We haven’t had many updates on here lately, but I’d like to share with you my thoughts on the new oDesk Manifesto that has come out recently. So many of the freelancing/outsourcing services seem to work against the provider or against the buyer to make their …

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I think we got something going here. There’s a few more words I would like to get out regarding Bill’s post and mine. It’s no secret that Bill, Dave, and I are writers, and we tend to write on this blog with a writer’s slant. Keep in mind that …

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I’ve been holding back on you. There really is a secret to success on oDesk, your life, and anything else. Countless people have approached me and said, “I want to do what you’re doing. You seem to be having a ton of fun and making money at it.” So, I …

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It’s happened to me, it’s happened to you, it’s happened to all of us.  You apply for a job opening, get the interview and then after what feels like some good solid communication you discover the job went to someone else.

Well, you could do some yelling and screaming and run …

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It’s not easy to be a freelancer. That’s just the way it is. It takes a certain kind of bravery.

Lately, a lot of my friends have seen what I’ve been doing, and they want “in on the action.” Of course, I’m perfectly willing to oblige by pointing them in the …

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I was on the oDesk forums recently and came across a comment from a new provider who was worried by the ratio of working to registered providers.

She couldn’t find the page, which was probably the main oConomy page here which currently shows 248 providers working and 95,545 registered int the system.  I admit that those numbers weren’t calculated to put a new provider in her happy place, but they don’t tell the whole story either.

It isn’t showing how many providers on the network have jobs, but how many people were actively logging time on the oDesk client at the time the numbers were generated.   Given that oDesk is a 24 hour global marketplace those numbers will fluctuate throughout the day and really aren’t anything to worry about.  They certainly don’t reflect the number of providers who are currently employed.  (I expect they’re short by at least one or two orders of magnitude).

Now let’s look at some other numbers from the same page.  There are almost 100,000 providers, and together they’ve earned just under 40 million dollars, which works out to an average of almost U$400/per provider to date.   Since not every provider on oDesk has worked, and that some profiles are so incomplete that the providers are never going to work, the numbers have nowhere to go but up.
When it comes to getting a job, none of those numbers matter.

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Job sites need to make money too.

oDesk wouldn’t exist if it didn’t make money, and neither would its competitors.  The business model is simple, connect buyers and providers and take a cut off the top.  There’s more to it, but that’s fundamentally how they all work.

It’s much like an agency …

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How much attention do you pay to the oDesk Community?  Do you ignore it unless you have a problem?  Freelancing is generally a solitary occupation, so I imagine many of you just like to focus on your own projects and ignore the community.

For some of you it probably works.  Every …

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In my last few posts I’ve been focusing on how you can make money on oDesk.  However, as I read the oDesk community I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that not all the providers really understand how oDesk works.

Let’s start with what I consider the three most important factors:
oDesk is a free market
oDesk costs money to run
oDesk only makes money when providers make money.
Understanding those three points is vital if you want to understand how oDesk works.  Yes the oDesk Readiness Test is important, as is knowing how to work the oDesk Team, but there’s nothing really all that hard about either.

So, join me on the other side of the fold and we’ll discuss our three factors:

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I continually discover new, exciting ideas in writing. This is because I was not formally trained as a writer. I had the usual college composition and creative writing courses, but I was never exposed to the real secrets; the secrets writers use constantly in their craft. Here are a few I’ve picked up.
Nominalization
What is it? Nominalization is the process of making abstract nouns from verbs and adjectives. Some examples:
verb -> nominalization
discover -> discovery
oppose -> opposition
believe -> belief
adjective -> nominalization
hopeless -> hopelessness
careless -> carelessness
different -> difference
Take a look at this pair of sentences-

The opposition found among many voters to coal-fueled power plants is based on a belief of the threat to the atmosphere.

Many voters oppose coal-fueled power plants because they believe these plants threaten the atmosphere.

The abstract nouns become verbs, subjects get pinned directly to their verbs, and clarity increases.

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