Welcome to the human cloud, the most fun podcast where you might actually learn something about leadership. We're the Matthews, one of us is old, one of us is young - but both of us have tapped into this thing called the human cloud, to drive extreme change in both large and small organizations. In today's episode, we're gonna give you a full rundown of what this podcast is, why we're doing it, and why in the world you should listen to us. We're going to hit a little bit on current events, we're going to make fun of each other a lot - but also we're going to give some tangible actionable insights related to what leadership means to us and what leadership means to you, and how you can amplify your impact through leadership. Enjoy.

Ep. 1: Welcome to the Human Cloud

Preston Mossman, Talent Advisor and Product Manager for Koch Industries, joins the podcast to talk about his winding path to product management, staffing, and freelance, and how larger more established institutions can still work with and benefit from freelance workers. He also discusses how freelance talent is just one piece of the puzzle in a broader innovation strategy that combines full-time employees, trusted third parties, and individual workers.

Ep. 12: Preston Mossman on Leveraging Freelance Talent in the American Heartland

Sarah joins the podcast to talk about all things sales and marketing in an era when we are all salespeople - entrepreneurs, freelancers, leaders. We cover what works and hear stories of what spectacularly flopped.

Ep. 16:  Sarah Jolley-Jarvis on selling and marketing without sleaze

Mike Sweeney joins the podcast for a wide-ranging discussion on how to grow as a leader and build high-performing diverse teams. Mike's experience is unique to say the least, with stints in the military, wineries, law firms, and most recently management consulting. He's also a marathon runner and stand-up comedian/improvisationalist. You can learn more about Mike's leadership programs at https://www.sabercoaching.com

Ep. 18: Mike Sweeney on Leadership, Virtual Teams, and Learning Across Industries

Andy Murphy joins the podcast to talk about his transition from corporate marketing IT management into a freelancer and business owner, and how that transition allowed him to follow his true passions while being his authentic self.

Ep. 22: Andy Murphy on How a Corporate Exit Led to a New Life as Analytics Freelancer

How can it be that as we face a talent shortage yet decline in real wages by 1.7%? Simple supply and demand would say one should give, yet we're in a ditch of inflation, a labor shortage, and a great resignation. So what should we do? Let's talk with General Assembly's Cari Perez, whose leading government and workforce partnerships. 

> How the speed of technology ripped apart traditional on ramps into the middle class
> How leaders can provide support for talent beyond their salary
> Current government strategy for workforce development

Ep. 40: Cari Perez of General Assembly on Workforce Development & Intersection of Govt & Industry

This is a recording of a very special event from the Human Cloud titled, "The Future of Freelance Talent Marketplaces".
We had an all star roster of participants which included:
Tony Buffum (Upwork)
Abby Forman (Fiverr)
Niklas Lieb (Vicoland)
Jon Younger (Forbes)

The event included a debrief of the Forrester report as well as a round table discussion on many freelance focused topics. Thank you to everyone who participated and you for listening! Enjoy.

The Future of Freelance Talent Marketplaces

While every board is talking about a contradictory great resignation, hiring freezes, and talent shortage, Akhil Seth and UST are leading Enterprises to an abundant talent pool of freelancers. Some crazy learnings:

- Shortening proof of concepts from 2 months to 2 days
- Fractionalizing Unicorns into multiple freelancers
- Hiring and onboarding freelancers in a secure and compliant way without compromising speed and quality  

2:00 - Why he's so passionate about Open Talent

12:52 - What he's working on at UST

15:55 - Industry leading solutions in virtual desktopping and change management

18:27 - Big wins for Open Talent

22:13 - Best projects to start hiring freelancers for

27:55 - The biggest challenges of hiring freelancers

37:00 - Why classification is such a big problem in hiring freelancers

41:00 - Akhil's leadership journey 

45:49 - How to acquire and keep top young talent like Akhil

Connect with Akhil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akhilvseth/

Ep. 64: Akhil Seth of UST, How Enterprises Can Tap Into This Abundant Pool of Open T

Description: Leaders, Morten has an extremely rare background in driving change at both a global technology leader (Google) and global business management leader (McKinsey). In his leader portal Morten really stressed how technology can solve real business problems, how the enterprise is unique, and how to drive change across these large beasts.

