sense as an engine, but the Joomla CMS is more powerful.

A small organization wrestles with what to do (strategically), get it built and deployed (tactically), and figure out how to maintain it long term. This is tough stuff.

I know I’m comparing apples-n-oranges, but it’s the “Rent a Strategist-or-Idea Jockey-or-knowledge worker” that’s really needed and to which reputation, identity and a value exchange marketplace applies.

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