Gabrielle Nagle >> Welcome to everyone who has joined us.  
Thank you very much.  We will be getting started in just a few 
minutes.  Please continue to hold.  Thank you.  (pause).
      >> Hello.  Welcome, thank you so much for joining today.  
We will get started now.  This is the webinar, the Rise of the 
Freelancers.  My name is Gabrielle Nagle.  I do the community 
outreach for Getting Hired.  I will just run through some 
logistics before we get started.
      So in case you are having any problem with audio, audio is 
available through the phone line.  We also have a live 
captioning service.  For anyone that isn't able to access the 
audio just yet, the dial-in number and the conference code are 
there on the screen.  If you need to access the live captioning 
service, you can click on the link that is posted in the chat 
box to your right as well.
      If you have any questions during the webinar, please feel 
free to type them in that chat box as well.  And we will get to 
them at the end of the presentation.
      You may notice everyone is set to mute at the moment.  If 
you do accidentally unmute yourself, I can mute you again; that 
does sometimes happen.  If you are unable to access the chat box 
for whatever reason, you can also E-mail me directly, which is 
gnagle@gettinghired.com.
      We will be recording this webinar as well.  So it will be 
uploaded next week on to the Getting Hired YouTube channel.  We 
will E-mail all registrants a copy of the presentation and also 
a link to the recorded webinar.  Look out for that, if you have 
to drop off early.  You can download the Power Point 
presentation which is available once you have registered to log 
in to the event.  You should be able to find the Power Point 
presentation under course materials.
      We will also have a few questions popping up at the end of 
the webinar, just asking for your feedback.  So feel free to let 
us know what you thought: what was useful, if there is anything 
we can improve on, and also if there are any topics around 
diversity and inclusion, or career development for any 
job-seekers with disabilities out there, that you would like to 
see us feature a webinar on in the future.
      As some of you may know we normally do monthly job-seeker 
webinars for job-seekers with disabilities.  We do employer 
webinars.  But because this topic around the freelance 
marketplace is so relevant to both, we decided to combine both 
audiences for this webinar.  Any questions you ask I will not 
read the names out.  So that will be anonymous, your details 
won't are shared with others.  The webinar also you may have 
noticed was originally 45 minutes.  But we have extended it to 
one hour, just to ensure we can fit everything in.  If you have 
to drop off soon, don't worry.  You will be able to access the 
whole recorded presentation.
      The agenda today, you can see here, is we will discuss the 
freelance marketplace first, then we will have a very quick look 
at a new talent platform from Getting Hired for freelancers with 
disabilities.  We will let you know where you can get more 
information about that.
      Then if any employers would like to leave the webinar at 
that time, you are welcome to.  We will then end with tips on 
becoming a freelancer, which is specifically for the job-seekers 
on the line.
      So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Bruce Morton, 
who is the global head of innovation at Allegis Global 
Solutions.  As a distinguished and globally recognized thought 
leader and innovator, Bruce has over three decades of experience 
within the human capital and work force management industry.
      Throughout his career, he's designed, implemented and 
managed some of the world's largest resourcing solutions, saving 
companies millions, while securing the very best talent.  As a 
renowned international key note speaker, he has stimulated 
audiences across the globe with his fresh and innovative 
approach to acquiring and managing top talent.  In his current 
role as global head of innovation, Bruce leads and champions the 
whole process of innovation for AGS and its clients, for new 
services and product idea generation, internal and external 
Evangelism, digital and social media resourcing and engagement 
strategies, and also industries thought leadership through 
speaking engagements and association conferences and think 
tanks.
      So thank you so much for joining us today, Bruce.
      >> BRUCE MORTON: Thank you for that [inaudible]
        (distorted audio).
      Good afternoon, everybody.  Passing over presentation 
rights to me.  Great to speak to you all this afternoon.  As 
Gabby said, we are going to [inaudible] set up by talking about  
(distorted audio) and the world of work [inaudible] freelancers, 
other things that are causing that, and then we are getting to 
what we are doing to respond to those changes in the market.
      I thought we would [inaudible] think about the world that 
we are now living in, which some people are terming as, as a 
service economy.  Some of the best examples of that, if any of 
you use any of these organizations, in a box, which allows us to 
share massive files with people, which makes our lives easier, 
and if you struggle with E-mails, I know how that's changed our 
lives.  Airbnb is a great example of a service economy, and then 
you may know they are the largest seller  (distorted audio) 
accommodation in the world on one property.  Of course, Open 
Table does the same for restaurant booking.  And the king of 
them all at the moment is Uber, dramatically disrupting the 
traditional taxi industry.  We think about that, how easy it's 
made our lives, not to have the hassle of chasing a taxi company 
to see if they are on the way, you can see it on your phone, and 
also the ease they made the payments of that.  It just becomes 
this world that we are living in, we are hoping that we can do, 
we are actually expecting it with a click of the button.
