Our Ethos

Trust is Currency

Application: We don’t believe in hiding our markup from clients, or our Free Agent professionals. Free Agent Source fees paid by Free Agents, and billable rates paid by clients will always be visible to all three parties: Clients (business customers), Free Agents (contractors), and Free Agent Source staff. Theory: Transparency not only ensures accountability of all parties to each other, but it means all parties remain open to effective criticism to improve our processes. Transparency means no one has to work with less information than they’d demand if they owned the companyTransparency leads to trust.  And trust is stronger than bank credit.  We do business on trust.  We trade on trust.  And the more we all experience successful transactions, the more we prosper.  Control and hidden facts raise concerns about “losing”.  They are like trade barriers which are impediments to successful business..

• Clarity is cheaper
• Candor is a premium
• Information is freedom
• Simple is social
• Transparency is a measure of soundness

Freedom is Value

Application: We avoid imposing unnecessary limitations on Free Agents and client relationships. Temp to hire is fine, leaving when you want is fine. Theory: Control isn’t necessary to exchange value. Freedom creates conditions for spontaneous project teams, or even new businesses. Restricting the relationship would mean saying no to innovation and growth.

• Relationships are voluntary
• Innovation is proportional to independence
• Work is a vehicle of freedom, not an agency of control

Sustainability is Core

Those who are pushing the envelope on green use of resources do so not just because it’s good and right, but because it’s a core indicator of how efficient they are. In other words, it’s a measure of their effectiveness as companies, startups, teams, and entrepreneurs. We’re committed to constantly seeking ways to trim our processes, and this makes us not only a greener organization, but the kind of highly effective lean outfit we always wanted to work for.

• The startup cycle is always continual
• Anyone can scale with demand
• All work is really a project
• Just-in-time resources trumps a camel hump of overhead
• Green is a measure of lean, which measures effectiveness

(It’s what the tree is saying.)

Technology is Prophetic

The growth of a number of technologies tells us how we will work in the 21st century. The “wisdom of crowds” is perceptible in social technologies like the green movement, the lifehacking ethos, digital nomads, and coworking. Likewise, we draw incredible lessons from information technology, marketing, and industry development, whether that’s the growth of cloud computing, The open source model, the design movement, supply chain economics, lean project management, web 2.0, Creative Commons, distance learning, and social media. We’re constantly conceptualizing what work can be. In that sense, this is truly Work 2.0

• The platform in any area of life is not a given
• The operating system for anything is not an absolute
• Breaking down the components lets you take only what you need, or build something new from the parts

Work is Culture

We find a global movement of people asking the question “how can work be different?” Whether it’s laid off professionals who don’t want to stake everything on yet another volatile job, vagabonds and digital nomads pushing the envelope of separating work from location, or small business startups asking how they can modularize the core waste centers in a company as ‘mechanical turks’. We don’t know all the answers, but one of the things we take from crowdsourcing and social marketing is the understanding that we will find answers together as part of a community.

• Work is a primary source of meaning
• A market is a movement
• Culture and ideas are inherently collaborative

Misfits are Contributors

Weirdness holds incredible talent, and oddballs are outliers who often bring extreme contributions. The tattoo, the earring, the beard aren’t what’s important. The same goes for where you are in life. We want the home workers, semi-retired, soldiers coming home, second career types, part-timers, laid off, part-time working moms, late bloomers, because you’re a source of genius.

• Self-directed problem solving leads to intrinsically-motivated contributions
• Value is continually lost to agencies of power and control
• Unusual people make incredible contributions
• Non-standard people deliver above standard value

Tradition is Vulnerable

As small business owners, entrepreneurs, and contractors, we realize we are not too big to fail, but we still want the freedom to direct our own activities. Continually hacking tradition and constant experimentation is how we construct the tools that keep us free. By utilizing powerful business tools that traditional employees have in the world’s most advanced corporations, we can sustain the renaissance of small business by competing with the big guys, and ensure our survival and freedom. The first step, for us, was to create the company we wanted to work for, because we saw an economy of employment relationships stuck in the 1950s and unable to survive in the 21st century. We knew it could be different.

• All innovation comes from pushing some previously forbidden boundaries
• Breaking rules is necessary to achieve evolutionary and industry change
• Ideas are not appliances – they’re inherently dynamic and collaborative
• Sufficient pressure and demand will always produce new solutions
• Whatever we’ve always done will be the thing we learn to do better