There comes a day in everyone’s life where they finally decide that they are truly sick and tired of being sick and tired and that if they do not change directions they are going to end up where they are headed. That day has come for my friend Adam and me. My name is Lee and Adam and our families have been friends and co-workers for over fifteen years and I have watched Adam become an IT professional progressing through the PhD Computer Science program at UCLA and on to a successful career at several Silicon Valley startups. I, on the other hand, am a grizzled veteran of the microcomputer industry having started the tenth Apple computer store in South Florida in the early 80’s. I have kept my hand in the industry but segwayed into the travel industry working as a team member in helping build the number one online leisure travel organization.

I always enjoy speaking with Adam about the industry and its progressions and evolutions as I have seen the cost of disk space go from $5K for 5MB to $200 for 1TB. The birth of the internet and where it is now and going down the line as directed by that all encompassing 500lb gorilla called Google. The birth and explosive growth of the online social network and how everyone wants to be connected from all walks of life. All of these wonderful technologies and innovations and it just seems that the benefits and rewards are still just being reaped by the few. We brainstorm back and forth and back and forth about how we can harness the many to benefit the many and we keep coming back to the same idea, a place where creative people can virtually gather, congregate, interact and MOST importantly find freelance jobs that can generate them a part-time or even a full time income. That’s right, a place you can go whether you are a copywriter, videographer, producer, director, writer, photographer, editor, or any other creative type and are interested in earning some extra income. Work independently or network with other members in various areas of specialization to create virtual agencies. Sure its fun to post your pics of last night’s party or your vacation but in today’s economy everyone need some extra revenue and Facebook and LinkedIn are not sending any checks last time I looked in my mailbox.

We have an enormous almost Pollyannaish vision for this place and so we named it Oozil and we know that there are so many people out there that could make a contribution to Oozil and create a real synergy using the new catch all term, Crowd Sourcing. We envision Oozil to be a place where clients can come with creative projects and get them produced at a reasonable cost by real professionals that they would have never had access to at such reasonable rates if they went through he traditional channels.

Adam and I want to hear from you as to your thoughts and ideas on how you feel Oozil can benefit you individually and the whole creative community as a whole. We welcome you to join us on this journey and know that the sum of the parts is always greater then the whole. What would you like to see Oozil provide for its citizens? Nothing is too extreme, let’s shoot for the stars and grow Oozil into a galaxy of creativity.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Site News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response