      If you think about that, SaaS, where it all started, it 
started in the world of IT, software as a service.  Some of you 
may have heard that term.  Typical of the IT folks, we have 
software as a service, we better have a platform of service to 
put that on.  Having platforms, you need a infrastructure for 
the platforms to go on.  It continues to grow.  We are now 
seeing that, we haven't seen [inaudible] look out for it, 
because you will humans as a service.  Organizations are now 
starting to think about how can we tap into that talent on a 
more on-demand basis as opposed to all of that talent being 
employees.  If you think, traditionally that is the way 
organizations typically built.  You would have a very large 
percentage of your workforce being tied to the business, as a 
employee, and then you flex seasonally or for other peaks of 
your business by bringing in contingent labor.  Organizations 
are now starting to disrupt that model, think about everything 
that we can get done, how can we think about that as a on demand 
service, and this term XaaS is now everything as a service.
      We are living now in a world where people want and expect 
things realtime, the same in the marketplace.  We think about 
what that philosophy and that mind set has changing what we are 
seeing in the current landscape.
      This is a U.S. figure, 34 percent of the workforce right 
now is comprised of what is being termed nontraditional or 
nonemployee labor and talent.  By the end of next year, our 
partners predict that about half of the total global workforce 
will be comprised of these workers who don't have a, they are 
not tied to one specific employer.  We have seen that those 
percentages change and flex around the world.  It is interesting 
here in the U.S., we are probably at about 40 percent already.  
But it's hard to get the absolute up to date data.
      But the data that I look at, I think was about 40 percent 
right now.  In Europe, we are down to 30.  In parts of Asia it's 
well above 50 percent already.  But interestingly, as 
organizations see it as a vital part of how they are getting 
work done, it's starting to think also as a strategic advantage 
the ability to get the best out of this transient workforce 
let's call it that are being paid and what they do as opposed to 
the amount they are doing and also going all the way back to a 
hundred years ago, when the term piece work was around, where 
people were literally paid for their production and outputs, as 
opposed to their time in the office or at a desk.
      We went through that period in the  '80s and '90s where it 
became almost a status symbol for working long hours, that 
starts with the investment banking, then the legal industry 
picked up, then professional services.  It became a badge of 
honor that you were in the office at crazy times in the morning 
and you were the last to leave.  We got to that point where 
people sat in an office and you want to go home at 6:00, but 
nobody wants to be the first to get out of their seat.  We are 
way past that now, and organizations and individuals are saying 
pay me for what I know and what I do, not just the hours, face 
time.  Flexi time, working from home also helps on that journey.
      But with that backdrop where we are right now it's also 
interesting to see that nearly 60 percent, over half of 
organizations are not actually capturing the full span and tasks 
of that contingent labor, in financial planning and budgeting.  
We are still seeing in a lot of cases organizations having head 
count based on permanent head count and then line managers using 
that, those nonemployees and contingent workers sometimes just 
to allow them to flex up to get more done because they are 
limited, what seems to be old-fashioned method of managing by 
head count numbers.
      We are just seeing the grass-roots now in organizations 
that we are working with starting to think about how do we 
capture all of that spend that we are spending on getting work 
done, and then capturing what type of contract we have with 
those individuals, as opposed to seeing it purely as this is my 
employee head count and managing that way.
      The term freelancers is becoming a bit of a catch-all.  
Just ten years ago it meant something different.  Ten years ago 
it meant what we think of as traditional freelancer, 
particularly in the media created space, if you wanted to get a 
logo for your company or some marketing material, brochure, 
those types of workers have always been predominantly freelance 
workers themselves, think about those types of individuals, 
types of jobs.
      Now we look at this breakdown, and I apologize for the 
small text on your screen, but you will be able to download this 
later.  These are the different terms now people in the industry 
are starting to use, a breakdown of how they make up the 
53 million people in the U.S.
      There is independent contractors which are the ICs as we 
call them, there is consultant type folks that have their own 
business.  Moonlighters, these are people that are now having 
more than one position, one organization, might be somebody in 
the retail sector in particular, might be 30 hours here and 30 
hours somewhere else.  Those diversified workers, these are 
people that again are representing themselves, having a 
portfolio of clients they are working for.  We are seeing 
freelance business owners, and this would be typically anything 
below four employees, people operating under a statement of 
work, seeing not as freelancers as opposed to an organization, 
they are being categorized in the same way.  And of course 
temporary workers, where we think about those people that are 
coming in for a short period of time to do a temporary type 
position.  All those cohorts are making up the 53 million.
      What is interesting, for the last few years, for the first 
time people are choosing to work this way.  I got into the 
industry 32 years ago now.  And at the time, people did 
temporary jobs or contract type positions while they were 
waiting to find a full-time job or permanent job.  It was 
something that you almost had to do while you were looking for 
that offer of employment, you were doing this while you wait or 
were looking, or sometimes to try to get into an organization, 
try me out for a few months before I go permanent.
