“The role of trust in high tech work- The case of Freelance Web-Designers in NYC”

Posted on November 10, 2008 by ari

Category: Activism, Art and Design, Books and Writing, Economics, Technology, What we're up to, Work

A while back I participated in a study by a Columbia sociology student named Matthias Thiemann, who has written a 120 page thesis in German based on his research. He’s translated a four-page section of it which may be published as a chapter in an upcoming book, which I really got a kick out of and wanted to share here: The role of trust in high tech work- The case of Freelance Web-Designers in NYC (PDF)
Some highlights that I really identify with (and I guess I should, since I was part of the sample):

In sending away clients to cheaper, better suited competitors or building little devices free of charge, freelancers establish a reputation of putting the clients’ welfare first, generating trust. Such acts of gift-giving then can lead to overcome the volatility of market-demand by generating referral networks for the freelancer and binding the gift-recipients for the long term.

I totally do this! I learned this from Tekserve, where I first worked when we moved to NYC – and it’s not something I do to get something out of people, with the expectation of returns. I do it because, like Tekserve, I care about the people I’m working with, and about their projects, and if I can do something that’s perhaps small and easy for me, but of great value to my clients, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. This is also why Shira and I sometimes refer clients to other designers – if we know someone who can do a given job better or more economically for some reason, we pass it on, because it’s in our client’s interest. And rather than losing us clients, often those same clients come back because they know we did them a good turn.

In the sample, the more successful freelancers deserve special attention to the communication process, attempting to include the wishes of the customers and providing them with the feeling that they are in command. This strategy does not only bind their clients to them and leads to several referrals due to the pleasant process of cooperation, it is also a lucrative strategy in itself. The increased trust into the interaction partner seems to arouse the desire to actively engage in the process of production. This not only increases the satisfaction with the final product, it also increases the amount of work time spent on a project which adds to the income of the designer.

Here too, we don’t use this strategy so we’ll spend more time and make more money, though of course those are nice side effects which do happen on some projects. Shira and I treat every design job not as merely a service for pay, but as a cooperative partnership – we specialize in helping to give form and reach to our clients’ ideas. The result is that the client is usually very, very happy with the product, and the product is very, very useful to them. We do give advice and make calls as designers, because we often have a deeper understanding of communications strategy and visual design principles than do our clients (which is, after all, why they hire us), but we don’t steamroll our clients into accepting things they don’t dig. We like to work with people to make things they love, and which will last. It’s good for the client, and Matthias’s study is helping me see how good it is for us, too.

Click here to read the paper, and let me know if you too are a web designer who’d like to talk to Matthias. His research goes on…

Related posts:

  1. The Shirari Update: Recent Work
  2. Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World
  3. Anti-capitalist / environmentalist / tech news mashup
  4. Hotelling, coworking, and other evolutions of work
  5. Nestbuilding

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