You are a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Those of you who’ve done some of our photo Gigs don’t need to do the math to know that submitting photos can take a long time.  Time is money, so we wanted to make it easier and faster to capture and submit your photos.  That’s why we just updated the Gigwalk app (download here) to

1. Make photo submissions 5x faster
2. Let’s you delete photos before submitting your work 
3. Gives you the progress of your photo submission

Before, it was difficult to tell the progress of submission and it could take a while - Now there’s a progress bar and submissions will be much faster.

Before, you couldn’t delete photos. Now you can delete and caption from the same screen, so you can choose which pictures you submit (saving even more time!).

The app update was just released, and is the one of many to come over the next several weeks.  Be sure to update your app to see!

I started Gigwalk less than two years ago. But I want to take you back further - I was born and raised in Ithaca, NY till the 2nd grade. My dad taught at Cornell and my two brothers and I were neighborhood paper boys and rascals who rode their bikes far too fast.  Sadly, we left Ithaca twenty five years ago and I’ve never been back. Yet, I have vivid memories of our little green Ithaca house.

On a whim over the Memorial Day weekend I posted a Gig to have a local Ithaca Gigwalker return to the the house I grew up in to capture a bit of my childhood memories.  Shortly after posting the Gig I hired Cindy to do the Gig, and twelve hours later she sent me pictures and a short historical narrative from the current homeowner who kindly agreed to participate.

Seeing the front porch reminded me why I have a scar above my right eyebrow.  Turns out that riding my BMX bike bronco style off the front porch wasn’t the best idea after all.

Our old tree house has seen some better days.

We started Gigwalk doing Gigs in places like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Now, Gigs are getting done in small towns like Ithaca; Sioux Fall, SD; and Altoona, PA. So, it was super exciting that on a Memorial Day weekend with a few clicks and a swipe of a credit card I hired somebody 2,700 miles away who helped me relive some of my childhood memories within 14 hours.  No job postings, no back & forth emails, and no awkward negotiation on payment terms.  On the other side, Cindy earned some extra cash that gives her a bit more personal freedom and turned her iPhone into a cash register.  

I am hoping to make it back to Ithaca to see the house for myself and meet some of the many talented students at Cornell.  

-Ariel

CEO & Co-Founder of Gigwalk

We’re pretty lucky over at Gigwalk - The people who use our app really care about the product.  Enough to let us know what’s working for them and what isn’t.  

One thing that’s been very clear since we upgraded to Gigwalk 2.0 in April is that you loved the map.  It helped you plan your route, and it was a simple way to tell what was near you and what wasn’t.  Well, we heard you and we’re happy say the map is back! All you have to do to get it is upgrade the app. 

Say tuned for a ton of new updates coming over the summer!  

Advertisers in the US spend around 400 Billion dollars every year to put their message on billboards, TV, online, radio, magazines and anywhere else you can think of.  If it sounds like a lot of money, well…  it is. There’s a reason advertisers spend this much, and it’s not just so agencies can drink during work hours.  It’s because when done right, it works.

Agencies and advertisers need to know that an ad ran where it should have run and looks the way it’s supposed to look.  Sometimes they rely on the media company they buy from to provide this service, and sometimes they hire a firm to do it. Both can use Gigwalk to get fast audits done anywhere in the country for their agency and advertiser clients.  It’s easy to start.  

First, post a Gig:

Next, choose people to do your audits, and coordinate with them to get the best results.  

With Gigwalk, you can get photo evidence that your ad is in the right place at the right time by using a smartphone-enabled workforce across the country. Try posting a Gig!

Over here at Gigwalk HQ, we’re working super-hard to get more Gigs into the system. One of our goals is to make sure there are tons of jobs available everywhere in the US.  Many of you have asked us how you can help us get more jobs onto Gigwalk - so here are 5 (really easy) things you can do to help!

Tell your friends to download the app  Businesses want to be sure they have enough people to get their work done.  If you have friends (especially ones that live in smaller cities) that are interested in making a second paycheck by doing quality work, Please let them know!

Tell local businesses about us We’d love to be able to talk to all the small businesses out there.  But we’re a pretty small team (only 13 people) and could use your help! Do you know a real estate agent? They might need help with taking pictures. How about a restaurant owner? You could be giving them opinions on food and service. Tell them about us!

Be professional in every interaction

Businesses want to have an enjoyable experience with the people they work with.  When you’re speaking with someone through Gigwalk, talk to them the same way you’d like to be spoken to.

Do the best work you can possibly do When you’re out on a Gig, remember that businesses are looking for quality work.  The better the results, the more likely they are to post more Gigs and hire you to help them!

Get work done as soon as you can The due date of your Gig may be a month away, but why risk that something will happen that will keep you from earning that money?  Getting the Gig done as soon as possible not only means you get paid sooner, but it also makes you look better to the business that chose you.

