It’s a sunny, 80 degree day here in San Francisco (not a common occurrence). It can only mean one thing. It must be May.

Summer doesn’t officially start for a couple of months, but so much about May reminds us of the summer season, from laying out in the sun to the start of the summer grilling season. 

It’s also the start of summer season for consumer goods companies. Summer is a big time at retail for so many reasons. July 4th cook-outs mean burgers and hot dogs and all the things that go with it (anyone down for an ice cold beer?). There’s Mother’s and Father’s day. Skin care products are huge for the beach and pool crowd. We can’t forget graduation… and on the other end of summer - Back to school. There are a lot of industries that depend on the summer time to meet their annual sales goals.

That doesn’t mean that summer time has to be stressful.  That’s why we’re here.

Sales of your state of the art new sunscreen not up to snuff? Send Gigwalkers out to report back on why.  Here’s the kicker - have them fix the problem while they’re on-site, wherever you want, and on your schedule.

Have a delicious new condiment that will change the world of hamburgers, and need help figuring out the right packaging? Gigwalkers can interview customers while they’re shopping for ketchup or mustard AND hand out samples while they do it.

Need to check whether sales associates are recommending your headphones for graduation presents? Gigwalkers can mystery shop wherever in the country you need them to. 

Want to make sure a competitor isn’t undercutting your prices? We can send out Gigwalkers every month, week, day (or more) to monitor trends and stay ahead of the competition.

Remember how much you used to look forward to summer vacation? Well, we can’t bring back 2 months off from school, but we can help you take a break from the stress of your retail execution. Get in touch and we’ll show you what we can do!

Last week there was some pretty grim stats released on PC sales. According to International Data Corp (IDC), PC sales dropped 14% - The largest drop since they started keeping records of it in 1994, and the 4th consecutive quarter of year-over-year drops. 

We’ve known for a while now that mobile devices are a huge reason for the drop in sales of PCs. Last week, Gigwalk co-founder Matt Crampton spoke to CCTV about the effect of mobile devices on PC sales. 

Watch Matt’s take on PC’s recent sales stats

Business sales may be the PC industry’s only saving grace – for now. Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner says, “Unlike the consumer PC segment, the professional PC market, which accounts for about half of overall PC shipments, has seen growth, driven by continuing PC refreshes. Despite the fact that some regions already passed the peak of PC refresh, overall professional PC demand continued to grow.”

However, even businesses are quickly learning the benefits to arming their employees with mobile phones. Gigwalk is a perfect example. Businesses can quickly hire thousands of temporary workers at one time, all through the worker’s smartphone. The worker can do all the work through their phone and submit it instantly. Businesses are loving this because not only is the process of hiring faster, but they are getting the work submitted faster, and they get geo-tagged validation that work was done in the right place, with time verification that it was done at the right time. All of these are possible because of features inherent to mobile devices, and it’s making their businesses more efficient.

What’s your company’s policy on mobile devices? Do you get one just for phone calls and emails, or has it become an essential part of your everyday responsibilities? Do you have a BYOD policy, or do you get a company issued phone, and if so what kind? Let us know in the comments!

You may not know this, but Gigwalk has a celebrity in the office. Our product manager, AJ Balance, played a young Dax Shepard in the movie Let’s Go to Prison. Fortunately for us, he decided to forego the lights and fame of Hollywood to help build Gigwalk.

Recently, AJ got to be back in the spotlight, representing Gigwalk on international TV. Gigwalk was invited to speak with CCTV America about Blackberry’s latest move in the smartphone wars. What a great opportunity to discuss global technology trends, and show the world we are thinking big at Gigwalk!  As Gigwalk brings mobile work to the world, we are rolling up our sleeves and weighing in on the public dialogue about the forces shaping the mobile tech industry. 

Click on the image below to check out the video of AJ on CCTV!

Many of our customers come to Gigwalk with a tough problem.

The sales of their products rely on tricky channels such as family restaurants, kiosks, commissaries, bars, theaters, salons, coffee shops, school cafeterias, corner stores, etc.

All of these channels have a several common characteristics. 

They are fragmented – Often controlled & owned by varied sets of owners, managers, franchisees – not always central corporate offices.

