Reference Designer

Matthew had a small project in his hand that he wanted to get done. He wanted to embed a left and a right transparent arrow on his picture viewer website. The project involved the knowledge of PHP and javascript. Since his budget was tight, he used one of the freelancing websites and posted the requirement. He spent his time to clearly and carefully define the scope of work. He even included the examples and showed a website that implemented his idea in a similar fashion.

Soon after he posted the project, he was bombarded with 20 different offers. Some of them were dirt cheap and some ridiculously high. Many of those that seemed reasonable in price, included short messages like “We have right knowledge and we will do it for you”.

It took Matthew several hours to go through the proposals posted by the freelancers. When he finally chose one freelancer and started communicating with him, he realized that the freelancer did not have the required capability. Matthew also felt that if he would have chosen that freelancer he will end up taking too much of time to complete the project.

Inefficiency in the System

Consider the waste in the typical freelancing platform system. If 20 freelancers spend 2 hours each to read, understand the problem, then draft their reply, it is equivalent to 20 x 2 = 40 hours of freelancers time. This does not include a large number of time spent by the project poster in sifting through the replies and evaluating the freelancers.

There is no open chat system in the freelancing system which further adds to the efficiency in the system.

A project poster typically spends 4 hours in deciding the freelancer who is suitable for the project. The total collective waste of time is equivalent to 44 hours which is more than what it will take to complete the project itself.

Existing freelancing platforms are therefore inherently inefficient. In many cases, the total time wasted by the freelancers and the project posted  exceeds the actual value of the project itself.

How eZdia will change it

The expert Search in eZdia will change the scenario. A p roject poster is a knowledge explorer in eZdia. The knowledge explorer searches for the expert in eZdia. He checks credentials of the expert that he finds posses the right skill.

The knowledge explorer uses eZdia’s chat option to start talking to the expert right away. He gauges the expertise of the expert  in a matter of minutes. He allots the project to the expert he finds suitable.

The overall waste in the system is less that half an hour as compared to 44 hours in the existing freelancing platforms ( figures exaggerated to enhance understanding).

eZdia is not a perfect system. It can be misutilized the same way, people use SEO techniques to befool google. However, eZdia  promises to counter it using rating system.

Will this new platform succeed ? Will it replace the way freelancing is being executed  on the existing platforms ? Will it stop millions of hours of freelancers’ and knowledge explorer’s time ? I do not know the answer yet. But you can try yourself by checking out ezdia.

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Author

Vikas Shukla is currently working as Senior Design Engineer at BL Healthcare. He has degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IT-BHU, Varanasi, India. Mr. Shukla has over 15 years of experience in design of microprocessor-based systems. His expertise includes signal integrity, architecture and design of remote patient monitoring systems. The views expressed are his own.

freelancing ezdia, freelancing, knowledge

eZdia launched the Alpha release of its Knowledge Sharing platform today to selected group of users.

Houston, Texas— June 27, 2009— eZdia® launched the Alpha release of its Knowledge Sharing platform today to selected group of users.The Alpha release is available only to the selected users at the website http://www.ezdia.com. The Beta release is planned to be launched in September, 2009.The exact date of the beta release will be announced later.

“The release of eZdia platform to selected users is a major step towards evaluating the feedback from the users. It will give us important user feedback in terms of what users want and what features are they excited about. We do not see any major architectural changes between now and the beta release. Instead, the intent is to refine and fine tune the user experience and the performance.” said Amit Sharma, VP Business Development.

“The reason we came up with this idea is because, in the past, it has been frustrating for me to get live advice online as well as to get the work done from online freelancers effectively and efficiently. It is difficult to evaluate an expert’s knowledge expertise from the limited information that the experts provide. I had the opportunity to see a preview of the Alpha release of eZdia and it provides a more coherent and efficient approach where a user can select the experts based upon the content in his knowledge bucket along with his rating, feedback and credentials.”, said Vikas Shukla, Chief of Online Marketing.

The problem today on most of the sites is that the service providers get into a bidding war based on price and the quality and experience gets in the background. Although, the free market is definitely effective, verifying the credentials of the providers is also important in getting the quality work done. Interacting with individual service providers and evaluating them is impractical, time consuming and an inefficient process. eZdia with its patented algorithm which takes into account a combination of various factors including your rating, feedback, content in your knowledge bucket, referrals, and your profile, gives you a much better way and opportunity to evaluate potential experts.” – added Vikas Shukla.

Small and medium scale companies have been looking for a quick, efficient and a cost effective way to get expert services available at the touch of a button. eZdia makes this a reality. eZdia has already signed up over 200 registered experts, who will be providing services through eZdia’s Knowledge Platform.

The advantage eZdia has over other sites is the way it provides to view the “knowledge bucket” of experts, which in turn makes you the user, aware of the different areas in which the expert has the required expertise and offers experts’ recommended and supported contents. This combined with rating system makes eZdia a powerful system which takes the best of the democracy and meritocracy.

About eZdia:

eZdia, a professional information exchange community is an endeavor to bring efficiency in the information exchange between expert seekers and experts. It fosters a culture of collaboration and personalized information exchange in an efficient manner.

eZdia strives to create a Human Neural Network which will allow people around the globe to share and trade their thoughts, ideas and expertise in order to create a more efficient execution of business. This exchange of information and ideas through Internet, phone
and other modes of communications will allow knowledge explorers to learn from experts and will allow them to execute their research and manage their businesses more efficiently.

Press Contacts:

Anand Vayuvegula,
VP Business strategy
Ezdia Inc.
anand.v@eZdia.com
(650) 387-3941

online marketing ezdia, knowledge