2:35: How Google and Mckinsey taught Morten how technology can solve real business problems

5:39: How to be ready for the recession

9:53: Market landscape and where Worksome fits

15:30: Why we can’t have a truly independent world

19:45: How do you balance the entrepreneurial spirit with corporate

24:34: What hasn’t changed since Covid when we talk about the ‘future’ of work?

38:40: What’s different about the enterprise?

43:11: How should leaders drive their freelance program?

46:44: How do you balance long term bets with short term validation?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mortenbruun/

Ep. 65: Morten Bruun, VP Global Operations at Worksome, Forbes 30 under 30, Ex-McKinsey, Ex-Google

How can an enterprise like Airbus innovate from within for an initiative as ambitious as an aircraft of the future that's built 'for the people, by the people'? Let's learn from Mina how freelancers have been an integral part of Airbus's innovation strategy, along with: 

- Why Airbus Cares: Hint...Accessing 70m+ diverse experts
- How Airbus Started: Hint...Finding changemakers within each function
- Tips For Leaders: Hint...Align passion, build a solid foundation of minimum requirements
- Seeing the Future: Hint...an Amazon for talent (not in a way that commoditizes us freelancers though!!!!!) 

Connect with Mina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/minabastawros/

Check out Mina's Leader Portal: https://humancloud.substack.com/s/leaders

Ep. 74: Mina Bastawros, VP Creative & Digital Marketing

Matthew Mottola
	
Thu, Dec 29, 2022, 5:03 PM (13 days ago)
	
to brooks, me
Brooks, hope you've had an incredible holiday and are ready for a great year. We plan to release this mid Jan. Feel free to edit anything below!

Title: Brooks Lockett, SaaS & B2B freelancer

Description: 

Leaders, we seldom bring on individual freelancers for an entire episode.

    The reason is absolutely NOT that we don’t leave freelancers (they are the hero’s of our industry).

    The real reason is that the best freelancers aren’t usually talking, they’re building, and a podcast for them is typically a distraction.

BUT. Their voices need to be heard. And you need to understand their problems and their motivation in order to attract and retain the best one’s.

Which is where Brooks comes in. Brooks' would be your VP of marketing. Instead he’ll still do what a VP of marketing can do, but as an independent contractor, he’ll be your go to for every piece of SaaS & B2B content.

We’re going to hit on everything.

    Why he freelances.

    Why freelancing is better than a full time job for him.

    Why hiring him leads to better results than full time employees.

    What sucks about freelancing. 

Make sure to check out Brooks' leader portal: https://humancloud.substack.com/s/leaders

Ep. 81: Brooks Lockett, SaaS & B2B freelancer

Leaders, Andela is a leading marketplace for developers, engineers, product designers, and technology experts. Beyond the platform, Jeremy has spent over 15 years unlocking the power of global, digital networks to drive business change. 

Jeremy hit on a couple themes that every single one of us needs to be aware of.

1: The blurring of freelance and full time 

2: The science of managing remote freelancers at scale

3: The macroeconomic climate, specifically how our space has never been more attractive to Enterprises 

He also gives us the inside scoop on how their recent acquisition of Qualified.io and Codewars enables them to assess and deliver human potential more effectively.

Learn More: http://humancloud.work/jeremy-johnson

Ep. 90: Jeremy Johnson, CoFounder and CEO, Andela

Leaders, Ernie is the epitome of the most exciting trend in the freelance economy...future VP's choosing to freelance over the corporate ladder. Ernie runs Part Time Tech, a newsletter highlighting the benefits of freelance models for tech talent like him. Prior, he majored in computer science at MIT, and was a software engineer at Hubspot for over 7 years. 