They are hard to control – You never know what is going to happen in these places. They have inconsistent physical layouts, foot traffic patterns, and types of audience.

They are geographically dispersed - Sometimes in out-of-the-way spots such as an army base, a university cafeteria or a hallway vending machine.

These factors make consistent execution and product sales especially difficult in these channels. You almost need to be everywhere at one time.

Our customers use Gigwalk to change this equation in their favor: http://gigwalk.com/h/storeauditpackage

- Bob Bahramipour, CEO

We admit it, looking at photos on the dashboard could be tedious. You had to click on each image, wait for it to load, close out, and repeat, sometimes for hundreds of photos. 

You depend on those photos to get the full picture of your Gig, and Gigwalkers work hard to get crystal clear, amazing photography delivered to you.

We heard you loud and clear, and now there are several new features that all make viewing photos easier than ever before.

1.) Flip through photos with one click

Use the arrows to quickly view any photo for the Gig

2.) Verify the Gig location and where the photo was taken

Peace of mind that the Gig was done in the right location

3.) Zoom in to get a closer look

See all the relevant info, up close and crystal clear

4.) Download the image with one click

Try out the new features and let us know what you think.  We’ll keep the updates coming. (Coming soon to a Gig near you: Share Gig results with co-workers)

-Mike Pearce and the Gigwalk Engineering Team

Two months ago, we announced the Gig Captain program. Gig Captains are an exclusive, hand-picked group of the most experienced Gigwalkers and are trained in creating, pricing and managing Gigs.

                           Sign up here to hire your own Gig Captain

Fernando N. is a Gigwalk super-user and was the very first Gig Captain. He’s a actor and a student at City College of San Francisco, and has been on Gigwalk since September of 2011.  Fernando has over 750 Gigs under his belt including:

• 12 Customer Intercepts
• Hundreds of Photos
• 32 Store Audits

He’s also captained nearly 20 Gigs -Including store audits, customer intercepts, mystery shops, verification, and much more.  We asked him a few questions about his experience as a Gig Captain:

What does your job as a Gig Captain entail?

Gig Captaining entails having a thorough understanding of the results clients are looking for and how Gigwalk delivers those results: Making yourself available to go above and beyond client expectations is the name of the game, and results are the top priority.

Delivering those results involves understanding how Gigwalk works from the worker perspective.  The Gigwalkers are the orchestra, and the Gig Captain is the maestro.  Miss one part of the movement and the entire performance will be thrown off, so it’s imperative that the Gig descriptions are as complete and as accurate as possible.  

Once the Gig is deployed, then it becomes a matter of organizing your resources (the Gigwalkers) and managing the results (the Gig itself).  If there are changes to the Gig, then you have to have the flexibility and savvy to be able to change direction midstream. 

What was the first Gig you captained?

The first Gig I captained were consumer intercepts for a consulting firm.  Since then I’ve captained numerous Gigs for a whole range of big-name clients.

What was the largest Gig you’ve captained?

As far as sheer volume, it was a Gig to verifying business addresses.  There were a total of 1,750 Gigs in many cities from Charlotte, NC and Bellevue, WA, to New York, Chicago and Houston.  Bear in mind this is before “auto-select” so I had to manually pick and approve each one!!!

Fernando is just one of our many Gig captains who have mastered the art of posting a Gig. If you’d like to hire a Gig Captain, you can Sign Up Here for more information.

Posted by Pushkar Modi, Lead Software Engineer

At Gigwalk, we’re always trying to empower you with the best tools, so you can get your work done as quickly as possible. 

That’s why we are happy to introduce a brand new feature today that we call Copy-A-Gig. This feature lets you duplicate a Gig and post it live in a matter of seconds.

This feature comes especially in handy when you want to re-run the same Gig repeatedly or if you want to create multiple versions with small differences in Gig instructions, locations, pay-out, or dates. 

When you are looking at a Gig that you want copied from the Gigwalk dashboard, look for the Manage Gig button on the right-hand side and then click on Copy Gig. 

As soon as you click on this function, you’ll see all the details of the Gig duplicated and placed in the same interface you normally use to post Gigs. Every last detail will be there, including any survey questions, locations or detailed instructions. We will even update the due date auto-magically!

You can make any modifications you want to this copy, make your payment and your Gig will be posted live. It’s that easy.