      We are now seeing people [inaudible] people are choosing 
this as a way of life, that they are certainly in some skill 
sets, for example, high niche IT skills, on the West Coast of 
the U.S., application developers, for example, it's nearly 
impossible to actually hire those people that are that skilled 
in those niches as employees.  The nature of the job they are 
doing and their skill set means they are more valuable as a 
consultant, as a contractor coming in and doing a, what might be 
a six-month up to 18-month project, but they actually have, they 
increase their own value by doing that as opposed to becoming a 
employee for a few years.
      We have seen some of those skill sets now where the only 
way you are going to get the best talent or the very best talent 
is to open up to be far more open to how does that talent want 
to work with me as opposed to how do I want to work with that 
talent.
      A few years ago, organizations [inaudible] what that 
percentage split would be inside the company in terms of 
employees versus nonemployees.  Now we are seeing more and more 
the talent itself driving those ratios by the way they want to 
work.
      All of those changes, we summarize that with this term, the 
TalentSumer.  As we have studied work over the last many years 
we have identified the [inaudible] some people say this is a 
generational thing.  My view is that the difference here is that 
if you are a baby-boomer like me you remember how it used to be 
different.  If you are a gen Y millennial this is all you know.  
What we mean by that is that individuals thinking about work the 
same way that they think and act and behave as a consumer.
      So the good old days, if you are in your 50s like me, will 
remember when you used to go to work and come back again.  You 
were literally almost two people.  You were somebody at home and 
you put on this work mask and went to work, behave slightly 
differently and came home again.  Then  (distorted audio) smart 
phone, you are able to work on the way to work and on the way 
back to work.  Quickly we got to the world we now live in which 
we call work/life integration.  It means you are on all the 
time, 24/7, thinking and actually being able to work and having 
the ability to [inaudible] technology.  What's created, it's 
such a intricate part of our lives that we are actually behaving 
as who we are at work not having this 9 to 5 I'm somebody 
differently.
      Think about the way the markets are for a, let's say a 
consumer organization, if the marketer's job is to get people's 
attention, turn that attention to attraction, turn that 
attraction into being a customer, customer service, they become 
a loyal customer and then they become a brand ambassador, say 
great things about your brand.  You can think about certain 
brands that you use and are loyal to in your life.
      Apple is a good example for people on the call.
        (distorted audio).
      We see the world of work being the same thing.  
Organizations need to grab those workers' attention, turn them 
into attraction, bring them into the organization to provide 
their skills and work, in whatever form, contract, phenomenal 
customer service, the same way you would if you were a consumer 
which would make them loyal to a organization while they are 
working for you and a talent ambassador while they are working, 
and sometimes even more importantly after they move on to the 
next project.
      We are seeing now organizations starting to think far more 
about how do we market to our people before they join us, and 
while they are still working for us, how do we give them 
customer service, making it easy for them to do their very best 
work, that is what everybody wants to do, we believe, so they 
become a true talent ambassador to attract great talent.  This 
is becoming more and more important in this world where a third 
of your people and more are not employees, and if they are doing 
short-term assignments, how quickly can we get them adopted into 
our culture and our beliefs and our passions, so they can do 
phenomenal work in a very short time.
      The days of hiring even a employee, the days of hiring 
somebody and saying, yeah, let's have a plan, investment in two 
or three years, that's long gone now.  Organizations are 
thinking about how do we allow them to do their best work and 
how do we set up the organization so they can do that.  That is 
what we term the TalentSumer, thinking about people consuming 
work.
      One of the other factors we see creating freelancers is 
volatility.  You may have guessed from my accent I'm originally 
from the UK.  I'm in Stanford Connecticut for years but closely 
attached to the UK.  In terms of the Brexit a couple weeks ago, 
the massive volatility that it caused not only within the UK, 
but within seconds around the world.  We know we are [inaudible] 
publicly listed companies, we have that three month cycle of 
reporting to the city, and we live in this ever changing world 
that is so volatile, that is encouraging organizations to, where 
they can, have a smaller core of individuals that are employees 
to give greater flexibility to that volatility, not just to 
downsize but upsize as well at the same time.
      Again that is lending itself to this world of having this 
on-demand type approach to workers.  The next thing is and 
exciting thing, I like to term this we are all in the movie 
business.  It is a great analogy how we think about that, we 
think about the way a movie is made, any of you that are movie 
buffs that at the and of the movie watch all of those names and 
job titles scrolling for a good ten minutes, all of those people 
are brought together to make hopefully that piece of magic to 
entertain us, less than a handful of those people that are 
actually employees of the production company.  It's how the 
movie business has always worked, forever.