It is crucial to understand how this new freelancer demographic thinks. A couple core differences:

The best people were great in corporate, better fit their lifestyle and ability to make an impact (they don't need to follow the corporate 'Kingdoming')

The best people aren't looking for a job, they're prioritizing opportunities

The best people find work through peer connections 


3:51, Why Ernie made the switch

5:11, Why working this way makes sense for top talent

11:18, Impact of the pandemic

14:31, The corporate disconnect

20:43, The future of fractional leaders

40:51, The real tradeoffs between 1099 & W2

41:49, What do marketplaces have to do

Learn More: http://humancloud.work/ernie-park

Ep. 91: Ernie Park, Part Time Tech and The Future of Fractional Leadership

On this episode we talk with Marc Clemens, CEO and Founder of CodeControl and 9am.  Companies are recognizing the value of independent professionals, and despite challenges in worker classification and regulations, systems are becoming more streamlined for businesses to engage with freelancers. The convergence of entrepreneurial and freelance mindsets, along with platforms like Code Control, are allowing freelancers to focus on their skills while offloading business aspects to dedicated services, ultimately creating a more flexible, collaborative work environment.


00:09:20: The intersection of freelancing and entrepreneurship

00:15:18: Structuring and building a community

00:26:08: Attracting technical talent in marketplace

00:36:07: Creating optimized profiles for freelancers

00:44:30: Go-to-market strategy in the next 6 to 12 months

Learn more: https://humancloud.work/marc-clemens/

Ep. 92: Marc Clemens, Founder & CEO of CodeControl & 9am

Angie represents one of the sexiest shifts in our industry, the shift in the most talented corporate leaders choosing the freelance economy over the traditional career path. In her case, this looks like choosing to build her own fintech, Ruby Money, over the full time corporate opportunities that came from having experience at Microsoft, Instagram, and Visa to name a top few of her numerous logos.


We'll get in the weeds over Angie's own freelancing path, her peers, and what's required to make the freelance economy a sustainable career path and industry. 

*Also shout out to Ernie Park of Part Time Tech for referring Angie!

Enjoy!

http://humancloud.work/angie-moody

Ep. 93: Angie Moody, CEO of Ruby Money, Formerly of Instagram, Visa, Capital One, Microsoft

Leaders, we need to talk about how organizations can scale their freelance usage. The freelance economy V1 & V2 was built for entrepreneurs and small businesses, not large companies. The problem as Barry Matthews, CEO of Open Assembly and 20+ year vet describes it, is that Enterprises don't know which partner to turn to, and don't know how to scale a model that's new, risky, and has no existing best practices.  The impact is that while 90% of leaders are prioritizing freelancers according to HBR, seldom few leaders are succeeding at scaling their organization beyond small pilots and small working teams.

Barry and Open Assembly is building one of the leading solutions to scale freelance talent across large Enterprises through a single Enterprise entry point, what they call the gateway. 

If you remember the guest Mina Bastawros of Airbus, he said the future of the freelance economy is enabling enterprises the Amazon experience of engaging talent. One place for multiple marketplaces, multiple skills, yet a seamless and convenient end user experience. 

In this episode we'll discuss how to do this, along with the key themes below:

    How outsourcing has become skill sourcing, and the freelance economy is just the digitization of sourcing
    The Enterprise business case, specifically speed, size, and elasticity of accessing talent
    The Enterprise challenge...(1) which platform for what need, (2) we're new and risky with no existing processes
    Why there won't be ONE marketplace

Enjoy!

http://humancloud.work/barry-matthews

Ep. 94:  Barry Matthews, CEO of Open Assembly, Future Of The Freelance Economy

Leaders, Linda is our industry's superhero in building freelance programs at scale. She built PWC's Talent Exchange, she was MBO's Chief Experience Officer, and now she's the CoFounder and Chief Product Officer at FlexC, a somewhat new yet prominently established marketplace. 

A couple theme's I want you to listen for:

    WHY there are so many layers in the freelance economy. Hint...it stems from the meshing of Procurement, HR, Finance, and various working teams.
    HOW to balance the client-marketplace dynamic. 
    WHERE the industry is heading, hint...from reactive & non-risky to sophisticated, strategic, and core. 
    WHAT org's need to do over the next 30/60/90 days to set themselves up for success.

Enjoy!

Ep. 95: Linda Mann, Chief Product Officer at FlexC, Former PWC Talent Exchange & MBO

On this episode we had the opportunity to talk with Rachel Renock and discuss the rapidly changing landscape of the freelance economy.  She sheds light on how traditional agency models are becoming outdated and how flexible freelance models are rising to meet the demands of today's fluid and technology-driven world.