Please try out this feature the next chance you get on any Gig you have in the system - live or completed. And remember to keep the feedback coming!
 

- Gigwalk Engineering

                Sign up here to hire your own Gig Captain!

Here at Gigwalk, we are focused on making it fast and easy for businesses to get work done. In addition to the tools available through the web platform, businesses have often requested additional support to create and manage their Gigs. We have listened to our customers, and are excited to announce the solution: The Gig Captain program. 

As usual, Gigwalkers are helping us get the job done. We have certified an exclusive, hand-picked group of Gig Captains from a pool of the most experienced agents in the Gigwalk community. They are now available to hire at a per hour fee by businesses to help in all parts of the Gigwalk process! Here are a few of our Gig Managers:

The Gig Captain Program is simple:

• Businesses request the support of a Gig Captain
• Gigwalk will select a match and make an introduction
• Businesses verify the work and payment terms for the Gig Captain
• The Gig Captain goes to work

Areas where Gig Captains can help:

• Posting a Gig
• Pricing a Gig
• Providing suggestions for Gig content, descriptions and surveys
• Responding to questions from Gigwalkers
• Checking and approving work
• Organizing Gig results

We are excited for the opportunity for businesses to supercharge their Gigwalk experience and are already seeing great success stories from this program. Click below to participate!

Businesses: Click here to request a Gig Captain

Gigwalkers: Click here to apply to be selected as a Gig Captain

Every day, thousands of people do Gigs across the country.  They range from taking photos of store displays to interviewing people about fruit juice, handing out fliers, and beta testing mobile apps. 

About a year ago, we posted a Gig that didn’t pay, but was for what some people will remember as Street Cred.  It was to pick up trash in your neighborhood parks.  

We referred to it as Gigwalk for Good and people had a blast helping improve their neighborhoods and building their Gigwalk reputation in the process!

While we don’t have street cred anymore, the Gigs they did and the positive reviews they got help them get selected for Gigs. That’s why we’re bringing back Gigwalk for Good.  This time, with even more kinds of Gigs.  You’ll see Gigwalk for Good pop up every once in a while with Gigs like:

• Handing out water bottles to people who need it during heat waves
• Compliment 5 people and ask them to pass the compliment forward
• Volunteer at a local food bank or soup kitchen  

Just remember: The purpose of Gigs posted for Gigwalk for Good is to give back.  Because of this, they won’t pay unless it’s to reimburse you for something you may need to buy. However, these Gigs do count towards the total number of Gigs completed. Good reviews still help you build your reputation, and bad reviews will hurt it. 

We’d love for you to send over your ideas for Gigwalk for Good Gigs. If you have a cause you feel passionate about, email us at mobilize@gigwalk.com or let us know about it in the comments!

Before you read this blog - go update your app.  It’s all good, we’ll wait… It’ll be worth it, we promise.  

All done?  If you’ve already opened the app, you probably noticed that you go straight into the Map/Gig List now. After all, that’s the most important part of the app.  In fact, the entire navigation has been spruced up so that everything that has to do with finding and doing Gigs is front and center.

But that’s not the best part. Next time you go in to apply for a Gig, you’ll see something new and exciting for most of the Gigs that get posted.  Those of you who post Gigs will want to listen in on this part too.  

Now, the customer has a choice between choosing who does their Gig themselves, or having Gigwalk’s technology choose for them.

Needless to say, computers can be a lot faster at choosing who’s going to do Gigs than people are, especially when there are lot of Gigs to decide on.  So now, when you stumble upon one of these Gigs and hit the apply button, You’ll get a window like this:

The computer will then use your answer to this question, along with its knowledge of the work you’ve done before to make a decision within the hour of who’s going to do the Gig.  So while some customers will still want to hire their own workers, you won’t need to apply to a lot of them anymore, giving people using the app, and posting Gigs the power to get more done.

Of course, as Uncle Ben from Spiderman says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Saying you can get a Gig done in 2 hours helps you get the Gig, but not getting the Gig done within the time you say will have grave consequences for your reputation - and therefore your ability to get Gigs in the future. After all, it just makes the computer look bad if it chooses someone and they don’t pull through.

Thanks again to everyone for their feedback, and as usual, stay tuned for more updates to come!