By Kevin M

Last night my wife learned something disturbing—not for herself but for some of her coworkers. She has a part time job with a company that just announced that fulltime employees are losing their benefits and being converted to part time status.

Now the optimist may say, “it could have been worse—at least they didn’t lose their jobs”. And while there may be a grain of truth to that assumption, the bad news outweighs the good here, and I’d say by a wide margin. First of all, part time isn’t full time—it’s part time. That means even if you keep your hourly rate of pay, there’s no guarantee of 40 hours a week, or even of 30 or 20. That looks an awful lot like a pay cut to me.

Second is suddenly going from a job with benefits to one without—that includes health insurance. Charles Hugh Smith has made a strong case that the middle class isn’t middle class without health insurance coverage, and I think that point is beyond debate. What we’re looking at here, in addition to the pay cut, is the loss of socio-economic class status. They’ve been demoted to “the working poor” without ever losing their jobs. That’s pretty radical.

There ain’t no more job security

The example on my wife’s job isn’t isolated either. More employers are moving toward some variation of this all the time. Here’s the bottom line: from day to day, you can never tell what will happen with your job. A full-time job can turn into semi-employment with a single policy decision by people you don’t even know. It isn’t just layoffs anymore; its hours and schedule, pay cuts, job re-classification, job stagnation, loss of benefits—you name it. I’d even argue that the unemployment rate issued by the government is now mostly irrelevant.

Employment Realty #1 is that employers are figuring out ways to eliminate people and payrolls through a relentless shift to cheaper workers offshore, the latest computer technology or a combination of both. Translation: as much as we want to buy into the economy-is-recovering projections, it’s becoming painfully obvious that if that is happening, it’s fully capable of doing so without employees. The stagnant employment picture has less to do with the state of the economy than it does with the progression of options available to employers.

At least since World War II job security and benefits have always been major reasons why most people prefer to work for someone else rather than for themselves. Job security means insulation from the ups and downs of both the economy and the employers business, and benefits provided the safety net protecting against many of life’s uncertainties. Who wouldn’t want that if they could get it?

Now that neither job security nor benefits are guaranteed through employment, has the playing field been leveled, is there now less risk in being self-employed than there has been in the recent past? I think so.

Job security and self-employment

Here’s why I think that the case for self-employment is growing all the time, and why it may be the ultimate solution to the employment meltdown of the 21st Century:

1. As discussed above, jobs no longer carry the promise of stability or benefits
2. Self-employment was the primary income source of most people for thousands of years prior to the 20th Century—it is entirely possible that after nearly 100 years of large scale employment by large organizations, conditions are now returning to the historic norm of the family farm or shop (though it won’t look that way)
3. The same computer technology that’s putting people out of jobs is also making it easier to start your own business—we’ll spend a bit of time on this one in a minute
4. As the number of people who are self-employed expands, so will networking opportunities. The way you used to job network with people at other companies coverts to networking with those in the same or related businesses
5. The same instability that is making the job market less secure also opens up opportunities for part time, seasonal or contract work that can be used to supplement self-employment income—in the start up phase and later on an “as needed” basis
6. Employers who are reducing staff are often subbing out the work once done by employees—that’s an opportunity for a small business
7. Because you’re smaller and have much greater freedom in a small business you may be in a better position to react to changes in the economy, such as the ones we’re seeing now

This really is a “glass half full” situation—if we recognize what’s really happening and learn to use it to our advantage. Reality is going where reality is going; we can either embrace change as an opportunity, or let it roll over us while we look to the past for answers.

How the internet helps the self-employed

Many might curse computers and the internet for the negative affect they’re having on employment, but that’s the wrong approach.

In #3 above we touched on how computers are making it easier to be self-employed and that’s absolutely true. I’m an example of this. Earlier this week, in How Blogging Solved My Mid-Life Career Crisis, I spilled my guts about being disenfranchised at the age of 50. I was a textbook case of an economic casualty. But I chose to embrace the change rather than fight it.

Here’s the thing…people are making money working from home on their computers, and I decided that I needed to join them. Difficult? Most certainly. Impossible? No way!

Yes, there is more than enough get-rich-quick-on-the-internet snake oil being peddled out there, but beneath the phony claims, thousands of people are making a living (or better) on the internet.

I’m not saying that everyone could or should blog like I and many others are doing. But at a minimum you can use the internet to grow a local “bricks and mortar” business, in a way that wasn’t available even ten years ago. One of my best friends is running a very successful trash hauling business here in my neck of the woods and gets nearly all his business from the web. I believe that’s increasingly possible for most businesses.

