Talent Shortage - CoinDesk

BY JOHN RAMPTON2 HOURS AGO


In recent years, the way work gets done has begun to shift. Our future world is being built by an army of independent consultants and freelancers who allow businesses and employees to enjoy more freedom.

Freelancers now make up more than 35% of the American workforce and are responsible for a significant amount of the U.S. GDP.Blockchain is a unique technology, capable of decentralizing networks and allowing people to connect.

This decentralization is likely to spur a wave of disruption through its ability to create distributed digital ledgers that act as transparent and living “records of transactions.

”These records are accessible by anyone within the system, and are verifiable by empirical data. With blockchains in place across a variety of industries and niches, we can eradicate many of the frictions that currently exist in financial and business markets.

Since blockchains are still (relatively) new pieces of technology, we are not exactly sure which decentralized applications will survive long term. The only certainty is that with advancement comes disruption, and we are likely to see fundamental shifts in the way many common markets work.

One of the more exciting ways in which blockchain is affecting an industry is in the independent freelancers’ space. Freelancers and independent contractors make up a sizable chunk of the U.S. population: there are currently over 55 million domestic freelancers.

Though this group has been growing significantly over the past several years, they are still plagued with annoying transaction costs and plenty of competition.Blockchains, in theory, will open up new doors for freelancers across the globe. Let’s take a look at a few ways in which this technology might change the future of the freelancer industry.

1. An investment orientationFreelancers are already starting to opt into getting paid with cryptocurrencies. People’s familiarity with and confidence in cryptocurrencies have empowered them to receive payment with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

As cryptocurrencies near mass-market penetration, freelancers are becoming more willing to think about investments rather than a typical focus on salary.

This “investment mentality” is a completely new way for creators to think about their income streams. There will be many fresh opportunities for investment managers and advisors to help these freelancers with their newfound willingness to take risks and focus on letting their wealth grow itself.

2. Data monetizationCompanies like Datum, a marketplace for data built on top of the Ethereum chain, use trust graphs to allow users to store data in a decentralized database and later monetize the information. While the back end of this technology is highly complex, trust graphs use blockchains to create secure, trusted networks for storing data.

Everyday contractors passively collect enormous amounts of personal and professional data. From Upwork reputations to Github statistics, the data that freelancers collect can be put into Datum and made queryable in a blockchain database. All of this data is then stored and made available to anyone who is interested in purchasing it.

Big players, including actor William Shatner, have endorsed Datum as a way for people to take control of their data. This impacts freelancers in a number of ways. First, it allows employers to make more informed decisions about who to hire. Second, all of the data stored in the database will be verified by third-party APIs, meaning it will be impossible for freelancers to gamify reviews and cheat the system.

Finally, freelancers can now earn about $2,000 per year via monetization of their data. This is even how I raised enough money for my latest project Calendar.

3. Verifiable historyOne of the biggest problems facing the freelance industry today is spam and fake reviews.

Smart contracts (a key component of blockchain technology) are stored directly in a trust network, meaning they cannot be changed or hacked without the rest of the network knowing.In this way, blockchains will enable freelancers to worry less about promoting themselves and more about maximizing metrics for clients. Furthermore, companies can rest easier now, knowing that freelancers are not able to tamper with information online.

4. New opportunities to specializeWith any new piece of technology comes an opportunity for freelancers to dig into a new niche and specialize in a field. Future companies are going to need blockchain experts and specialiststo help them set up smart contracts and efficient blockchain systems.

Right now, there are not nearly enough specialists in this space to support any type of expansion in demand on the consumer side.As demand continues to exceed supply, being a blockchain expert will be highly lucrative. For at least the next 10 years, there are going to be plenty of opportunities for anyone who knows how to build digital contract systems.





John Rampton is a serial entrepreneur who now focuses on helping people to build amazing products and services that scale. He is founder of the online payments company Due.


You can discover even more articles like this on Mashable here: http://mashable.com/2017/11/06/blockchain-freelancers/#LLcWmhKJQGqG

Jimmy Song is a bitcoin developer, an instructor for Dev++ and runs his own in-depth technical bitcoin seminar called Programming Blockchain.