      You have a number of people, they raise money, the raise 
the ability to create something special, they pull all these 
people in, work together on the project, thank you very much, we 
will see you next time.
        (no audio).
      As we think about our organizations, think about the 
projects that we need to get done, and targets that we need to 
hit, we think about that in the same way, it's all about what is 
the best way of bringing a team of experts together to create 
this piece of magic and move on to the next projects.
      There are four big things that we are seeing in, if you 
like, our, I call them predictions but we are seeing it happen 
already.  When we use the term future these days, we mean now.  
What we are seeing now, we are seeing evidence of inside 
organizations is companies think about how they respond to the 
individuals' desire and passion to work more fluently, and more 
independently, and how the market drivers are making them think 
that way as well.  These are four big things that we are seeing.
      The first one is organizations, the companies becoming 
talent platforms.  What we mean by that is thinking about your 
company as a place where your true competitive advantage is, can 
you get more out of somebody, and allow that person to produce 
more for you than they would if they were at a competitor.
      It's no longer just about how can I find the best talent, 
especially in some ways more important is what do I do with that 
talent when they get here.  Do I hire somebody that is a 
innovator and put them in a cubicle.  The reason I hire that 
person is for their experience and passion and desires.
        (buzzing).
      When they get here, do I actually allow them to use all of 
that?  Do I allow them to do their very best work day in and day 
out.  To do that, how do I design the organization in a way that 
it feels more like a talent platform as opposed to an 
organizational structure with lots of process and procedures 
that are far more corporate centric.
      Rather than think of it as a organization, think of it as 
talent platform.  The next is new dimensions of leadership.  If 
we look back at history, university [inaudible] management books 
and how to be a great manager, all of that [inaudible] all about 
being a leader now [inaudible] leaders lead from the front and 
all that.  What we are seeing in the terms of the next stage of 
leadership is leaders have the ability to truly understand how 
the best way is to get that piece of work done, as opposed to 
saying I need to get this work done, here is my [inaudible]
        (distorted audio).
      How do I lead them to get it done in the best way.  It is 
about thinking about the work itself, being able to break that 
down into tasks, what is the best way to do this.  What are the 
different ways I can actually get this piece of work done, as 
opposed to purely talking about how do I lead the people.
        (audio breaking up).
      Leading work, which is all about that philosophy of how do 
you lead work and not just lead people.  How do you inside your 
organization, help the organization you work for think 
differently in terms of how we can get the work done.
      The third one is workforce design meeting consumer design, 
which obviously ties back into the companies thinking about the 
way we are set up, the way that we allow our people, encourage 
them, enable them, motivate them, reward them to do their very 
best work, is that corporate designed or individual designed?
      If I was designing this thinking all about my people as 
consumers, would I design this the same way.  The way that 
people  (buzzing) get things done in their other life, if they 
have one, by pressing buttons on the phone for example, do we 
make it easy for them to work, do we have a app for them to do 
travel expenses or do they have to use a piece of paper and mail 
them in to me or something.
      Am I designing this in a way that all of these people, our 
customers, would treat them the right way.  As you think about 
workforce design [inaudible] how easy am I making it for people 
to get their stuff done.
      Last of the four  (audio breaking up) Crowdsource business 
models, where organizations are taking that piece of work with 
that new dimension of leadership head on, saying how can I do 
this differently?  How can I break the mold here and think about 
getting this work done differently?
      One of the best examples I've seen of that recently is we 
have done Standard Chartered, one of our clients that actually 
[inaudible] they had a need to track the cost of living in 
Nigeria on a, virtually as close as they could to realtime 
basis.  The old model, they would have brought consultancy in, 
spend a lot of money, how they can do that, track financials, 
etcetera.  The head of marketing got involved in the project.  
She said we have people there that are consumers that are buying 
goods, why don't we use them.  They gave away 5,000 phones and 
they pay the license for those, the monthly license fee for 
those phones so people, all they have to do is whenever they go 
shopping, they go to their local store and they take a picture 
of their potatoes for example, in this picture, with the price 
next to it, and all of that is instantly fed back into Standard 
Chartered's artificial machine learning and realtime tracks the 
cost, small example, great example about how organizations 
particularly in the service industry are starting to think 
differently about how to get work done and trying to break away 
from how it has always been done.
      You can see that cool video with the head of marketing 
talking about it.  But we are seeing that disruption now in the 
financial services marketplace.  Banks are thinking about 
reinventing themselves for the new world, because they 
[inaudible] individual loans and personal loans, etcetera, so I 
think the banks in the situation as the rest of us of 
reinventing ourselves and part of this is thinking about what is 
getting done differently.
