ParetoCentral Blog

ParetoCentral enables you to get your Programming Needs and Projects solved comprehensively and cost-effectively with multiple expert programmer inputs. It works like this: 

1. Post your Programming Need and declare a cash award for its completion. 

2. ParetoCentral alerts the most qualified consultants to work on your need. 

3. Narrow down consultants to the best fit for you and pay award through ParetoCentral. All subsequent work by the Consultant has to be paid through ParetoCentral.

Visit us at http://www.ParetoCentral.com

ParetoCentral emphasizes avoiding duplicate work

In response to concerns raised by Consultants, we have established best practices for Clients to avoid duplicate work by consultants.  Because of the crowd-sourcing business model, some duplication, especially in the initial phase of each project, cannot be avoided. But Clients can focus on winnowing down consultants quickly so that the “chosen one” does most of the work.

Clients understand this issue and are very receptive to this idea. They know that evaluating Consultants based on actual work rather than based on interviews is definitely superior. If it means doing the filtering down the Consultants, they are willing to take that effort.

So if you are a Consultant, feel free to keep applying to projects. Clients will guide you while making sure your efforts are not wasted.

Early bird gets the worm!

We have been noticing that the winning consultants in Programming Needs posted by clients are often the person who responded FIRST.  On talking to Clients, the main reasons were (1) Clients want quick solutions for their issues and (2) They appreciate the punctuality of consultants.

Some crowd-sourcing concepts (like 99Designs) is less sensitive to the speed of response by the consultant.  However, the dynamic is different at ParetoCentral where speed really matters!

Therefore, if you are a consultant, make sure you respond to Programming Needs as early as possible. Subscribing to email alerts of new Programming Needs is a idea to achieve this end.

Need Ad-Hoc Programming Help? Try ParetoCentral.com!

Ever get stuck while coding? You can use ParetoCentral.com to get help from expert coders to solve pressing programming problems.

Here is how it works:

*        Post a Consulting Need mentioning your Programming problem (If you want to keep details confidential, provide basic information first and you can share more details in later communications)

*         In the “State Consultant Expertise” field, mention the exact coding expertise needed (for example: “PHP MySQL” etc)

*        Mention the total budget for the project (we recommend a minimum of $100, ideally $250 or more). After consultations, divide the budget as you feel appropriate between one or more coders (consultants) whose feedback really helped you.

Post your Programming Need at ParetoCentral today!

Use ParetoCentral.com to get feedback from your Target Users!

ParetoCentral.com is the best platform to get valuable feedback from Target Users on your web site or product.

Here is how it works:

• Post a Consulting Need mentioning your web site or product url (If you want to keep the information confidential, provide basic information and you can share more details on later communications)
• In the “State Consultant Expertise” field, mention the exact target user criteria (for example:  ”Unix System Administrators”)
• Mention the total budget for the project (we recommend a minimum of $100, ideally $250 or more).  After consultations, divide the budget as you feel appropriate between one or more consultants.

Post your User Research Need today at ParetoCentral.com!

ParetoCentral.com's transformation now complete!

When we first started ParetoCentral.com, our goal was to better connect consultants and clients.  That mission has remained the same.  But we had to make substantial business model changes to make this mission more practical.  That leads to the most recent makeover at ParetoCentral.com.

Now at ParetoCentral.com, anybody can post a Consulting Need that they want met in a comprehensive manner, along with a cash budget that the client will pay for the  consultant(s) who contribute. ParetoCentral would alert several consultants who are qualified to help with that Consulting Need and they would respond.  Client can then have 1-to-1 dialog with each consultant till client is satisified with the solution.  Client decides how to divide the cash budget between the consultants who contributed and pay directly.  Most of the time all cash amount go to one consultant.  But occasionally it get divided between two or three consultants.

The goal is that the next time client has a project to do, the client knows the consultants who can help with the project! That is how the ParetoCentral.com-facilitated connections come in handy.

Kindly spread the word and encourage your colleagues to post their Consulting Needs at ParetoCentral!

