It’s
official folks!
We’re
now wannabee Flexi-worker lovin’ Californians and Australians here in Jamaica
in what I’d like to call the beginning of a Silicon Caribe, to steal the title
from rival Blog, SiliconCaribe.
This
is possibly going to be the most straightforward article I’ve ever penned for
my personal blog. Basically it’s an expansion on the idea of Tele-working from
home which is powered by Flexi-workers as surmised in my Geezam blog article
entitled “Jamaica’s 100MBps
Internet Silver Lining – Tele-commuting Workplace is coming”.
Sydney
Australia based website Freelancer
and San Francisco, California based MobileWorks are coming to Jamaica….why I
haven’t a clue…maybe it’s the women and the Red Stripe Beer. Whatever the
reason, these two (2) companies made their presence felt during the three-day
Digital Jam Marketplace and Job Fair held at the Jamaica Conference Center in
Downtown Kingston on Ocean Boulevard that ended Friday June 29th
2012.
Freelancer and MobileWorks are however
significant in that they are the next big push for another branch of the ICT
Sector: Data Outsourcing as hinted in the article “Freelancer.com
launches Jamaican website”, published Sunday July 8, 2012, The Jamaica Gleaner and “MobileWorks
projects sourced from Government”, published July 8th 2012, The Jamaica Gleaner.
Our
Americans counterparts call Data Outsourcing by fancier names; Crowdsourcing …or Micro working. Whatever
other colourful terms Americans choose to call Data Outsourcing, it’s
effectively the same thing; taking big projects and subdividing them up into
smaller projects to be completed by a disparate skilled workforce for a faction
of the cost. A form of Tele-working, it’ll be a boost to the idea
of Flexi-working.
Flexi-working, where the standard forty hour (40) workweek
is accumulated on any day on a week determined by the company, has long been
the norm for the youthful Millennial (18-28) workers that populate the many
Call Centers now dotting Jamaica ICT Sector landscape.
It however has been shunned and lobbied against by Bible
chomping folks who dislike the notion of potential tithes ending up in the
hands of Private Sector companies that practice Flexi-working as noted in my Geezam blog article
entitled “Jamaica’s 100MBps
Internet Silver Lining – Tele-commuting Workplace is coming”.
And the GOJ is yet to have an Official position on the
implementation of Flexi-working due mainly to strong opposition from Religious
and Church groups, who fear a fall out in their revenues earned from
church-going young people, the real reason behind their claims of Flexi-working
eroding family core values.
But for those in the Flexi-work “Systems” such as Call
Centers, these arguments are farce compared to being at home and having no work
to even contribute the titles the Churches and the Pastor so dearly want to
line his pockets. The fact, plain and simple, is that by virtue of the six
hundred (600) year old Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Jamaicans having English
our first language the unemployed can now finally become employed in
non-discriminatory workplace on their own terms.
This, really though, is due to the laziness of the First
World cousins as noted in my blog article
entitled “Convergyns
and Aegis Communications Call Centers Coming – FDI powered Call Center
Renaissance in Jamaica thanks to our Good English”.
An
irony, as it speaks to the greatness of the US and the British; Thanks to their
“First World” status, it creates a lazy society that can’t be bothered to read,
interpret and understand manuals. Thus, by this strange token, it creates work
for those in the so-called Developed or Third World Countries skilled at
interpreting the hieroglyphics and Engineering-speak encoded in the Operator
Manuals while using the additional expertise of the Installer Manuals to which
the customer has no access.
A
source of heated debate during lunch hours at my workplace in Jamaica at ACCENT
Marketing to be sure!
It also has a little bit of entrepreneurism on the same
level of making your own Freemium Gaming Apps for smartphones and tablets as
described in my Geezam
blog article entitled “Smartphones
and Apps – Freemium Games are No. 1” in for good measure with the option to make money via a
variety of ways online.
Sydney
Australia based website Freelancer Jamaican
counterpart went live on Friday June 29th 2012AD at the tail end of
the three-day Digital Jam Marketplace and Job Fair held at the Jamaica
Conference center in Downtown Kingston on Ocean Boulevard as stated in the
article “Freelancer.com
launches Jamaican website”, published Sunday July 8, 2012, The Jamaica Gleaner.
Freelancer is
straightforward enough; simply sign up using your email and select a strong
password or use your Facebook credentials to become a member. Then rove the “work
available” section and bid on several of the various small projects as a Freelancer employee in your spare time, once you qualify yourself for one of
the following IT-esque skills sets:
1. Website scripting or design
2. Article rewriting or writing
3. Graphic Design
4. Programming
5. Social Media Marketing
6. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Ditto
too for employers, who are also looking to pay for the above skills as low as
US$20 to US$200 per completed project. What’s not to love, especially the
Article writing, which is just up my alley!
Freelancer statements on their website
with regards to their services now available to Jamaicans should bring peals of
joy to those above-mentioned, quote: “The platform connects over three million
employers and freelancers globally from over 234 countries and regions. Through
its website, employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as
software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the
sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting and legal services”.
