Published by David Mc Williams at http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/03/13/time-to-get-connected-for-the-freelance-future.

The crucial thing to appreciate is that the recovery in Ireland will be freelance driven and not employee driven

In the past few weeks my email account has been deluged with messages from people asking me to be members of their “linked in” business network. “Linked in” is a kind of Facebook for the perennially ambitious; My Space for over-achievers.

It is a network of contacts that you might have made in college, in different jobs, or more possibly it is a list of names and people you’ve come across as a result of just mooching around, trying to get by, stumbling from job to job as you grope your way to something called a “career”.

The core idea is that it supposedly plugs you into a network that can positively influence your next move. Doubtless there is something in this. If you need something done, or need to get advice from someone, is it better to have a group of people you know (or in my case vaguely know) to fall back on? It’s the Yellow Pages for unemployed accountants.

Casting aside the pathologically lonely and the eejits who scour the net terrorising everyone they have half-met in a previous life, the surge in Linked In tags is telling us that there is something else going on out there in cyberspace. People are clustering because they are scared. They are clustering because they’ve just been let go and they are trying to form their own networks to see whether their old contacts can help them out in this time of need.

Equally, and significantly, the Linked In surge might also tell us something positive about the recovery and might shed light on the nature of work in the future.

Read the whole article here: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2009/03/13/time-to-get-connected-for-the-freelance-future.