In this opinion piece, he explains why there's a shortage of devs in the bitcoin community, why that's a problem and how the industry is addressing it.

For all the explosive growth in the bitcoin community the last few years – in users, transactions, companies, open-source projects, press coverage, cultural references and of course the price – there remains an obvious deficit that's both pronounced and difficult to fill.

Simply put, there aren't enough developers. There are many reasons for the talent shortage, chief among them the insatiable demand.Just about every company that deals with bitcoin cannot recruit anywhere near the number of developers they need.

These companies have considerable revenue and customer growth and would love to expand as soon as possible, but the main constraint is that they can't find enough qualified people to develop. Many who had local-only policies have relaxed those requirements and now allow full-time remote bitcoin developers.

One prominent company president regards finding a local blockchain expert akin to finding a unicorn these days.  Another contributing factor is the price rise.

While the appreciation has been good for everyone who held on during the bear market, it's bad for a lot of bitcoin companies as they find that many developers simply don't need to work due to the gains on their bitcoin holdings.

Many developers would rather start their own companies, contribute to open-source projects or focus on investing instead of working for someone else. In a way, bitcoin companies are victims of their own success.

The talent deficit in the ecosystem is getting so severe that many companies are offering enormous bonuses to find developers and still can't fill the positions. Most would love to hire 15 to 20 developers if possible, but they simply don't get enough qualified people.

Another contributing factor is the higher level of rigor required to program blockchain applications.

Messing up a website may take a site down for a few minutes, but messing up a bitcoin transaction may lead to loss of money, which requires a lot more rigor. The thoroughness required from developers is rare.

The industry is not sitting still. There are a variety of initiatives to fill this developer deficit. Chief among them is Dev++, which is led by the Bitcoin Edge Initiative, a nonprofit initiative focused on addressing this gap.

This year at Scaling Bitcoin, in addition to a well-respected conference, Dev++ will train up to 100 developers to become more familiar with blockchain concepts.

Bitcoin Edge hopes to heavily subsidize this in-person 2-day training with sponsorships from many of the very bitcoin companies that feel the developer deficit most acutely.

Devs: Learn and become a part of this exploding industry. Help make bitcoin better.
Discover more stories on Coindesk here: https://www.coindesk.com/call-bitcoin-developers/

Digital skills have never been more in-demand, with the best developers commanding enviable six-figure salaries.Now though, according to data from LinkedIn, one sector in particular has come into bloom: blockchain.

The number of postings seeking out blockchain experts has tripled in the past year, with last week seeing more than 1,000 blockchain-related job adverts go out.

That’s a rise of more than 40% each quarter.

Another block in the chain?

As we’ve previously explained (with cake), blockchain is a method of sending, tracking and recording digital tokens that’s entirely transparent.Probably the most famous use case for blockchain is the transfer of Bitcoin – the digital currency which has recently soared in value.It’s hardly surprising then, that a quarter of the 10,000 people to list blockchain as a skill on LinkedIn already work in the financial services sector.

“We’ve seen the number of blockchain related jobs posted on LinkedIn more than triple over the last year, it’s a niche field, but one with strong potential,” 

Josh Graff, LinkedIn’s UK country manager told The Memo.

“Professionals in related areas such as cryptography and machine learning may want to look at the roles available and the skills they need to develop, as there is certainly a growing demand within the technology, finance and insurance industries for blockchain expertise.”

But as thousands of blockchain-based businesses are being built, ‘financial blockchain’ is far from the be all and end all. 

Beyond Bitcoin

Most people to list blockchain as a skill on LinkedIn are based in the US, followed by the UK, France, India, Germany and the Netherlands. And they’re using blockchain to streamline all sorts of sectors. 

IBM – for example – has been working with Walmart to improve food logistics: using blockchain to track tainted food, means fewer people end up with sore stomachs....
continue reading: https://www.thememo.com/2017/06/05/blockchain-booms-as-job-ads-triple-on-linkedin/