Meanwhile
Start-up, San Francisco, California based MobileWorks, has also launched their
crowdsourcing services here in Jamaica in partnership with the GOJ (Government
of Jamaica) as stated in the article “MobileWorks
projects sourced from Government”, published July 8th 2012, The Jamaica Gleaner.
According
to MobileWorks CEO KulKarni, MobileWorks, which began in 2010AD, aims to effectively
delegate large IT projects (Jamaican call that contracts!!) from clients in the US, EU and East Asia to IT
and tech savvy folks who have long had computer programming and app design
skills but were working frustrated working as Network Administrators and
Computer Repair Technicians in a country that has no need for such skills –
until now.
Effectively
crowdsourcing, with the potential to create some one thousand (1,000) jobs
within six (6) months time and ten (10) times that amount over a three (3) year
period. Certainly explains the partnership with the GOJ, who are socialist to
the core; anything that creates jobs they will support!
Salaries
are also similar as well, with daily rates varying from as low as US$5 to US$20
per day. Albeit coming in a lot less than a Call Center for the same skills as
mentioned above, it’s easy pickings for those wishing to make a little extra
money on the side.
According
to MobileWorks CEO KulKarni, the GOJ is apparently looking into outsourcing
their backlog of work, quote: “We [established] contracts with governments. We
have plans to index large sources of work. Our customer contracts are typically
confidential, but they include search companies and financial service
companies”.
In
plain English, Freelancer and
MobileWorks are both birds of the same feather and are another type of ICT
Sector: Data Outsourcing. Operating a lot like Call Centers, they have accounts
for both small and large clients.
Call
Centers such as FullGram Solutions or ACCENT Marketing Limited as explained in my blog
article entitled “Digicel
cuts 120 Call Center Jobs - Fullgram Solutions to benefit as Antonio Graham
speaks of an AEPP future by the Ocean” are our close cousins. Data
Outsourcers such as Freelancer and
MobileWorks typically take small jobs or large jobs and organize them via a
Cloud-based platform to skilled workers via a Tele-working arrangements that
marshals the skills of Internet connected individuals in other countries for
lower salaries.
The
only difference is that you do not need to answer calls with a headset all day,
smiling at no one in particular during calls and dressed all fancy with no
place to go. Instead, you just go to their website still dressed in your
Pajamas (or no clothes at all), sign up and select a Project, follow the
instructions and on completion, you get paid! You may initially on reading this
far, dear reader, scoff at the lower salary, but if you’re already working,
making and extra US$200 per fortnight does indeed help to pay those bills.
The
reason for Data Outsourcing coming to Jamaica in such a big way is due to the
same language, cultural and time zone factors influencing US based Call Centers
locating themselves in Jamaica and the Caribbean as mentioned in my blog article
entitled “Convergyns
and Aegis Communications Call Centers Coming – FDI powered Call Center
Renaissance in Jamaica thanks to our Good English”.
Already
twenty six (26) Call Centers, which have the more official title of BPO
(Business Process Outsourcing) are already in operation in Jamaica as noted in
the article “BPO
and Call Center companies operating in Jamaica”, viewed 05/12/2012, Nearshore Jamaica, with more
on the way.
Truly
this may be a renaissance for Programmers and App builders, as these
developments not only herald the coming of the ratification of Flexi-work in
Jamaica, already a reality, but also the rebirth of Data Outsourcing. An Anaconda
sure to squeeze Jamaica forward into the 21st Century!
9 comments:
Hey! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering
which blog platform are you using for this site?
I'm getting tired of Wordpress because I've had problems with hackers and I'm looking at alternatives for another platform. I would be great if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.
Also visit my webpage : click here
We're a gaggle of volunteers and opening a brand new scheme in our community. Your web site offered us with useful information to work on. You've
done a formidable activity and our entire community will likely be grateful to you.
Feel free to surf my page ; http://panicattackscured.net
It's really a great and helpful piece of info. I am glad that you simply shared this useful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.
Take a look at my homepage ; cocktail dresses online
I reаd this paragraph complеtely on the topic of the compariѕon of hottest
аnd preceԁing teсhnologіes, it's awesome article.
My site - v2 cigs 15 off
Oh my goodness! Impressive article dude! Thank you so much,
However I am going through problems with your RSS.
I don't understand the reason why I can't subscribe to
it. Is there anybody getting similar RSS issues? Anyone that knows the answer will you kindly
respond? Thanx!!
Also see my web site - dentist union city nj}
Heya i am for the first time here. I came across this board and
I find It truly useful & it helped me out a lot. I hope to give
something back and aid others like you helped me.
Also see my web site - federal firearms license
When someone writes an post he/she retains the idea of a user in his/her brain that how a
user can understand it. Thus that's why this paragraph is great. Thanks!
Also see my web site > chase your dreams
Post a Comment