We have a ton of updates to the app coming in the next few weeks (including the return of maps!)  Keep an eye out and let us know what you think of them!

If you’re a real estate agent or broker, chances are you’re helping people with the biggest purchase of their lives.

Homes hold a strong emotional connection for people - So what does it take to convince them that you’re the right person to help with something as special and intimate as their home? Trust, communication, and the ability to build great relationships.  But before you get to that point, you need to find people to sell to. 

You can waste your entire day running around the city taking pictures of your properties, cold-calling and emailing potential customers, and finding people to do inspections and appraisals.  Or, you can use Gigwalk to quickly recruit people across the country to do these jobs for you.  

Spend your valuable time nurturing your relationships, and find professional photographers to take pictures for your listings, experienced sales people find you customers, and deploy qualified home inspectors instantly. Getting started is easy. First, post a Gig.

Then, choose who will work on the Gig. You can talk with them while they’re in the field to answer questions or provide guidance.  If you liked their work, add them to a group so they can access your Gigs instantly.

You can find anyone with professional photography or sales experience to help you get work done in the field.  Get started by posting a Gig.

This past weekend, The AT&T Developer program held one of their Hackathons which is a day-long marathon of app building.  We wanted use this opportunity to get our message out to mobile app developers.

We never miss out on a chance to eat our own dog food.  We often post Gigs to help us out with really important things like moving, or bringing us coffee, Red Bull and beer. 

This was the perfect opportunity for us to test how companies can get field marketers out to help promote their product or brand at events.  

First we posted a Gig. In less than 12 hours we filled both positions.

A few days later, our team was at the event. With the photo tools we were able to  confirm they were at the right place.  Throughout the day we were messaging with each other in order to optimize the effectiveness. For example, we could give them answers to questions that came up from Hackathon attendees that they didn’t know the answer to.

The best part was, after the event, we got a full run-down on the response to our fliers. 

The feedback we got was amazing. We knew that our team was engaged with the job because they gave us details of the attendees and atmosphere, and made very specific suggestions on everything from the copy of our flier to the UI of Gigwalk.

There were a lot of people who learned about Gigwalk because of Terri and Peter.  They did a great job, so we added them to our private group!

Try posting a Gig to recruit your next field marketers and let us know how it goes!

Last week Gigwalk had a brief European adventure.  One of our clients invited us to fly out and present Gigwalk’s mobile work technology to their executive team.  I am happy to report that we had a pat-ourselves-on-the-back moment thanks in large part to a few great people using Gigwalk out in the field.

While presenting, I decided to give a live demo and used our standard self-service tool to launch a store Gig in North America while I was in Europe.

In minutes, field workers were applying through the Gigwalk mobile app.  A few taps later and I was able to sort and choose the most qualified.  Within 30 minutes I had directed a group of workers in the field to several locations where they started on the job.

The real-timeness – afforded only by smartphone mobility is what caught their eyes.  I found myself speaking about the future of field work in a mobile world.  All the while they watched as that future unfolded in real-time on a screen behind me.  

Results delivered in real-time by qualified workers is just part of why mobile field work is the future

Workers arriving, tasks reviewed, question answered, results submitted – all streaming through the Gigwalk dashboard in real time – I was over 5,000 miles away, and yet with only passing effort, I had a bird’s-eye view; managing and directing multiple remote field teams that I had never met in-person.

In one corner: mobile-first, open, app-based, consumerized, slim, intelligent, self-organized marketplace.

In the other corner: PC-first, proprietary, legacy, enterprise-oriented, bloated, custom-built, top-down managed.

It’s time to choose sides – except we all already know the winner. 

People who have worked in food service or retail recognize the signs of a mystery shopper. They’re holding a stop watch, and look at everything in the store. The real tell-tale alert that it’s time to up the service for a mystery shopper is that they always have a clipboard and pencil in hand.  

This defeats the purpose of a mystery shopper, and that’s just one of the problems that mystery shop providers face.  Others include:

• Verification that the shop was completed 
• Recruiting enough people to complete multiple shops across the country
• Finding the right people to complete the shop

       

Now that 50% of cell phone owners have a powerful computer with them all the time, Several mystery shopper providers have moved past the clipboard and arm their shoppers with mobile technology that solves those big concerns:

• Discreet mystery shopping (they’ll look like everyone else in the coffee line)
• Location and time stamps to verify all shops
• Nation-wide recruiting from the huge pool of smartphone owners
• Choose the right people for the shop

It’s easy to get started.  

Step 1: Send an Email: Setting your shoppers up is a one-step process.  You can also recruit from the over 100,000 people across the country that already use Gigwalk.

Step 2: Post a Gig to your group.  If you need to recruit more people, make a public post and hand select people for your shop. 

Step 3: Use the messaging tool to get clarification or answer questions from your shoppers.

Ready to make the switch from clipboard to smart phone? Try posting a Gig and see how easy it is. If you have any questions, please send us a note to mobilize@gigwalk.com