Free Agent Nation

In his 2001 book Free Agent Nation Daniel H. Pink quotes some ponderous statistics about the growing trend amongst American workers away from the “Company man/job for life” philosophy to one more in keeping with the values of the individual. Specifically he estimated there were over 33 million Americans working for themselves. He identified three categories of independent worker:

• Soloists (16.5 million) – professionals performing discrete contract work for others. Graphic designers, plumbers, computer programmers, house painters – you get the idea.
• Temps (3.5 million) – skilled individuals performing non-project work, typically in larger organizations.
• Microbusinesses (13 million) – individuals or small teams developing, selling and supporting goods in the marketplace. These businesses are frequently home-based.

Add it all up and you get 33 million people operating as free agents.

In Pink’s latest article in Fast Company where he’s reworked the numbers, presumably based on better data, Pink notes that in January the IRS expects to mail out more than 74 million copies of Form1099-MISC -- the pay stub of those Pink refers to as free agents.

SEVENTY FOUR MILLION?? That’s a lot of independent people. People not just providing services, but also consuming them. What kinds of services? Most are traditional storefronts, identified with brand names such as Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Office Depot, Kinko’s and FedEx. Pink neatly describes some unifying characteristics of these places for free agents:

• Self-organized rather than centrally planned; every independent worker has his or her own idea of where is the “right” place to meet, read, copy, print, download, deal-make, e-mail. Each day and location will likely be different, but the brand names visited will stay pretty consistent.
• Locations serve a social role by providing a “Third Place” where independent workers can meet . These locations become the office, library, war room, chill-out space, cafeteria and social heart of the independent worker’s business.

“I’ll pick up the prints at Kinko’s, then meet Hannah at Starbucks so we can review them together. I’ll have her Fed-Ex them to the client on her way home and I’ll chill at Jamba Juice until the new client meeting at four.”

What’s that got to do with Content Circles? I’m glad you asked…

Much has changed in internet usage specifically since 2001 (big hint #1: Content Circles has something to do with the Internet – DUH!). Wireless access and internet hotspots are standard parts of the daily computing experience now. Blackberrys have been dubbed “crackberrys” because of their owners apparent addiction to the little beasts. Instant messaging, social networking, internet telephony, e-faxing and other communication tools are now reliable, rich and simple enough to completely supplant the “infrastructure” of the past. Online services of every conceivable form have proliferated to make it easier to manage the business. And all of these resources can be fully utilized without requiring that a person sit in a specific office and log into a centrally-administered system. Always on, always accessible, always efficient. Sounds pretty good so far, doesn’t it?

Digging a little deeper into what the Free Agent nation does and does not do “online” we get a little closer to the Content Circles connection. So maybe free agents aren’t logging into a corporate payroll system or Exchange server. But every online transaction is running through a server somewhere, and every service accessed over the web is, fundamentally, just like the old centrally-administered mainframe of 20 years ago. You log in, you’re authenticated, you can do what you’re authorized to do, your information is logged (sometimes stored, frequently processed), and you move on to the next task of the day.

Now, Imagine if you will all seventy four million (or 33 million, or even 20 million if you want to be conservative) of those free agents sitting down at their computer - in Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, grandma’s house in Vermont, Highlands coffee in Hanoi or wherever they might be. Clacking away on their keyboards, frowning at the screen. Deep question: what do you suppose they’re DOING??

     Checking e-mail? Sure

     Updating documents in Word or Excel? Probably

     Futzing with their bank balance? Roger to that

     Using some online service to help with marketing and business development? Quite possibly, depending on
     the business

     Backing up, storing and sharing documents ? Uh, WHAT??

Seriously, how many free agents do you think consciously store their documents, the lifeblood of their business, up on one of those servers or services in the sky?? Those proposals, contracts, agreements, timelines, pricing sheets, works of art, works of fiction; work, period. And, if they’re NOT using some file store in the sky to manage and share their work, then where do those documents live? Where do their owners WANT them to live? And why?

Something to ponder as you sip your soy decaf Frappuccino and observe the person tapping away on their computer at the next table…