      All that going on and all the changes [inaudible] in the 
business of providing and finding talent, sometimes new talent 
for our clients.  We have been giving a lot of thought to how do 
we create the platform to allow all the great people that we 
work with [inaudible] Getting Hired platform that is up to this 
point, we have been encouraging organizations to advertise and 
promote their opportunity for that database of people to find 
permanent employment, how can we open that database up to 
clients to find talent that can come in on a project basis and 
of course how can we identify those opportunities so that the 
database of folks that we have can find those projects to allow 
them to engage directly with those organizations and working 
that way.
      I'm not going to go into this in great detail.  If you need 
any, if you want to know more about it, you will see an E-mail 
address at the end.  We have built this talent platform that 
allows somebody to find work or find the individual, algorithms, 
allows the verification of those people, so organizations will 
have certain criteria for background checking, etcetera, 
etcetera, eligibility to work.  All of that is built into the 
system.  It allows those workers, employers to collaborate and 
communicate on projects themselves.
      What we are seeing now is database, some where the work can 
get done, sharing files, collaborating on pieces, etcetera.  We 
have the built-in ability to get people paid, whether they be 
personal classification, a IC compliance or more W2 to help the 
individuals navigate.  (audio breaking up).
      Agent of record for that, make sure we handle the payment 
as well.  The interesting thing, unique  (distorted audio) We 
are doing this with the Getting Hired population.  There are a 
number of these platforms out there.  I'm sure you have seen 
them popping up everywhere to allow organizations to directly 
engage and find people that can get this project work done.
        (distorted audio).
        (sorry, audio keeps breaking up).
      Disrupting our industry in a way which is exciting, heavily 
involved in that, and very proud about getting this platform 
launched now, great people  (buzzing)  People with disabilities 
to find project work.  With that I'm going to hand over to Gabby 
to give more detail.
        (audio breaking up).
      If you are a employee or to be a freelancer, what are 
things you should be looking for.  Gabby, let me hand the power 
back to you, and allow you to take it forward from here.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: Thanks very much, Bruce.  That was 
really informative.
      We will just move on to the job-seeker portion now, before 
we get to the questions at the end.  Just also related to the 
platform you were talking about, the new platform coming up, and 
also just to show how this whole freelancer movement is also 
really being reflected in job-seekers with disabilities as well, 
it's interesting to note that when we, Getting Hired does 
regular job-seeker surveys and analysis, with job-seekers with 
disabilities across the country, and something I thought was 
worth noting as well, that 48 percent of those job-seekers have 
told us that they are currently interested in freelance 
opportunities.
      And also, interesting, 42 percent are now more interested 
in free-lancing than they were one year ago.  So I think this 
whole movement you are talking about with the workforce 
changing, it really is across the board with and without 
disabilities, people are starting to have different expectations 
about how their work/life balance looks.
      So just something I thought I would add quickly.  Just 
moving on to the first page here, our freelancer tips, this is 
just a sample of some of the specialisms that freelancers can 
offer.  I know sometimes you may think initially, what sort of 
things can I do?  What sort of services can I offer as a 
freelancer?
      The first thing that usually would come to your mind would 
be creative things like maybe graphic design, or writing, 
different copy for different purposes.  But you can see 
actually, this is just a sample of some of the sections on one 
of the platforms for freelancers, that many freelancers actually 
specialize in.  And also, you have to remember these are across 
all industries and also global.
      So you are not limited to just doing work within your 
country.  You could be doing work pretty much anywhere in the 
world.  Just some of these jump out at you because, I know the 
writing is small, but there are things like web mobile software 
development, besides web and on-line development there is also 
an IT and networking specialism.  And there is also admin. 
support.  You can even do data entry or web research or project 
management, there is customer service as well, sales and 
marketing, engineering, data science and analytics.
      There is also translation or legal work or accounting and 
consulting.  So there really is a lot of skills out there that 
can be offered and are being sought actively by a lot of 
employers.
      There are also, just looking at some of the subcategories 
underneath these categories, there are also many, many, many 
free-lancing sites that specialize in just a particular service.  
For example, just graphic designers or software programmers, or 
writers.  You can find specialists free-lancing websites out 
there as well as general free-lancing sites to put your services 
on.  For example, you can see some of them, some of the main 
ones down there are Upwork, Guru, People Per Hour and 
freelancer.com.
      The benefits of free-lancing are pretty obvious.  You can 
work from anywhere.  You can set your own schedule.  You can 
manage your own workload.  You choose how many projects you want 
to do, and at what time you want to do them.  You can choose 
what projects you want to work on, and setting your own prices 
for whatever work you choose to do.
      The flexibility and independence you gain can really be 
liberating, and can give you the freedom to set your own 
work/life balance.  Whether you want to freelance on the side or 
become a full-time freelancer, it's best to start building your 
free-lancing career while maintaining your day job, or primary 
source of income.
      So this can give you a lot of benefits and reduces the 
impact of any mistakes that you will no doubt make as part of 
your learning process in becoming someone who is successful at 
free-lancing.
