Commodifications

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11223636.post-1114365654661651902005-04-24T10:59:00.000-07:002005-04-24T11:00:54.663-07:00CommodificationsCommodification (n) - the transformation of a non-commodity into a commodity, to assign a monetary value to something that traditionally would not be considered in monetary terms, for example, an idea, identity, gender. Commoditization (n) - a term from both economics and the social sciences which is used to describe the process by which a good becomes saleable in the market. Commoditization can be considered a positive, in that it makes the good available to a broader audience, or as a negative, implying the cheapening of a class of "goods" in the philosophical sense. ...........Source Wikipedia I know - words to make your eyes glaze over. But you best pay attention. For the past few years the Internet has been a boon to us freelance writers. Our clients can now be anywhere in the world. Research is fast. And we can deliver product with the click of a mouse. But of course in this age of digitized communication so can any freelancer anywhere. Question. Do you think the service you are providing can be outsourced to India? Think not? Take a read of Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat :A Brief History of the Twenty First Century", and it might throw a big scare into you. He talks about the flattening of the world where we are all connected by technology - rich countries and poor alike. With the pipeline of high speed service so accessible to the world, we now face great challenges and great opportunities to do business. There is no reason why writing services can't be commodified and commoditized. If highly trained, highly educated citizens in India can do your taxes and they are, then why can't they do the technical writing that you currently do for your corporate clients? At a fifth the price. Heck, they are probably sitting beside the person one cubicle over who wrote the code for the software that the technical manual is describing. If technical writing is up for grabs, what about annual reports, newsletters or corporate brochures? So to the extent that the type of writing that you do can be commoditized and commodified, you better have a plan B. I would say that the narrower the focus you have, the more you specialize, the more your type of writing needs an intimate knowledge of a particular corporate culture, the safer you are. Choose clients where price is not the issue but time. Where they want not the lowest common denominator on price, but the uniqueness that is you - whose work cannot be replicated because only you can write in their authentic voices. A big plus in this new world is that you are now in a very good position to do an end run around the big PR firms who can't move as fast and have greater difficulty providing the finely focused work you can. So make sure your services can't be bought off the rack.Colin842http://www.blogger.com/profile/04867047113066329395noreply@blogger.com