If you have any idea for a business, fully investigate how you can use the internet to make it work. And if you don’t have any, look closely into ways you can make money on the web. Some ideas include blogging (my favorite!), freelance blog writing for other sites, and providing marketing, technical and administrative support to the many commercial websites and blogs that are out there on the web.

Because of the internet, nearly any skill you have or can acquire can be converted into some form of self-employment, if only as a side business. And these days, that’s looking a lot more secure than the average job.

Have you considered starting some sort of internet business? If not, what’s stopping you?

Monday’s post: Self-employment in the Internet Age

Related Posts:

7 Reasons to be Self-Employed
Why Most New Businesses Fail – And How Not to Become One of Them
5 Tips to Go From a Job to Self-Employment
The Self-Employed Health Insurance Dilemma
7 Ways to Improve the Success of Your New Business
Starting a Side Business – Why Now is the Time

By Kevin M

Companies are always trying to get us to take their bundle plans, neat packages that promise a veritable one-stop shopping trip for all of our communication needs. Cable TV, internet, land lines, cell phones—they’ll load them all into a pretty little bundle for us and provide a nice discount for dealing in bulk.

It’s easy to see why we’re drawn to these arrangements. Not only do we get the lower rate for the package deal, but we can also consolidate several monthly bills into one and, we might reason, with so much of our business placed with one provider, we’ll have clout! After all, surely a provider won’t want to lose ALL of our business if we’re unsatisfied with any single service.

As attractive as that might sound—especially from a life’s simplification standpoint—my experience with bundles hasn’t been terribly positive. As good as the bundle plans might look from time to time, I’ll keep my communication services spread over three or four different providers.

Here’s why…

Not all providers are good at all services

I learned the hard way that a company that’s good at one thing may not be good at others. We took a too-good-to-be-true package from one company we were successfully dealing with. We already had their landline phone service which, though pricey, was excellent. When they came around bearing gifts with an internet and cable TV package we jumped. The option to add our phones into the package at a substantial discount was open, but given my normal hesitation in this area, we decided to wait before combining.

Thought the internet service was nothing special, the cable was outstanding—except for one thing: most of the time it didn’t work.

Five teams of technicians came to the house over a space of several weeks, but none were able to identify the problem, let alone fix it. We were down more than we were up, and the internet usually went with it. After a two month experiment, we terminated the deal. Sadly, we had the same company for our cell phones a year earlier and they were equally inept at that. The only thing they were good at was landline phones, but they weren’t inexpensive either.

Needless to say we severed all ties with that company, including the excellent but pricey phone service. Wiser for having been burned, we returned to our policy of spreading our services over several providers.

That company needed to do what they did best—landline telephones—and find a way to do it for less, rather than branching into providing services that are beyond their abilities.

Lack of flexibility

When we’re shopping for deals and price is the primary criteria, we can be leaving a lot on the table in other areas. What ever company you decide to deal with you’ll be limited to the features and product selection they offer on any service. They may have the best cable TV package on the market, but if their cell phone and internet services are something less, you’ll have to take them anyway or lose the pricing benefit of the bundle.

Customer service and billing can be another flash point. If billing is a problem with one service and you have four services with them, you’ll have four billing problems. Or one billing problem spread over four services. It’s not a mix and match, you’re taking what ever they have with all the attendant problems that go with them.

A lot of people prefer a four-in-one bill with all services on a single bill. While you might save money with this, you can end up with one massive monthly bill the size of a modest car payment. If you’re not particularly good managing your budget, this can become a problem.

It restricts the search for better deals

The communications industry is in a constant state of flux. Deals and packages come and go and the only way to be able to take best advantage of them is to be ready to make a move when they come up. Bundles complicate this.

When you’re in a bundle, the price you’re given is usually dependent on having all of the component services in the original plan. If you withdraw one service to pursue a better deal with another provider it will probably mean that the rate on the remaining services will go up, reducing or even eliminating the advantage that might be gained by switching one service. This is one way that providers keep us from straying from their bundles.

One of the factors that might push you to look for better deals is of course that once you’re in a bundle the price will go up. Sometimes it will go up in unannounced small increments that you may not notice unless you compare this month’s bill to one from a year ago.

Sometimes it will go up in a single, announced increase. And sometimes you’ll experience both the gradual monthly increase along with a sudden spike.