      It will give you the safety net to try new things and learn 
what works and what doesn't.  So some of the things you want to 
be thinking about, when considering free-lancing, also again 
strongly recommend you start building your free-lancing 
portfolio and starting to look at some of those opportunities 
while you are actually still in your day job.
      You are going to want to decide whether you want to be a 
generalist or a specialist, and you will need to choose what 
service you want to specialize in, of course.  So think about 
what skills you have that can contribute to a business's 
success.  Decide if you would rather be a generalist or 
specialist in something in particular.  You may think being a 
generalist will guarantee more work offers, but actually, 
specializing in a niche area can make you the go-to person for 
anything related to that subject.
      So it is easier as well to become an expert in something 
specific that you can focus all your energy on.  Free-lancing as 
a sideline while maintaining your primary income means that you 
can really take the time and have the additional income you need 
to invest in developing and refining your skills, and improving 
any weak areas to ensure that you can really provide a quality 
service to any clients that you do take on.
      Also, continuing with your day job and free-lancing as a 
sideline, you also, it can also help you build the necessary 
savings that you will need to become fully self-employed 
eventually, if you choose to do so.
      To start building your name as a freelancer now, offer your 
services to hire on free-lancing sites and create your own 
website, showcasing your portfolio of work.  Establishing 
yourself as an expert in any field takes some time, and it also 
takes a lot of networking.  So really get active, and get 
involved in communities and networks related to your chosen 
field.
      Try connecting with influencers and others with similar 
interests and contribute to conversations on-line that you see 
are relevant in the industry that you are really looking at.
      Also, offering free original content on your specialism is 
a great way to get your name out there.  Whether it's through 
blog posts or creating eBooks or Whitepapers or even speaking in 
webinars or off-line events, sharing your knowledge regularly 
will link your name to that subject in people's minds.  Then you 
will be one of the first contacts they think of reaching out to 
if or when they require a related service.
      You also really need to think about setting up your 
business identity.  Decide what you want your personal brand to 
be, what is your unique selling point to help you stand out from 
all the other freelancers?
      Take the time to really identify your strengths and 
streamline your elevator pitch to ensure that any potential 
clients you meet can immediately understand what it is you offer 
and what your unique value is.  Once you have got this down, it 
should help you to establish your range of prices and what types 
of projects or clients you want to seek out and prioritize, and 
how they will fit into your business model.
      There are constantly potential opportunities for work 
springing up around you often on a daily basis.  So when you 
start to hone in on them, you will really start to see how many 
opportunities there are.  To build a network of clients, be 
prepared to network on-line and off-line, and utilize all of the 
contacts that you already have.
      Start building your portfolio on line and showcase your 
projects, companies you have worked with, and reviews from past 
clients as well.
      Before taking any leap into starting your own freelance 
business, wait until you earn a side income of at least 
75 percent of what your salary job pays.
      You should have enough savings to cover you through the 
transition period, so ensure your budget covers basic costs like 
rent or mortgage, any bills or debts that you need to continue 
to pay, food and fuel, insurance, travel, and also any business 
costs that you may incur in setting up your own freelance 
business.
      There are numerous books and resources on-line for guidance 
in becoming a successful freelancer, and also on 
entrepreneurship.
      These are three disability specific resources that offer a 
lot of information and guidance in becoming self-employed as an 
individual with a disability.
      ODEP, the Office of Disability Employment Policy, if you go 
to their website, they have a section on self-employment and 
entrepreneurship which has a lot of useful information.  It also 
has a lot of other resources that it's linked to, that can give 
you even further guidance.
      Disability horizons is a disability specific organization.  
They publish a lot of information around living with a 
disability in general, but they also have a article in 
particular that is written by a freelance writer with a 
disability, talking about her experiences, and giving some 
advice and tips around navigating that kind of world.
      All of these specific links, don't worry, they will all be 
included in the E-mail that we E-mail out to everyone, so don't 
worry about jotting these down.  You will have a copy of this.
      Also, there is the Chicagoland entrepreneurship education 
for people with disabilities, also called CEED.  This is an 
Illinois-based program who are actually creating a comprehensive 
curriculum.  That addresses both the disability and business 
needs of entrepreneurs with disabilities.
      They have been holding their first training for service 
providers from both disability community agencies, small 
business development centers, and also training for 
entrepreneurs with disabilities themselves.
      They are currently holding their first training which is 
actually fully booked according to their website.  But you can 
put your name and information there to be contacted for future 
opportunities.
      There is also a wealth of information on their site.  So I 
really strongly encourage you to visit that as well.
      The last three sites here are general free-lancing and 
entrepreneurial information resources that are also really worth 
checking out.  There is the U.S. Small Business Administration 
or SBA, that is set up to help Americans start, build and grow 
businesses.  Its mission is to aid, counsel, assist and protect 
the interests of small business concerns.  You can really find a 
lot of information and resources on there as well around 
becoming an entrepreneur, around free-lancing, lots of practical 
information around self-employment, and all the kind of issues 
you are really going to need to plan for around that.
