Another Possible Knowledge Worker Job

[nemorathwald]

Before the contemplative essay, some background. A friend has been talking about replacing my unreliable temp day job as a graphic designer, by hiring me on with the I.T. small business that she's starting, as an administrative assistant. If this happens, it will be after she's moved out of state. So it will be another remote job performed over the internet. She really liked what I had to say about what I've learned from similar experiences. Apparently my hirability as a remote knowledge worker is taking off. Penguicon, Ideal Solution, Escape Artists, and now this, might all be categorized as knowledge work. Managing systems for collaboration between people who rarely see each other. Knowledge gardening.

Sometimes I think about the design of online systems for collaboration all day. These are for indirect communication. Record keeping. I make sure everybody knows where to look things up and what the passwords are. How to get them to document their work, report progress, and share knowledge? How to get them to look things up?

That's a usability challenge. Software usability is not an engineering problem, it's human. It's the psychology and ergonomics of workflow. Here's the thing though. Most software projects can be used by a single user, and if they don't like it, they can switch. Collaboration software, by contrast, is a usability compromise between the work styles of the participants. Can I design something they will all use? It constitutes a social problem, multiplied exponential to the number of collaborators.

I've used countless online collaboration systems. Wikis, customer relationship managers (CRM), browser-based databases, word processors and spreadsheets, Basecamp, and Google Apps for Domains. They are all good enough, for certain values of "good enough". They all have usability drawbacks that are deeply personal and subjective. One collaborator likes this interface, another likes that. There's no helping it. So most of the record-keeping is done directly by me.

The conclusion? Getting them to document themselves is necessary, but no substitute for direct communication. Mostly I just talk to people. A lot. I give them each other's contact info and remind them incessantly to CC the appropriate parties instead of just talking to me. That's the main form of success I've had. Success in projects has been proportionate to the amount of time devoted to communicating directly, either asynchronously (email, blog) or synchronously (instant message, IRC, phone, face-to-face).

I was shocked to observe how much my productivity plummeted since I got a day job that has no internet access. Cut off from meaningful accomplishment for ten hours a day, it's like a sensory deprivation chamber. I'm not saying this is unfair, of course. It's quite smart of them to withhold it. It has been quite enlightening to me.

Comments

[temujin9.livejournal.com]

Are you interested in doing this kind of work under contract?

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

Very much so. I need to stop wasting so many hours each day on my day job (temp work) and find enough remote knowledge work to switch careers completely and do what I love to do with a full week of forty hours or more. My current graphic design temp assignment is drawing to a close. There's no telling when I'll have another one. If I'm lucky and work hard at hunting for remote knowledge work, I may not even need to seek any more temp assignments in graphic design.

Here's the thing though. In any organization for whom I do remote knowledge work, I must love what they do. This is not just a principle. It's pragmatic. If I am not excited about their product or service, I will do a poor job. I know myself well enough to know that no amount of financial compensation will substitute to make it possible for me to perform adequately.

[temujin9.livejournal.com]

I think the enthusiasm to work quality correlation is pretty universal; I also think most businesses only grasp it vaguely, at best, and are used to accepting poor work from most employees. Do you know which variables matter to your enthusiasm? I know it can often be a circumstantial thing, but even poor hints are better than none at all.

Also, get me answers to the questions I posted in that link: I've got a fair idea of your skills, but I'd rather rely on your self-assessment than my second-hand judgment.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

Here is a quick rundown of some of the factors that I'm interested in. Not all of them are necessary, but most of them are sufficient. Remote knowledge work consists almost entirely of paying attention, and these are things on which I am capable of sustaining attention.
- Innovation
- Changing the way the world works
- Smart people who are different
- Science fiction
- Popularization of science and education
- The future
- Communities of passionate users

1) What skills do you like using?
2) What skills are you confident in?
For now, I'll need to let this LJ post stand in for an answer to these questions, but I'll sit down to break it into skill chunks later.

3) How much do you/would you charge for your work?
I would charge $17.50 an hour to future employers for remote knowledge work.

4) How available will you be, both short and long term?
In the next week or two, not available at all. Like I said, I have a temp job ending soon and then I'll be available. Any project that doesn't last months is not a job on which I could accomplish anything of value. What I do has to involve getting to know people, or it doesn't work.

[temujin9.livejournal.com]

Any project that doesn't last months is not a job on which I could accomplish anything of value.

Certainly, though such jobs take much longer to land. Don't bank on me having work for you, short term: this is groundwork so I can go land those bigger jobs.

That said: geek wrangling will be generally necessary, and you've definitely demonstrated skills in it . . .