Often, we pay the increase because replacing all of these services can be a real hassle. You spend hours on websites studying the matrix of service and program combinations of competing provider bundles, and once you select one, hours more on the phone working out a series of small but critical details. Then the service people need to come out and you need to be home when they do. After everything’s up and running, it’s nail biting time to determine if

• the combination of services is right for you
• if the service performs as promised
• finally, when the bill comes if the pricing is exactly as promised; this is complicated by the fact that you often have to wait two billing cycles to know for sure, since the initial bill usually contains a host of adjustments of one sort or another.

Moral of the story: moving entire bundles isn’t easy—which is reason number two why you probably won’t move it. And the providers know this too.
 

The good news on bundles is mostly up front when you first enter them. But the price advantage tends to decline in over time as other services become available for less and the cost of your bundle increases.

What are your experiences with bundles? Did they save you money? Were/are you satisfied with ALL of the services in the package? Do you have any bundle horror stories?

By Kevin M

A few months ago a friend of mine was tooling around on our home computers and made a discovery that stunned me.

“Someone else is using your connection” he said, almost casually.

I of course, was anything but casual at the news. “Who would be doing that?” I asked, trying to sound intelligent, but failing miserably.

“Just about anybody with a laptop computer within a couple hundred feet of the house” he answered. “Someone with a laptop in their car parked on the street near the house could do it.”

I have heard this can even be tapped into with a T1 internet connection in some cases.

Have you ever heard news that was so shocking that logic failed you? This was one of those moments for me. I couldn’t think of a series of questions that would glean the information that would put my mind at ease. The implications of what had been revealed that day were so far reaching that I did what humans have been doing for thousands of years upon hearing disturbing news: I put it out of my mind.

Now if you’ve ever read any of my previous posts, you know that I’m a self declared techno-idiot, and I’m not joking about that. The average high school student knows more about computer related matters than I do, so if I make any comments that seem ridiculous, or pose questions where the answer is obvious, just consider the source!

The offending piece of equipment

A couple of years ago my wife and I were looking to provide our kids with their own computer, and their own internet connection. After checking with our ISP provider we decided against the high cost of adding a second internet line to the house. They would charge over $200 to install the new line, then bump our monthly internet bill by something on the order of $30 per month. That wasn’t happening.

On the advice of my boss, we added a router to our computer and ran a line to the kids machine and hooked them in that way. The unit, a Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router, works beautifully, only cost about $50 and carries no recurring charges—problem solved, money saved!

Now the operative word in the name of the router is “Wireless” but remember, I’m a techno-idiot so I assumed this to be a superfluous descriptive word, in much the same way that sports cars carry certain random letters like Z or G in the model name. The router had wires—several of them in fact—coming out in all directions, so there was no way that it could in fact be wireless. Are you following my logic?

What I’m hoping to find out

In January my daughter bought herself an inexpensive laptop computer with gift money she’d saved from Christmas. The goal was to find her the best laptops for college students–which we did.

Since I’d put the whole strangers-tapping-into-our-internet-line so far out of my mind that I’d virtually forgotten about it, I was surprised that my daughter got an instant internet connection.

Then it hit me…

Ah yes, THAT’S what WIRELESS means! She can tap into the connection anywhere in the house. Then it hit me, again. So can anyone else!

I’m familiar with Wi-Fi connections in public places like restaurants and coffee shops, but I never realized we have the equivalent at home. I thought that was some sort of add-on service or gadget you had to pay extra for.

But here we are at home, and anyone with a laptop within a reasonable distance of our house can hook up to our internet line for free!

Here are my questions:

1. Can outsiders pirate our files and information?
2. Does it figure into our band usage (some ISP’s will charge extra if the usage gets too high)
3. Can they see what I’m looking at?
4. Can I see what they’re looking at?
5. Is there a potential for blended connections, or something like telephone “party lines”?
6. Can outsider usage impair our connection in any way?
7. How do you stop it?
8. Do we even want to stop it?
9. Is there a way to prevent outsiders from using the connection without interfering with our own laptops and desktops?
10. Is this even a problem???

I’m open to what ever advice anyone can offer!

By Kevin M

“Everyone” is one of those absolute words we should generally stay clear of, but I’m violating conventional wisdom, sticking my neck out and saying everyone needs to have a blog!

You can beat me up for violating protocol, but before you do, consider the seven reasons why I’m making such a bold declaration…

 
1. To CONNECT with the rest of the world, 21st Century style

There are nearly seven billion people in the world and most of us connect with a handful who we’ll connect with in any meaningful way. With a blog we can add hundreds or thousands more—do you think there might be some value in that?

