Better Society: A marketplace for matching small jobs, skills and hobbies to people that needs it

filed in Better Society, Singapore on Nov.02, 2011

Better society is a segment on Productive Organizer where we focus on business or people taking alternative efforts to improve the way we live through innovative means as well as opinions on our current society.

The market place is an important concept. Without its existence, people’s lives are worse because there do not exist a place that people that demands something can get their needs address by people that can supply it.

Unemployment and living the employment scene

The situation now in many places around the world have been a breakdown in business structure creating big unemployment.

Many people have lost the means to make a living if their skills that they learn in schools are in low demand or do not have demand in their countries. They would have to be retrained in other fields.

Imagine sending resumes to many firms but no one wants you because you are either too obsolete, too old or basically there is no demand for you locally.

There are many people falling out of the employment scene which actually makes unemployment numbers look better

There are always wants and needs

No matter how bad the situation, people have services that they require. The thing is that we glorify it as something that you have to professionally train in school for a few years, learn at a job to refine it and sell it at a high price to an establishment.

But what if the need is something more simple. What if as a professional you just enjoy helping people and getting to know people and don’t care about making money so much

I need someone to buy some furniture from IKEA and deliver to my house today
My nanny fell sick and I need someone to help me fetch my kids from school nearby so that I can pick them up after work
I want to learn how to create those nice pottery but I don’t want to go for a full class
We have a home gathering and need someone to cook or bake some unique eats for us

There are people with secondary skills

You don’t have to be professionally train to

Bake a cake that you like
Plan a great trip to Taiwan or Vietnam!
Take some nice photographs for the family
Assemble a computer for you family
Create a facebook fan page for yourself
Create a wordpress blog for yourself

If you are professionally train, you may want to help people with your skills

A Marketplace to match those that wants with those will provide

I think what government can encourage a marketplace to match these needs and wants.

We are seeing great entrepreneurs in the US trying to create a better society by addressing this space.

Coffee and Power

Phillip Rosedale, the founder of The Second Life, figured out how to get people to buy and sell goods and services in a virtual marketplace and he is now trying to do the same in the real world by launching Coffee & Power:

The site launched earlier this year, but re-launched on a broader scale today with services offered ranging from Arabic lessons to Android development to octopus crocheting. It uses a virtual currency, but exists very much in physical space — there’s even a Coffee & Power-funded coffee shop in San Francisco where people can meet up to exchange things. It’s a nice concept, but we can’t help but notice that Rosedale’s first project had one big advantage: you didn’t have to leave your house to buy stuff on Second Life.

How does it work?

You tell others what you are willing to do or need done, right now, for how much. The map shows your listings (we call them “missions”) along with those of other people. You use SMS and your mobile phone to quickly make/receive offers and get paid. Buyers and sellers use a virtual currency system (C$) for payments. You can earn C$ by selling missions, or buy themusing your credit card or Paypal. You can also turn the virtual currency back into US$ via Paypal.

Why do it?

As a seller: To help and meet people, make some extra money doing what you’re great at, or practice a new skill. As a buyer: To find new things or get something done faster and easier than you expected.

What kind of jobs happen on Coffee & Power?

All kinds! Do you need or have a recommendation on a new laptop, or travel advice on what to see on your upcoming trip to Buenos Aires? Check out the “Expertise on Tap” category. Need a desk assembled or a router reconfigured? See “Setup, Maint. & Repair”. Or maybe you just want some homemade cookies delivered to you by a local baking enthusiast? See “Little Luxuries”. But…we’re all still learning what people will use C&P for, which is a big part of the opportunity here!

Task Rabbit

Another very great idea is Task Rabbit created by Leah. It works on the same concept as Coffee and Power but it has been around for longer.

TaskRabbit is an online and mobile marketplace that allows folks to live a smarter and more fulfilling life by once again relying on their neighbors. TaskRabbit is about solving an age-old problem: there is never enough time in the day to do everything you need to do. At TaskRabbit, we harness the power of the community to get things done – forming a virtual neighborhood. We call it “Service Networking” – leveraging the latest social, mobile and location-based technologies to bring neighbors together to get things done.

There is a varied of task to be done and people with the right time and skills can bid for it.

The rabbits develop a reputation if they want to stay in this “business” for long. The higher your “level” the higher you can possibly charge and more likely to get the job.

Worklist

Now we know that to build software, you need to integrate many modules and many lines of code and many user interface.

We typically hire a group of developers to make it. You have to content with the person’s skillset, competency not to mention his development as an employee and all the benefits they should have.

But we know that software projects are make up of smaller pieces and what if people that have the time and skills can bid for that small feature and get paid doing it?

What if you have a project but not sure how far it develops to hire a full time freelance developer?

That’s the beauty of Worklist, the brain child of Philip Rosedale as well.

Worklist is a marketplace to rapidly build software and websites using a global network of developers, designers and testers. If you do the job well, it also act as an interview to get more permanently hired in that project, start-up or people can refer you because you are good.

We all complain that in Singapore, if you like technical things, after a certain age, no one hires you. What if you can get paid doing what you like? And explore new stuff meet new people?

There are numerous projects whether on iPhone, web, Coffee and Power which was mentioned above is also listed here!

The requirements are basically broken down into simple jobs such as

The resourses are provided and the community built up will point you to where you can find the resources required or help required.

On the right side you can take a look at how much some people taking the jobs are paid.

This is a great platform for students who want to build up their skills and for experience developers who have moved on the management but still likes to tinker with codes.

Conclusion

To solve certain employment and social issues, a city or country may want to look at innovative ways to get it done. The ideas presented may work in your local context and with a skills marketplace it can match people with needs to the people that can do it.

Tags: coffeeandpower, craigslist, task rabbit, unemployment

Like this article? Subscribe to my feed today

Panzer

Hi Drizzt,

It’s something like eLance but on a less formal basis. The other concept is Amazon’s mechanical turk. Although the downside of this is exploitation of people, i.e. the middleman is the one who gets a cut. But if there is value to be created in matching supply and demand of labour services, why not?

Headhunters and recruitment agencies do it all the time. Being the middleman. Actually, that’s something that in the real world I can explore because one of the non-profit entities where I serve as a board member does do that on occasion, i.e. take up a labour intensive job and get hourly rated temps to do and the non-profit gets the difference.

We are able to do it because we already have a pool of hourly-rated staff we tap on for other project work that we get from time to time.

The issue would be the reliability of the people provide the services and their reputation/credibility. This one is the most challenging thing like eBay reputation.
http://www.productiveorganizer.com Kyith

Thanks for showing me Amazon’s mechanical turk. it is a very good idea.

The implementation is important. We don’t want this to degenerate into something like a portal to hire a group of cheap labors and exploitation.

The culture of things here is also a different matter. People here may not be so willing to pay for such small service. they are usually tighter with their money.

But a certain home maker may be able to create a parttime job with their ad hoc time this way.

Welcome to Productive Organizer

The productive organizer is one who is in control of himself as well as his surroundings.He studies how others define their system and works to improve on it and in turn, educate others how to change their lives.

Here, we hope to bring you the necessary widgets to effectively organize how you work or play. Whether you are at work, on the move, or at home, we will find the right solution for you to get things done. Read More...
Useful Tech Tips

Productive Organizer

Definitive Guide to Organizing Your Life and Getting Things Done®