      So this is the end of the presentation.  I hope that that 
was useful for everyone.  You can see here on the screen this is 
the contact information for any employers that are interested in 
finding out more about the Getting Hired freelance talent 
platform that is for freelancers with disabilities.
      You can contact Ryan Carroll directly, who is the Getting 
Hired account manager.  His E-mail is there, and phone number, 
410-694-5410.  You will get all this information, but please 
contact him directly if you have any questions or if there is 
anything you would like more information about concerning that 
upcoming platform.
      Now is a good time to go to any questions we have.
      I will start off with, we have a few here, I'll start off 
with a couple for you, Bruce, since some of the employers have 
probably been waiting quite patiently through this free-lancing 
information.
      We have got one question here, do you think that leaders in 
this new work environment will rely more on their technical or 
functional knowledge to manage the work, than the management 
skills that they use to manage people?
      >> BRUCE MORTON: That's a great question.  If I understand 
it correctly, this is about the technical capability over the 
management capability.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: Yeah, sort of people skills.  Yeah, 
exactly.
      >> BRUCE MORTON: I think it's, my quick answer is no, I 
think it still needs to be a combination of both.  But I think 
the management, people skills piece of it, where that is 
changing is that the ability, the important ability is to be 
able to manage a very disperse team, that you might not see and 
you might ever only speak to on conference calls once a week or 
once a month.  You may get together a couple times a year.  I 
think that is a much different skill to, the good old days when 
you sat there looking across a group of desks where you can see 
what people are up to.  I think that does take a different type 
of technique and different style.
      But I think it's beholden to HR to make sure that there are 
people that have been used to managing let's call it the old 
style have been given the skills and coaching, the capability to 
manage in the new world.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: Great.  I hope that answers your 
question there.
      We also have another question here, how will the widespread 
use of freelancers work with the current recruitment process?  
And will that need to be changed?
      >> BRUCE MORTON: Yeah, I think what will be [inaudible] 
moving towards, people think about the tasks that needs to get 
done, the piece of work that needs to get done, I think it will 
be having the ability to say, okay, what is the talent that is 
available right now, and let's use that factor as part of the 
criteria to decide on how to actually get this work done.
      What we tend to do now is saying I need this piece of work, 
let's understand what type of people I need, let's create a job 
description, with a person description and future 
responsibilities, push that out there with the [inaudible] see 
what is available based on that need that you have created and 
put into a box almost.
      I think what we are moving towards is, okay, this is the 
thing I need to get done, let's go and find out what available 
plans I have internally, first of all, by internal that could be 
employees or freelancers or contractors that have a relationship 
with you or experience work inside your culture and inside your 
processes and organization, who are those people.  Based on that 
availability, where should I put this piece of work and how will 
I design that project to, as opposed to the other way around.
      I think that is where we are going to see that merge of 
people thinking about their talent base, far more universally, 
not just employees, I have [inaudible] external, to see them all 
in one place and make a decision based on that.  I think we will 
see a, the easy answer, I think we will see a merger of those 
different databases and talent pools into one place, where you 
can make those decision.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: Great.  Thank you.  We have just one 
other question here, when it comes to the employer side of 
things.  Will new employment laws need to be created to stay 
relevant to today's workforce?
      >> BRUCE MORTON: That's a great question.  One of my 
soapboxes.  As you travel around the world, country by country, 
it's a complete [inaudible] I don't want to sound too political 
but particularly in some parts of Europe, way to try and contain 
this and slow it down, I think what we are seeing in Canada is, 
personal view, I think that is more indicative where we will see 
the world go, where in the U.S. for example the concept of an 
independent contractor means that you have to prove that you are 
a business that has a portfolio [inaudible] in Canada they have 
what is called a dependent contractor and the government is 
saying that is okay if you are self-employed and have just one 
organization you are working for, we will still class you as a 
contractor, not try and force you into some form of employee.
      If you look at all of the case studies that we are seeing 
now that do [inaudible] big one was Fed Ex, etcetera, we are 
starting to see governments shaping their opinions.  My personal 
hope is that we become, we live in more and more freer world, 
people are allowed to work in ways they desire.  But I think the 
government has to find an easier way of, putting it bluntly, 
getting their tax dollar while at the same time making sure they 
are looking after people that, and everybody has the same 
opportunity to do that, against punish people or give people 
disadvantage if they don't have the ability to work that way.
      It's a fine line.  But I think that my hope is that, 
governments change those laws that they are doing that from a 
desire of people as opposed to what makes it easy for them to 
collect their tax dollar.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: Great.  Thank you for that.  We have 
actually got another one in, since we have a few minutes.  You 
spoke about work/life balance.  I know that is sort of a big 
topic around free-lancing in general.