A blog is the cornerstone of finding like minded people in a world that seems to be pulling apart socially even as it gets more crowded. Though it often seems that people are the nexus of our troubles, we can’t overlook that they’re usually the source of our solutions as well. After all, who couldn’t use a few more friends, a few more intelligent opinions or a few more business contacts?

Most of the people we’ll meet through blogs will live in another part of the country, or another part of the world, but that’s pretty stinking exciting, wouldn’t you say?

 
2. To have a VOICE and advance your IDEAS in the world

A blog is an opportunity to get your voice and your ideas out on the information superhighway. Express your opinions at work—to the degree you’re even allowed to anymore(!)—and a few people will hear what you have to say. Put it out on a blog and potentially thousands will read it. Some will forward it to others.

We all have good ideas—ideas that could potentially benefit many people. With a blog you have the venue to express those ideas. Unlike the traditional print media, your ideas don’t need to make it past the editing bureau where they may be modified or killed. And you can put your ideas out there in real time, enabling you to weigh in on events as they happen—you become a part of the grass roots media.

 
3. To build a national and global NETWORK for any future purpose

We can’t possibly know what the future holds, but we can prepare for it in a very general way that can payoff big later. By building connections now—with hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people—we’re setting up a built in stage for what ever we decide to launch, whenever we’re ready to launch it.

A blog gives you a foothold on the information superhighway, a springboard for all that you might do. Even if you don’t have message or a business idea right now, with a blog you can begin building the contacts that will have the marketing in place from the get go. And best of all, it doesn’t have to cost a thing!

 
4. To MARKET any product, service or business you can conceive of

Do you know with certainty what you’ll be doing to earn a living in five or ten years? With the job market being so unpredictable, it’s best to be prepared for anything. One of the best ways to do this is with some form of self-employment, even if it’s only as a side business right now.

You can test business ideas with a blog and add new ones or drop old ones as circumstances warrant, but you’ll have that all important flexibility that every entrepreneur needs. Even if you’re not thinking in this direction right now, you can be ready for a change of either heart or circumstances.

 
5. To create an additional INCOME STREAM

Even if you don’t know what product or service you might want to market, there are opportunities to start earning some money almost immediately. Google Adsense as well as various affiliate marketing programs can enable you to generate a small revenue stream even without having any business ideas of your own.

Your site doesn’t need to be a business site for these programs to work either. Any site topic that draws in a steady stream of visitors can make ad programs work for you, though certain topics do work better than others. And sometimes a small income stream is all it takes to motivate you to take things to a higher level.

Ultimately the solution to career, income or debt problems may lie not so much in a new, higher paying career as much as in the development of multiple income streams, which not only increase income but also provide diversified sources for greater stability.

 
6. To draw OPPORTUNITIES to you

As you broadcast your ideas and peddle your wares on your weblog, and people begin visiting your site, it will open the doors for others to contact you about what it is they’re working on that might be a good fit with what you’re offering. Business and marketing ideas, job opportunities and advertising arrangements are all possibilities, and they will come about without any special effort on your part.

Create a compelling blog, and people and opportunities will find their way to your email. Think of your blog as your own personal billboard, take it seriously, and put out the best you have to offer. Work into a niche where you have above average knowledge and skills and have at least some passion about. People who are interested in the same things you are will find you, and good things will happen from there.

 
7. To TAKE PART in the democratic process since that voting thing really isn’t working

Whenever we vote, we’re accepting a given platform, a package of ideas we can either vote up or down on based on our vote for or against a candidate. That system usually leaves us with just two choices, and we can’t remove certain items from a platform and replace them with others we feel are more important. Charles Hugh Smith (link also in left column) refers to this as a “simulacrum of democracy”, and it has much to do with why the political system is often so unresponsive to changes in world or national circumstances or even to public will.

The internet is the new place for the exchange of free ideas, for the average citizen to come forward with small ideas that may have no other way of becoming big ideas except that we put them in a public place for others to see. In the absence of the public square or of an objective media, a blog may be the single best place to present those ideas. You could launch ideas and concepts that will start on your blog then crawl their way into national policy. Can you do that with your vote?

How do you create a blog? Since I’m relatively new at this myself, I’ll defer to the opinions of some more seasoned bloggers, and highly recommend that you check out the following:

How to make money with a blog by Bob Lotich at ChristianPF.

Blueprint For How To Make Money With A Blog: Advice From Successful Bloggers from Bible Money Matters. Some free advice, but most is in a paid e-book that’s worth every penny of the $29.95 purchase price.

 
Do you have a blog? Do you agree that having one is well worth the time invested? Can you offer any other advantages to having a blog?