Elancer

April 2007

Helping Children Become Better Adults

An Interview with Pam Golden, President of Pam Golden & Associates

Pam Golden started out simply wanting to make a difference. Five years, 15,000 children, and over 700 administrators and teachers later, she has made a huge difference. As a bullying prevention consultant for elementary schools, she teaches children the skills they need to make and keep friends and solve problems. As a result, they're much less likely to be the victim of bullies or become a bully themselves.

"Research shows that six out of ten children who bully will have a criminal conviction by their mid-twenties, and forty percent of those will have multiple convictions," says Pam. "Even if you put the long-term repercussions of bullying aside, when children know they can solve problems on their own they have more confidence, they get along better with other children… in short they're much happier."

Stories and pictures are an integral part of her program. To reach a broader audience, Pam decided to develop a children's book based on her tattling prevention program. "We teach children to handle small problems on their own, and report larger problems to an adult," says Pam. "We give them a way to decide what to do – and how to do it."

She selected Tina Musial (Elance username: tinamarie11) to edit her story and Irina (Elance username: accent_design) to create illustrations.

"I posted the projects and got wonderful responses," says Pam, "I was amazed by all the talent and I loved looking at each provider's work. Viewing portfolios and samples was exciting, incredibly reassuring and really made me feel good about the choices I made."

Then she faced a challenge. CBS News asked to do a story on Pam and her program, and she needed illustrations – fast. She had one week to have materials on hand for the crew to film.

"Irina was amazing," Pam says. "She met my schedule, created beautiful illustrations and was awesome to work with. She really helped make 'Lulu Learns About Reporting' come to life, and in an incredibly short time."

"I help teach children how to solve problems and as a result live happier lives," says Pam. "In turn, Elance makes my life better. The providers are professional and talented, I can view their portfolios and their work to help me make the right choice, and I know I have the support of Elance if I ever need it."

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Serial Entrepreneur: Mark Fletcher

An interview with the founder of Startupping, Bloglines and ONEList

"Being an entrepreneur can be lonely," says Mark Fletcher, winner of the Wired Magazine Tech Innovator Rave Award in 2005. "When I first started a business in 1987 I wished there was somewhere I could turn to for help."

Now there is. With the help of Elance providers, Mark, a "serial entrepreneur" – we'll get to that in a moment – recently launched Startupping (http://www.startupping.com/). Startupping is a community resource created for Internet entrepreneurs by Internet entrepreneurs; you can share information, ask questions and tap into the experience of people who have built and are building web businesses.

"Having a community to turn to for advice and support is incredibly valuable for people starting any business," says Mark. "While there are scattered resources, there isn't a central gathering place for Internet entrepreneurs."

To develop Startupping's entrepreneur community, Mark turned to the virtual outsourcing community. "I'm a programmer and software developer," says Mark. "I'm not a designer per se. So I've worked with providers like Logo Design Company (Elance username: logodesigncompany) for the Startupping logo and MetaLink (Elance username: metalink) for Windows programming."

So – why is Mark a "serial entrepreneur"? Take a quick look at his resume. In 1997 he started ONEList, a free Internet e-mail list service. ONEList was acquired by Yahoo! for more than $400 million in 2000 – you may know it now as Yahoo! Groups. At acquisition it served twenty million active users, one million email lists and sent out over two billion email messages a month, making it one of the largest services on the Internet.

Jump ahead to 2003 when Mark started Bloglines, a free web-based news aggregation service. "I took a different approach to building Bloglines," says Mark. "ONEList was a large company with over 150 employees. I wanted to prove an Internet company could be built and run cheaply, so I took advantage of virtual outsourcing."

Bloglines, like ONEList, was wildly successful. Users could easily search, subscribe to, share, and publish blogs and RSS feeds. Bloglines was named one of Time magazine's Top 50 Web Sites for 2004, and was named the Best Blog/Feed Search Engine by the Search Engine Watch Awards in 2005. In 2005 Bloglines was acquired by Ask Jeeves.

"I start companies to solve problems and make life easier," says Mark. "When you have a problem you're passionate about solving and you solve it, you're already a success – and if other people have the same problem, then you can help them too. The key is to reinvent and apply different solutions."

Mark's advice for Elance providers? "I know what makes a big difference to me," says Mark. "I love thorough bids. I also love when I put a project up for bid and a bidder will already have started doing the work. If I post a project for web design, for example, and a bidder provides samples for my project, I think that's wonderful, and I naturally lean towards choosing that provider."

And what's ahead for Mark? "I want to give back to a community that has done so much for me," says Mark. "I want to build the resources on Startupping so it helps as many Internet entrepreneurs as possible. Startupping doesn't have to become a "big" company – I just want it to be valuable to its users. I'm also an early stage angel investor, with investments in companies like One True Media, Wesabe and Techdirt."

"But I am a serial entrepreneur, and at some point I feel sure I'll start another company – building companies that solve problems is what I do."

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Comment on Design Concepts for Elance's New Logo

We thought it was about time to refresh our logo. Below are some of the concepts we have reviewed so far. Take a look and tell us what you think.

A. Designed by Steve Soto (SOTO28)

A1. A2. A3.

 

B. Designed by Santa Fe 360 (SF360)

B1. B2. B3.

 

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Recommended Book: The No A*!@^#$ Rule

Speaking of bullies among children, unfortunately there are many bullies among adults too. Everyone has felt stress at work, but bullies in the workplace, and even in the Elance community, can do more than just cause stress.

After extensive research, personal experience and countless real-life stories, professor Robert Sutton at Stanford University, recently published a book on the subject. Elance members that treat each other with respect and professionalism contribute to creating a civilized online community.

You can view additional reviews and purchase the book at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving/dp/0446526568

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