Outsourcing leads Star right back to TorontoTo test the job market at a worldwide web bazaar, the Toronto Star posted a small job. We asked for bids on web designing an original illustration for T-shirts for a group of 12-year-old girls to be given out as party favours.
We posted it to Guru or free and began receiving bids within hours. Within a week, we had received 18 bids from around the world, including Denmark and India, most of them for $100 or more.
The best and lowest bid came from Kyra Kendall, a Toronto artist with a degree in visual studies from the University of Toronto.
Her energetic, anime style was perfect for the project, and she promised to complete it in record time. For $70.
Kendall a 29-year-old freelancer, squeezes her Guru bids in between jobs for bigger, more established clients, like mtv, Elle magazine, Bell Canada and the Boston Celtics.
"Guru is great. But I am the kind of artist who loves the randomness of the jobs I get. It also connects me with some really interesting people all over the world," says Kendall.
She doesn't lower her rates to compete online.
The anonymity of the Internet occasionally encourages outrageously low offers for her work, but low bidders are a fact of life everywhere in business, says Kendall. She ignores them. Besides, the majority of employers are happy to pay her going rate.
"My work is worth what it's worth," she says.
In fact, she says, the beauty of sites like Guru is that they allow people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford professional services the opportunity to do so.
Source: Thestar.com | 