      It's a difficult thing, because there is obviously pros and 
cons to the whole flexible working, you know.  A pro would be 
you are always on, but then a con would be, you are always on.  
(chuckles).
      So, we have a question about, about work/life balance.  Any 
tips for employers who E-mail after 9:00 p.m.?
      >> BRUCE MORTON: (chuckles).
      Get a life (chuckles).
      It's interesting that, I was in Argentina recently, and a 
partner down there who is a large staffing company they actually 
turn their servers off on Friday night and put them on again 
Monday morning.  I was blown away by the fact that they are, 
good on them for doing that.  The reason they did it is because 
all their workers were just working [inaudible] they felt they 
needed to not be doing that on weekends.  So they were forced 
not to work that way.
      I think that what we can do, employers are expecting too 
much, we can't fall into the trap, because all of us in a way we 
create it, the first E-mail you had on a Sunday morning, and you 
opened up your laptop, you are like what?  You are E-mailing me 
on a Sunday?  I'm generalizing.  But we sort of make our own bed 
for lying in.
      But the only way that you can control some of the E-mailing 
after 9:00 at night is not respond until 8:00 in the morning.  
That is not a great answer but that's all I've got.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: No, that is fair enough.  We also have, 
so this question is more of a job-seeker question.  But I'm 
wondering if you happen to have any thoughts around it.  I know 
it's a little bit outside your realm, but one of the job-seekers 
is asking, there is somebody who actually is free-lancing 
presently, and they freelance remotely.
      They are wondering about how or if, I guess, there is any 
way to ensure that they are paid, and probably that they are 
paid promptly or within a reasonable time period.  Is that 
something you see as maybe being a problem that is going to be 
happening more often?  Or you know, just the fact that I guess 
there is a lack of maybe laws or rules around that or guidelines 
even.
      >> BRUCE MORTON: Yeah, I think the first point would be to 
make sure that you check out the platforms that you are working 
through, and Gabby mentioned a few, market is another one, you 
want to make sure it's a reputable large enough organization 
that are credible, and actually ...
        (audio breaking up).
      If you find work on the Upwork platform for, pick a name, 
Microsoft, Microsoft pay Upwork and Upwork paying you, and the 
contract that Microsoft has with Upwork, not with you 
[inaudible] agent directly.  In those cases where there is a 
indemnification, something to check out, compare those sites.
      But the freelancerunion.org is a really good and it's not a 
union, that is just the name, but they are acting like a union, 
in good free-lancing spirit, not a real union, more of an 
independent collaboration, and there is some really good content 
on there, that answers some of those questions, and gives some 
great tips.  That's freelancerunion.org.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: Thank you for that.  That is a really 
good resource as well, actually.  I'll definitely add that into 
the E-mail of resources for job-seekers, freelancerunion.com.
      We also have a question here, I assume this person is a 
job-seeker, and they are asking about what the very next step to 
take would be.  I would say just going back to this slide, so I 
think these are really the kind of first steps to take, if you 
are just starting out, and just thinking about getting into 
free-lancing.
      I would say start thinking about what your services would 
be, what your skills are, what your strengths are, what is your 
unique value that you can bring to businesses, and in terms of 
helping their business objectives.  And whether you want to be a 
generalist or specialist, what are you going to specialize in?  
Or would you prefer to leave yourself open to doing all sorts of 
projects, under more of an umbrella kind of area.
      Yeah, and start trying to get your name out there, get 
really active on-line, start getting involved in all the 
communities and all the events and everything that can really 
sort of get your foot in to that industry, and meeting the right 
people, and being able to network as much as you can in terms of 
offering your service and making sure that employers are 
starting to at least be aware that you are someone out there 
that they can call on, should they be interested in that.  
Again, start reaching out to your own contacts as well, so those 
are a few things I would start off looking at, and also the 
definitely check out these websites as well that I spoke about 
earlier, because they have a lot of great guidance and 
information for you.
      And I think we will leave it there.  1:00 on the dot.  So, 
thank you again, so much, Bruce, for joining us.  That was 
really really valuable.  And I think just getting an 
understanding of the changing workforce and the landscape of the 
job market right now is really useful for job-seekers and 
employers.
      So, I hope somebody or I hope everyone has gotten at least 
something new out of this.  I'm going to put some feedback 
questions up now.  So I'd love your feedback to let us know what 
was useful, and if there is anything you would like us to change 
in the future.
      Also, I will ask for your feedback in the E-mails too.  So 
please do let us know how we did and I hope everyone enjoys the 
rest of their week.
      >> BRUCE MORTON: Thanks, Gabby.  Thanks, everybody.
      >> GABRIELLE NAGLE: Thank you, bye-bye.
        (end of webinar at 12:01 p.m. CST)
    This text is being provided in a realtime format.  
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning 
are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility 
and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.                       
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