Discover the ins and outs of Freelance Management Systems and how these platforms are empowering freelancers across industries to scale their businesses while fostering meaningful connections with like-minded professionals. Join us as we explore the future of marketplaces, the benefits of embracing freelance networks, and the lasting impact of these changes on the global workforce.

Ep. 96: Rachel Renock, Co-Founder & CEO of Wethos

Leaders, Lee's Expert Insight covers both the teaching of where this industry is going and how software can disrupt the current state of the freelance industry. A bit on Lee, he represents the fresh blood of the freelance economy challenging norms yet surrounded by industry vets. He's freelanced himself for over 8 years, and been leading Bubty, a White Label Contractor & Freelance Management software platform for 4 years. 

In being young, there are a couple legacy standards that Lee accurately calls out.
 • The ownership dilemma - no one 'owns' freelancers, yet many processes are built to replicate ownership or mitigate a lack of ownership 
 • The needed layers of the freelance economy 
Yet in being experienced, he'll show us couple ways  software can disrupt this space: 
 • Centralization of Freelancers
 • Bringing simplicity to engaging multiple marketplaces
 • Turning the freelance economy into a Hiring Desk rather than another marketplace
Enjoy!

Ep. 97: Lee Willoughby, CoFounder of Bubty, The Potential of a Corporate "Hiring Desk"

Dan Curran, without any predetermined master plan, found himself immersed in the freelance economy amid the Covid pandemic. Recognizing the opportunity, he pivoted his publishing company into an expert marketplace, seamlessly connecting niche journalists and consultants with complex/regulated B2B brands. What sets Dan apart is his unique perspective—an outsider's viewpoint driven by a genuine desire to illuminate the untapped potential of a remarkable talent pool: Freelance Business Journalists.

Ep. 98: Dan Curran, CEO of PowerPublish.io, Bridging Knowledge Gaps for Complex Brands

Leaders, to deeply understand the current freelance economy, we must understand the origins of innovation first introduced by the staffing industry. Robert Half is one of the staffing industries leading firms that used technology early to revolutionize how they hired internally. This is where Allen comes in. He is a former Director at Robert Half and has extensive experience both in Staffing firms and client side.

 

Key Learnings that I had from the staffing side: 

    Robert Half focused on contingent talent, since contingent talent creates high margin, residual income rather than a block commission for each new permanent hire. 
    Contingent talent was typically full time, with 6 week to 6 month contracts.
    Robert Half and other staffing firms both recruit and manage, unlike freelance marketplaces that typically put the recruiting and managing responsibilities on the hiring manager. 

This foundation naturally leads to the discussion on freelance, specifically how technology has unlocked the business case for a direct sourced freelance workforce rather than traditional contingent talent channels. This approach along with freelance management systems, rather than applicant tracking systems (which ATS's aren't wrong, they just don't serve the increasing freelance workforce), can achieve cost savings that turn a cost center into a profit generating center.

 

Key learnings for you here:

    Direct Freelance sourcing drives at least 24% cost savings, amounting to an average margin of $24/hr with each hire.
    A managed freelance workforce can be used to increase company valuation. 
    Automation in new technology can slash onboarding times that further reduce manual administrative hours and costs.

We'll close this episode out by diving into the technical side of what's wrong with the current contingent talent landscape, which one word can describe it all...complexity. Specifically, there are up to 5 stakeholders traditionally required for one freelance hire...the staffing firm, the MSP, the client, the compliance/EOR provider, and most important, the talent. Direct sourcing and the right FMS can cut that ratio to 1:1.

 

Human Cloud clients find a visual of this in your portal. 

 

Enjoy everyone!

Ep. 99: Allen Larson, President and Chief Talent Officer of Civilized Rebellion: Staffing 101

The Human Cloud Podcast

Where entrepreneurs, investors, and yes...even you corporate warriors meet to talk about the freelance economy. 

Each month we bring on an industry leader, corporate leader, and innovator of the month pushing the freelance economy forward.

Led by Matthew Mottola, 10+ year leader in enterprise adoption of freelance workforces, published author, prior venture backed founder and leader of Microsoft’s signature freelance product. 

In the words of Matthew, "let our inbox be yours".

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