Difference between ParetoCentral and sites like 99Designs

I often get asked about a fundamental issue about crowdsourcing – It’s potential to generate lots of wasted efforts.  For example, if you are designing a logo, you have no idea whether you would ultimately win the contest.  I.e. the precious time you spent could be totally wasted because the client ultimately selects somebody else’s logo.

The point I make during these conversations is that they should not place ParetoCentral in the same category as 99 Designs.  At ParetoCentral, the focus is generating multiple viewpoints to solve a specific business issue or question. With that framework, the client gets a unique advantage that other alternatives cannot provide. 

It is true that only one consultant will get the “award”, but other consultants also benefit by connecting with the client in a meaningful way.  The consultant(s) who ultimately get future projects with the client may not be the winner of the contest at all.

Thus, ParetoCentral does not result wasted efforts like potentially at 99Designs and similar companies.

What makes ParetoCentral different from Quora (and other Q&A sites)?

Quora is a great way to get initial answers for questions and to get knowledge in areas where one is not expert in.   It is a great piece of technology and we recommend everybody to use it.  It stands heads and holders above its competitors – like LinkedIn Answers, Focus, and others.

People ask us what is the distinction between ParetoCentral and Quora.  Key differences are summarized below:

• ParetoCentral allows communicating confidential information offline.  You  can hold off sharing sensitive information till you select experts.  Then you can provide more confidential information offline to get focused answers.  In Quora, you are always dealing with generalities because all the communications are public.
• ParetoCentral wants to create real personal connections between you and experts.  The communication primarily happens through emails.  You even have the option to take the conversation to phone or Skype
• Finally, in Quora, you get one-shot answers, which tend to be generic. On the other hand, ParetoCentral facilitates the right solution for you through interactive communication.

In conclusion, Quora and ParetoCentral serves two different needs. Whenver you want more personalized consulting solutions, use ParetoCentral!

Cost of ignoring your own questions in business

Here is the scenario: You are working on a specific issue at work and a question comes to you. You try to search on the internet (say, Quora.com), but it has generic information and no information that is personalized for you.  You think of some colleagues who can help – but there are not any.  You think of contacting your friends who has potential knowledge – However, many of us don’t want to bother friends with work questions.  If all these fail, what you do?

Many of us forget about that thought process and proceed to do other things.  For example, a presentation you are working on won’t have a specific aspect covered because you just did not have information to build on.

This is a truly wasted opportunity. If you had an option to pursue the thought process and get the issues answered, your company would be surely better off.  That is where in-depth, confidential consultations facilitated by ParetoCentral helps. Even better, ParetoCentral brings you the view points of multiple experts. So you get more complete picture of the issue and the solution.

Try us today and spread the word. Thanks!

Vision of the “Workplace of the Future”: Fewer permanent employees, but each with supporting cast of outsourced workers and consulting professionals

The workplace of today comprises mostly of full-time employees. Sure – companies outsource certain tasks and use sites like oDesk and eLance..  But most of the work happens through full-time employees and contractors.

But, it is going to change.  This is because of two emerging and irreversible trends – (1) a large portion of US workforce are aging baby boomers and they are going to retire (2) Steady drum beat of globalization will bring more and more international, cheap, labor to the arena.

The companies who thrive will make these emerging trends work in their favor.  The way they do it would be to hire a “skeleton” staff of permanent employees.  These employees would be super talented and one of their main skills would be managing and coordinating others.  Each of these employees would get support from outsourced workers as well as retired / semi-retired professionals acting as subject matter experts.

Overall, it is a win-win arrangement.  Outsourced employees keep the costs low. Older workers can use the extra income and get benefits of being mentally engaged.  Finally, with US projected to have less working age individuals, companies will still get stuff done because of this unique arrangement.

ParetoCentral, by the way, is helping to connect people with expert professionals. The goal is to make flexible work reality, especially for the aging baby boomer population. We look forward to fulfill our envisioned role in tomorrow’s workplace!

If you have not visited us already, please do so at ParetoCentral.com. Post a “Request for Consultation” to get the process rolling.