| OzProspect |
Offices Free Agents Would Even
Leave Home For
by Fiona Stewart
First appeared: The Sunday Age,
January 20, 2002
For most of us, the realisation comes slowly. After all, there are few of us free agents who get to work as chief speechwriter for the vice-president of American (in his case, Al Gore), only to throw it away in favour of doing our own thing. But perhaps this is why it was Dan Pink who was first to pick up on the increasing trend towards working for yourself.
In his best-selling book Free Agent Nation: How America's new independent workers are transforming the way we live, Pink describes an epiphany that speaks to many of us.
"I suppose I realised," says Pink "that I ought to consider another line of work when I nearly puked on the Vice-President. On Independence Day that year, I left that job. Indeed, I left all jobs for good. I became a free agent. I forged an office out of the attic of my Washington DC home, and tried to parlay my skills and contacts into something resembling a living."
Although Pink might have been the first to write about this new way of working, these days he is one of millions who live it.
Conservative estimates by the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest that already there are close to 600,000 free agents in Australia. These are people who operate their own companies and/or who undertake contract work. And they are not only in the trendy, new economy sectors like IT. Rather, free agents are now just as likely to be in communications, education and even medicine.
Take Kevin
Balshaw for example. Like Pink, Balshaw once worked as a speechwriter to
a politician (Jeff Kennett). These days, however, you are likely to find
him selling communications expertise to individuals and companies.
Balshaw believes
that Pink's thesis is a "right on" description for Australia. "There are
vastly more free agents out there than the statistics reflect," he says.
"We are a significant demographic as well as being a source of innovation
and fresh ideas."
Then there are people like Philip Nitschke. As head of the Voluntary Euthanasia Research Foundation, Nitschke is a social entrepreneur who is also a free agent.
Or ex-academics. Although I was once a professional sociologist, recent years have seen me firmly ensconced in self-employment, unable to imagine life any other way.
Small office,
home office (SOHO) is what I thought life in the free-agent lane would
be like.
After all,
this is what Pink describes in his book. It is how being a free agent defines
who you are and what you do.
Get up when
you like. Wear what you want. If you get inspired at 3am, then good luck
to you. Your office is only steps away and the coffee is always good and
hot. But that was then, in the boom times of the new economy, when work
was definitely more plentiful and when clients of all sorts were a hell
of a lot easier to come by.
Now, in tougher
times, what free agents have come to realise is that working online from
home may not beas good as was first thought.
For example,
it is harder to benefit from face-to-face networking when alone at home.
Although the Internet can certainly overcome distance and even time, one
thing it does not do is let you hear those informal, but invaluable, hallway
exchanges - "By the way did you hear ... ?" - from which new work so often
comes.
And then there
is social isolation. While some free agents have been able to establish
routines that see them spend half their days in cafes meeting clients and
peers, for others home can become a prison, with household cleanliness
elevated to previously unknown levels.
For reasons like these, the office is making a comeback.
Take The Hub in Sydney, for example. Housing 10 free agents, the physicalco-location of these workers means that business is shared more easily and can lead to new clients.
With the founding members of The Hub covering industries including IT, copywriting, marketing, print production and legal advice, it is easy to see the symbiosis that such a network creates.
In Melbourne, similar premises have also been established, the best known being the de Bono Centre in Collins Street and the Public Office in West Melbourne.
Both buildings provide free agents with the creative vibe of the inner city, wired office space, meeting rooms and, most importantly, the opportunity to be a part of a wider network of others like yourself.
Of course, as is the case with anyone for whom cashflow can be erratic, the cost of co-location can be a disincentive.
What free agents around the world now need to decide is whether this is a cost or an investment in their own lifestyles and the life of their businesses.
Fiona Stewart is a Senior Fellow
at OzProspect and the Director of Real
World Research and Communications.