How To Outsource on Odesk

My wife nearly died laughing when I read that applicant's self-description to her the other day.

Must be a *Google Translate* situation...

As I mentioned previously, I'm experimenting with outsourcing the creation of some info-products to the Third World.

My first attempt(s) were, well, horrible.

Without rehashing them directly, here's what I learned:

• Don't work with anyone who doesn't respond RIGHT AWAY.
• Give PRECISE, easy-to-do tasks only.
• Don't offer to pay anyone on an hourly basis - not at first anyway.  Pay on a per-task basis only.
• Use Dropbox (or Google Drive) to monitor their work.
• Fire anyone the instant you get a bad vibe.
• Have a sample of work that applicants can do to demonstrate competence before hiring.
• And, so far, I would say,....HIRE WOMEN only.

Right now my first female hire (a Filipino) is finishing up making 100 math worksheets similar to the one above...

And I'm only paying her $18, total.

Guess what....I think I could have done it even cheaper too.

Soccer Progress

When I was a kid, way back in the 80s, someone's father (or mother) volunteered to coach each youth soccer team.

But that's not exactly how it is for the soccer league my little ones just started playing.

Parents still do coach the non-competitive games on Sundays.

Except weekly practices have been *outsourced* to a private company. On Tuesdays, I drop my son off at the field for an hour with all the other kids (80?) in his league. They are split up into four random groups and rotate between about 6 private (i.e. paid) instructors (teenagers?). They're also very particular about calling it *training* rather than practice.

After some knee-jerk cynicism, I realized that this new way of doing youth soccer makes a whole lot of sense.

Because, in this day and age, which parents really have the time and flexibility to be at the soccer field to volunteer coach at say 4pm on a weekday?

Plus, I believe the kids get much better instruction from young people WHO'VE ACTUALLY PLAYED SOCCER than from the breed of coaches that I grew up with.

Of course having *professional* instructors costs a little more....but at $125 for the whole 9 game season, a shirt, socks, and practice training it's still very reasonably priced activity.

And kudos to whichever guy/gal dreamed up this business - which probably makes some nice coin, hiring cheap and eager 16 year olds, and going from town-to-town, up through all the age groups, all week long.

On Extra-Curricular Work

In the past year or so, my kids have started some organized activities: soccer, karate, and ballet. These are new endeavors for them, and, since they are pretty young, just following directions can at times be daunting - never mind mastering the new drills and exercises.

What I've found is that if just once during the week I go through the stretches, dance moves, and kicks with them at home that it goes a long ways towards not only their progress, but it also towards their enjoyment. In short, one just can't show up once a week at a class and think they are ever going to achieve much - no matter the arena or how much it costs! Outsourcing has its limits; and to invoke a homeschooling shibboleth, all education is self-education.

Though a life-long DIYer myself, I also recently re-learned this lesson with my Bible study. Recall that last year I read the good book cover-to-cover. One benefit of doing so has been that now Sunday Mass has taken on new, enhanced meaning. For thirtysomething years phrases like *A letter from Paul to the Corinthians* flew through my one ear and out the other. But, after reading the Bible with application, now I have a clue who Paul is, where Corinth was, and why he was writing all those letters! And this is but one example of many I could offer.

I realized that by simply attending mass each week, that I had been guilty of outsourcing as well - and probably the worst kind imaginable! Sure, the Catholic church is partially guilty on this front as they don't really encourage much on the individual front, but I was a complete Moron for thinking that I could just show up once a week, put in no extra-curricular work and somehow turn into a spiritual blackbelt.